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January 23 - February 23, 2024
“You will always find your way, Zafira bint Iskandar,” the woman said. She sounded almost sad, though the glint in her eyes was anything but. “Lost you should have remained, cursed child.”
An assassin lives an honorable life.
“Salvation is for foolish heroes who will never exist.
He was the purger of life. The Prince of Death.
It doesn’t matter what you are. You are your strength. Why must you prove the lie that they are better than us by deluding yourself and hiding beneath a man’s clothes? Think of all the women you can help by being you.”
Fear. Carefully cultivated, easily sustained.
“The heat is a pest, but then again, isn’t the cold?”
Fear breeds death. Confidence breeds freedom.
“There is a certain beauty in chaos, magnificence in the uncontrollable.”
“Death will be her companion. He’s kept her safe all this time. Why stop now?”
Who decides what’s out of reach, if not we ourselves?
“Be as victorious as the name I have given you, and bring the desert to its knees.”
A thousand leagues and a thousand sands. For you, a thousand times I would defy the sun.
They’ll tell stories about us,
There once was a boy with a future. Until all he had left was his past.
There was nothing more respectable and dangerous than a woman of confidence.
Zafira finally understood why Arawiyans celebrated the moon. Why the sight made people weep. It was the desert. The sweltering heat that drained them to their core until the sun sank into the horizon and the moon swept across the dark expanse of sky, gifting them her cold touch. It was a beauty they didn’t appreciate in Demenhur, because of the shy sun.
Crown Prince Nasir Ghameq. The Prince of Death.
They were both insufferable children. With death counts.
Intentions are akin to action.
She had never loved Deen the way Deen had wanted her to.
Don’t be an equal to the ones who hurt.
“If wishes came true, you’d be dead.”
Become what the heart asks of you.
Kill or be killed. Save and be saved.
“I think I prefer a murderer on two legs than one I don’t know about,”
“Ifrit like everything that reeks,”
He’s a murderer.
And she was starting to forget that he was.
‘the shadows have a master’?”
No one can be that pure.
The best are always the worst.”
“We are all flesh and blood, soul and heart. Capable of malevolence, just as much as benevolence. One wrong does not make evil.”
I like words all right, but I prefer the power of the blade. Even when they shoved a reed pen into my fist, I wanted that pen to be a spear. I wanted the power that came with knowing I stand between someone and death.
We hunt the flame, the light in the darkness, the good this world deserves.
In this moment, we are two souls, marooned.
That was life, wasn’t it? A collection of moments, a menagerie of people. Everyone stranded everywhere, always.
“Watching you undress would be a bore. I got there after,”
“For the good stuff.”
“The dark is no den for a fair gazelle.”
It was a moment between moments. The calm before a storm.
For that was what scars were, weren’t they? A remembrance of moments dark.
Men can be such beautiful trash,
The monster awaiting his master.
“The moon wanes, but the night waxes, steeped in a desperate black from which most of us will never emerge. I would tell you of what stirs in the shadows, but we need your strength.”
“For if he were to learn of it, not even the Prince of Death could summon the courage to go on.”
I am Darkness. I am Shadow.
“Darkness is the absence of light, the mere reason light exists. Without darkness, light would have no confines.
“Everything that exists does so to repress its opposite.”
Exploiters don’t let go of their assets so quickly.”
