The Fate of the Tearling (The Queen of the Tearling, #3)

by Erika Johansen

fear bred efficiency.

“They’re good, these stories,” Mace continued, his cheeks stained with light color. “They teach the pain of others.” “Empathy. Carlin always said it was the great value of fiction, to put us inside the minds of strangers.

Behind her eyes, she suddenly saw her city, its rolling hillsides aflame, and she realized that this work, the great work of her life, outweighed anything that she would ever want for herself. There might be more men, many of them, but none of them would ever get in the way of the work. She would not allow it.

Hell? Hell is a fairy tale for the gullible, for what punishment could be worse than that we inflict upon ourselves? We burn so badly in this life that there can be nothing left.