Empire of the Vampire (Empire of the Vampire, #1)

by Jay Kristoff

My mama knew herself, and there’s a fearsome power in that. Knowing exactly who you are and exactly what you’re capable of. Most folk would call it arrogance, I suppose. But most folk are fucking fools.”

“There’s no misery so deep as one you face by yourself. No nights darker than ones you spend alone. But you can learn to live with any weight. Your scars grow thick enough, they become armor.

there’s a difference between those who swim with the flood and those who drown fighting it. And its name is Wisdom.

Gabriel tapped an empty leather pouch at his belt. “Behold the purse in which I keep my fucks for what you think of me.”

Through all my years in San Michon, all the blood and sweat and darkling roads I walked, I learned one of my greatest lessons sitting in that Library with those girls in the still of the night. “A life without books is a life not lived.

Put a man in a room for a hundred years with a thousand books, and he’ll know a million truths. Put him in a room for a year with silence, and he’ll know himself.”

Your past is stone, but your future is clay. And you decide the shape of the life you’ll make.’

My mama died when I was a boy,’ he told me softly. ‘She was all the stars in my sky. I remember wondering, if I loved her more than life itself, how could I go on living with her gone? But that is what we do, Little Lion. We carry the greatest burdens not on our shoulders, but in our hearts. But those taken from us never truly die. They await us in the light of God’s love.’

That is true immortality. Not the dark counterfeit to which our enemy lays claim. Eternity lies in the hearts of those who cherish us. Love them, Gabriel. And know they await your arrival at the throne of the Almighty. But not yet.’ He shook his head. ‘Not yet.’

Hearts only bruise. They never break.’

My wife used to tell me hearts only bruise. They never break. I don’t know if I believe that anymore. I know this world is cruel. That saints and sinners suffer one and the same. I know every time you give a piece of yourself to someone, you risk them breaking it. I know there are some wounds that never truly heal, and sometimes all that’s left of people are their scars. I know time eats us all alive.’

What I can tell you is that the only heaven I’ve found in all this hell was in the people I loved. Friends. Famille. So, you need to keep on thinking the best of folk, despite seeing the worst of us. Hold on to that fire inside you, girl. Because it makes you shine. And once it goes out, it goes out forever. Know you’ll make mistakes. Understand that it will bruise—hell, it might even break. But don’t lock it up inside your chest.’

It might’ve seemed a foolish thing to some—for this girl to cry over a horse she barely knew when she’d lost so much already. But in truth, we weep not for those departed, but for we who remain. And it’s ever best to take the time to say good-bye.

Each man’s heart is his own, and in the end, only he has the filling of it.

We believe in life after death, because oblivion is too dark an abyss to stare into. We tell ourselves our creator cares, because the thought of a maker who doesn’t is too terrifying to consider.