The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)

by Andrea Stewart

One more life saved. It was a pittance, unutterably small against the scale of the lives lost. But it was there. And one life certainly made a difference to the one living it.

“Listening is an art. It’s not so much sometimes in letting the other person speak as in asking them the right questions.”

Reality was a harsh mistress, but it was one that could not be denied.

Later, on nights where we’d sit on the beach and gaze at the stars, she told me that she fell in love with me on a rainy day in my mother’s kitchen. “You were helping your mother make dumplings,” she’d said, her head pillowed on my shoulder. “You were quiet. For once in your life, you were quiet. And when I sat next to you to help, shoulder to shoulder, I could feel a future in that silence. You always say so many things. Always, always talking. So many stories! But it wasn’t until you were silent that I could feel the truth of you beneath all the words, all the stories. I always knew we could laugh together, that we could do fun things. But I never thought I could tell you what was in my heart, to share pain and disappointment and to have you cup that in your hands. To breathe back your own sorrows. I always thought you’d just make a joke or tell me a funny story about a fisherman who accidentally hooked the moon.”

“It’s hard to remake one’s view of the world, to admit to complacency. I thought remaking myself for you was hard enough, but doing that was something I wanted. I didn’t want to realize how much I’ve hurt the people around me, and that’s what confronting my beliefs meant. We all tell ourselves stories of who we are, and in my mind, I was always the hero. But I wasn’t. Not in all the ways I should have been. Can you forgive me?”