A ​Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes, #4)

by Sabaa Tahir

Or perhaps she’s simply beautiful, and looking at her feels like sunlight flowing into a room lost to the darkness for too long.

“For me, Elias, desire is not simple. It is not shelter. It is not warmth. It is a fire that offers no light, only heat, ruinous and consuming. The longer you deny it, the hotter it burns. You forget shelter.

forget warmth. There is only that which you want and cannot have, and the desolation that follows.”

Would that we all knew the cracked terrain of each other’s broken hearts. Perhaps then, we would not be so cruel to those who walk this lonely world with us.

“You are broken. But it is the broken things that are the sharpest. The deadliest. It is the broken things that are the most unexpected, and the most underestimated.”

We were born into war, Elias. It is all we’ve known. Your mistakes only define the rest of your life if you let them. Don’t let them.”

“Ah, no, my love.” He gathers me close. “You cannot go first. I could not make sense of the world if you did.”

“I wish I could live a thousand lives so I could fall in love with you a thousand times,”