Redemptor (Raybearer, #2)

by Jordan Ifueko

‘Do not ask how many people you will save,’ ” I said. “‘Ask, To what world will you save them?’

“The only difference between a murderer and a hero is who tells the story.”

“I think,” he said heavily, “that your life should not be a means to an end. No human being should be reduced to a function. The day we do that—it’s the beginning of the end.”

You don’t get to choose why people love you. But what you do with the love you receive . . . that’s a choice you make every day.”

“Why stifle your own power?” “Because I want to be an empress, not a god!”

“You’re a woman who rules equally with a man,” he said dryly. “They’ll always call you a witch.

For a breathless moment, I lost myself in that charismatic rage. I knew then that I could drown in a man like Zuri, sinking like a pebble in his well of righteous blood.

It isn’t enough to pay for past abuses. I have to find a future to live for too.”

Do not confuse guilt with conviction. Guilt is self-centered, and leads only to destructive obsession. But conviction brings balance—a sense of purpose beyond oneself.

Why did the health of the empire, the lives of millions, have to depend on a tiny subset of wealthy people being kind?

You will try to hold me, to knock me down. But I will always get up. And I will come back. Behold what is coming.

“I want to live,” I said, replacing Ye Eun’s lily behind my ear, “because life is . . . is worth it. Because as long as we can imagine a better world, we should stick around to see it. Even if it doesn’t exist yet. Even if we have to build it from scratch, brick by muddy brick.”