Ella

“In the moonless night, she traced the scar on her palm, the oath to Nehemia. She would retrieve the first wyrdkey from Arobynn and track down the others, and then find a way to put the Wyrdkeys back in their Gate. She would free magic and destroy the king and save her people. No matter the odds, no matter how long it took, no matter how far she had to go.
She lifted her face to the stars. She was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, heir of two mighty bloodlines, protector of a once-glorious people, and Queen of Terrasen
She was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius- and she would not be afraid.”
― sarah j mass

“[...] we must recognize that in our own experience of emptiness, that even though one feels "empty", one must have a self in order to feel this emptiness; a loss cannot be felt unless what is missed is really a lost part of the self. Unwholeness is a feeling which belongs only to a being born whole and somehow denied access to this whole self. A being born "unwhole" would be whole in that partiality, happy with that cavernous state, and feel no emptiness, miss nothing, feel at home in a vacuum of identity. It is precisely because we have selves that we mourn.”
― Susan Griffin, Pornography and Silence: Culture's Revenge Against Nature

“When I was young, I learned to expect loss. Every time you slept, something disappeared. Whenever you woke up, someone else was gone. But . . . I also learned that every day, you created everything anew. And whatever you had, you enjoyed as long as it lasted. Spend money when it’s in your pocket.” He took my hand and put the orange in it. “Eat fruit while it’s ripe.” His other hand found my cheek, his thumb brushing the corner of my mouth. “Paradise is a promise no god bothers to keep. There’s only now, and tomorrow nothing will be the same, whether we like it or not.”
― Heidi Heilig, The Girl from Everywhere

“You came back," He said, as if that were an answer.
They joined hands.
So the world ended.
And the next one began.
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They were infinite.
They were the beginning and the ending; they were eternity.
The king standing before them gaped as the shield of flame died out to reveal Aelin and Dorian, hand in hand, glowing like newborn gods as their magic entwined.
"YOUR MINE," the man raged. He became darkness; folded himself into the powers he carried, as if he were nothing but malice on a dark wind.
He struck them, swallowed them.
But they held tighter to each other, past and present and future; flickering between an ancient hall in a mountain castle perched above Orynth, a bridge suspended between glass towers, and another place, perfect and strange, where they had been crafted from stardust and light.
A wall of night knocked them back. But they could not be contained.
The darkness paused for a breath.
They erupted.”
― sarah j mass