Brian Bakar

“I’m in a dream. Unable to change the forces that move around me. To stop the sand from slipping through my fingers. I set this into motion but didn’t have the heart or strength or cunning or whatever the hell I needed to stop it. No matter what I do or say, Roque was lost to me the moment he discovered what I am. I step toward him, thinking I can take his razor from his hand without killing him, but he knows my intention and he holds up his off hand plaintively. As if to comfort me and beg me the mercy of letting him die as he lived. “Be still. Night hangs upon mine eyes.” He looks to me, eyes full with tears. “Keep swimming, my friend,” I tell him. With a gentle nod, he wraps his razor whip around his throat and stiffens his spine. “I am Roque au Fabii of the gens Fabii. My ancestors walked upon red Mars. They fell upon Old Earth. I have lost the day, but I have not lost myself. I will not be a prisoner.” His eyes close. His hand trembles. “I am the star in the night sky. I am the blade in the twilight. I am the god, the glory.” His breath shudders out. He is afraid. “I am the Gold.” And there, on the bridge of his invincible warship as his famous fleet falls to ruin behind him, the Poet of Deimos takes his own life. Somewhere the wind howls and the darkness whispers that I’m running out of friends, running out of light. The blood slithers away from his body toward my boots. A shard of my own reflection trapped in its red fingers.”
― Pierce Brown, Morning Star

“And the boy?” I asked, nodding to Lysander, who moved into the ship carrying a satchel of belongings. “Sevro thinks it’s a mistake to let him live. What were his words? ‘It’s like leaving a pitviper egg under your seat. Sooner or later it’s gonna hatch.’ ” “And what do you think?” “I think it’s a different world. So we should act like it. He’s got Lorn’s blood in his veins as much as he’s got Octavia’s. Not that blood makes a difference anymore.”
― Pierce Brown, Morning Star

“They swing together, the Goblin and the Gold, suspended above the swirling crowd that’s now stampeding trying to get up the ladder to the walkway to cut Sevro down, but in their madness they overload the ladder and it bends away from the wall. Victra’s about to launch herself into the air on her gravBoots to save him. I hold her down. “Wait.” “He’s dying!” she says frantically. “That’s the point.” It is not a boy who dangles on that line. It is not a brokenhearted orphan who needs me to pick him up. It’s a man who has been through hell and now believes in the dream of his father, in the dream of my wife. It’s a man I would die to protect even as he dies to save the soul of this rebellion.”
― Pierce Brown, Morning Star

“You installed a second telegraph in each one, one that connected to you here.” “Yes,” Kharn said. “You do not seriously think I would offer such a thing without benefit to myself. I ensured that I would know where every one of their fleets was at all times. For my own safety.” “And in return,” I said, “they built your engines. Dorayaica built them.” “So my brother told you that much, at least,” she said. “You tricked them,” I said. “You sold them the means to build an empire, but what you were really building was for yourself.” “I have received their every transmission. Every message. Every threat. Everything they have said to one another on my machines since the beginning. I received the summons Dorayaica sent to all the princes. I heard him declare himself king, and sent my congratulations. He believes me one of his servants, a fiction I have allowed to persist.” More laughter. The milky, black eyes grew wide. “Sleep with the Devil, and then you must pay . . .” I could not believe it. “You could have given us this at any time,” I said. “We might have ended this war a thousand years ago, before it had a chance to truly begin. How many lives were lost because of your silence? Your caprice? How many billion lives?” “I told you,” Kharn said, “when last you darkened my door: Mankind is nothing to me. The Cielcin are nothing. I have other concerns.” “Your own immortal life.” “I am as old as your civilization,” she said. “I was born in Omelah, on New Ithaca—a planet that no longer exists. I slew the last of the Mericanii, the true Mericanii, here on Vorgossos. I have warred with three of your Emperors across the ages—though that is forgotten. It was I who made first contact with the Cielcin. I am history, Marlowe. Should I be destroyed?”
― Christopher Ruocchio, Disquiet Gods