A Song of Wraiths and Ruin (A Song of Wraiths and Ruin, #1)

by Roseanne A. Brown

To listen to a griot was to enter a new world, one where heroes danced across the heavens with spirits in their wake and gods churned mountains into being with a flick of their wrists.

“Have you heard the one about the little girl on the moon?” Nadia’s mouth fell open. “There’s a little girl on the moon?” Malik nodded, twisting his face into a look of comedic seriousness. “Yes. Her older brother put her there because she wouldn’t stop pouting.”

The Dancing Seal was one of those establishments that was both older and dirtier than it had any right to be, with a questionable layer of grime covering every visible surface as well as the staff.

“I have never said or done anything dramatic in my life, dear Mina.”

Karina had molded her grief into a sword, poised to harm anyone who dared get close. But her mother had built hers into a wall, and no sword, no matter how sharp, could take down defenses so strong.

“The only person I’m interested in marrying is the one who can catch me the moon with their bare hands,” she declared, fully aware of how ridiculous it sounded.

Now she understood that the Kestrel had never hated her, for this was what her mother’s hatred looked like, and it was bloodcurdling.

The realization spread through his body, filling in cracks he hadn’t even known were there. He’d never been crazy. He’d been right.

“If you’re playing fair, you’re not playing to win.”

the Dancing Seal was less a restaurant and more a public experiment in what happened when too much wine and a complete lack of morals coexisted for too long.

“She told me that the people we lose never truly leave, but that only we get to define how they stay.”

Now that he was seeing Karina up close, mistaking her for a servant felt like having mistaken the sun for a candle.

She kissed him as if that was what she had been born to do, and the only parts of his body Malik could feel were where they melted into hers.

Do not underestimate the strength it takes to be kind in a world as cruel as ours.”

“You tear yourself down for things you could not have known or done,” said Nyeni. “Why punish a seed for not yet being a tree?”

First, a story ends when it ends, and not a moment before. If you are unhappy with this ending, make a new one.” Hyena