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“Children are not meant to bear the woes of this life, Sylvia. It breaks them. They will spend their adult lives doing everything in their power to never feel the weight of the world again.”
More than age or maturity, the ability to trust remained the greatest relic of youth.
Because it is the nature of humanity to celebrate the things that want to kill them.
“There is no such thing as a worthy sacrifice. There are only those who die, and those willing to let them.”
Death had always scared me more than its fair share. I had watched it steal everyone I loved. I had guided its hand in taking the lives of others. But one thing scared me more than death ever could: capture. Losing myself in the will of another, feeling my purpose crushed and re-molded to fit someone else’s plans.
Death was a door, I told myself. An escape. One slice, and I would be free.
Shame is a dangerous feeling to manipulate. Pull at the string too many times, and it will eventually snap into apathy.
“You think your mind is a blank slate, where you can build your own networks of information from scratch, through pure logic and reason. You ignore that each child enters a completely unique world, founded on different truths. We build our reality on the foundation our world sets for us. You entered a world where magic is corrosive and Jasadis are inherently evil. I entered one where turning a shoe into a dove made my mother laugh. Have you considered, in that infinite mind of yours, that the truly brilliant people are the ones who understand the realities we build were already built for us?”
“Men don’t see women, dear Daleel. They see power. Which one of us has more of it, and how easily they can drain it out of her.”
“The way most men love is so boring. It is frequent and fickle and altogether unextraordinary. Arin would love to obsession. To madness. But do you want to know the real reason he would never allow himself to love another?” Vaida stepped close, her floral scent tickling my nose. “Arin is consumed by what he loves. If asked, he would get on his knees and let it kill him. He withholds his heart out of self-preservation.”
