A Strange and Stubborn Endurance (The Tithenai Chronicles #1)

by Foz Meadows

I was as ill-suited to an uneventful existence as I was to solitude.

In so many ways, I wish I could be other than I am. But I am only myself, beyond alteration.

I didn’t know whether I’d acted as I had because I wanted to live, or because I hoped to die; only that, either way, I hadn’t succeeded.

however much I feared to live, I was more afraid to die.

“You’re not an inconvenience, Velasin. You’re my husband.” “Many Ralian women claim that the one is synonymous with the other.” Caethari snorted. “That’s because many Ralian women are married to Ralian men.”

It was oddly wonderful, and though I’d come from a different place altogether, it made me feel just a little less alien.

the choice itself was an illusion.

it was never to underestimate the significance of small incongruities.

It was hard to hold the idea that we were inherently special, they inherently flawed.

in gaining the freedom to live openly with a man, Velasin had lost all freedom to choose his own partner, rendering it pointless.

“Stolen me? As well to say a caged bird can be stolen by the sky.”

The pause that followed was sufficiently pregnant to be considered past due.

So beautifully written

despising a thing doesn’t stop it from existing.”

This is so true.

We are as we’ve grown to be, and however we change in the future, that will always be where we’ve come from.

“You must be patient with me, dear Cae, as I learn to inhabit myself.”