“None of this had been fated; none of it foretold. There had been no prophecies of a demon kind or a dragon queen, a one-eyed Tailor, Heartrender twins. They were just the people who had shown up and managed to survive.
But maybe that was the trick of it: to survive, to dare to stay alive, to forge your own hope when all hope had run out.
For the survivors then, Zoya whispered to herself as the people before her knelt and chanted her name. And for the lost.”