The Bone Shard Emperor (The Drowning Empire, #2)

by Andrea Stewart

Iloh was an ass. It didn’t take me long to come to that conclusion. Some faces were worn a certain way from one too many smug expressions, their assedness carved into the lines around mouth and eyes. The lines on Iloh’s face were a map leading to only one destination: the capital of asses.

“What am I supposed to do, Mephi? What do you do when you have difficult decisions to make?” He didn’t answer at first, and I could nearly see the gears in his mind working. When had Mephi actually had a difficult decision to make, except which fish to chase? “First,” he said slowly, “make sure you are not hungry.”

When you’re young, you think you can change the world. You think you can bend it to your will. When you’re old, you learn to change your small corner of it and live with the rest.”

“Is this just the way young people are? I don’t pity her. I see someone who is sad and I want her to be less sad. What’s so wrong about that?”

“Laws tell us what we can and cannot do; they do not tell us what we should and should not do.”

“Those with shards taken can’t bond with ossalen,” I whispered. He fixed me with a level gaze. “And you’ve just opened the floodgates by ending the Tithing Festival for good. So I should thank you for that.”