The Invisible Chains - Part 1 Quotes

“Deal with all this, live with myself, you mean? I honestly don't know. I stand often enough at the abyss of my soul, asking that same question, looking down into the dark crevices where the black monsters dwell on the bottom. They gaze up at me, and I look them in the eyes. “This also you are,” they say, and I almost fall into the void.”
“And then?”
Anaxantis shrugged.
“And then? I turn around and go do what needs to be done. What else is there?”
― Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Chains - Part 1: Bonds of Hate

“A while ago?” Anaxantis asked. “Yes, he raped me a while ago. Exactly nine months and two days ago. What's that? Nine months or nine minutes. It's the same. And it is in the past, you say? Then why is it still happening, every day, every time I close my eyes? Every time I hear someone behind me, and I don't know who it is? How is it that I get an almost irresistible urge to kill anyone who happens to touch me unexpectedly? Tell me, Hemarchidas, how do I forgive, let alone forget, something that is still happening, that keeps happening over and over? How? How do I do that?”
― Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Chains - Part 1: Bonds of Hate

“Oh, hon, it's the little courtesies that make life bearable, I find, wouldn't you agree?”
― Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Chains - Part 1: Bonds of Hate

“Just don’t stare at my ass, Landemere,” he added.

“I wasn’t staring at your ass,” Arranulf, who had been staring at his ass, said.”
― Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Chains - Part 1: Bonds of Hate

“It's sobering really," she thought, "how easy it is to reduce a human being to the state of an animal. You just take away some paraphernalia like clothing and put him in another environment. I bet that if I were to keep him there for a few months he would simply adapt to the swine lifestyle. A pity, but I haven't got time to experiment. But a few days, well, they are necessary to take his hope away and mollify his spirit.”
― Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Chains - Part 1: Bonds of Hate

“Strangely enough, I don't seem to tolerate food in great quantities or when it is too rich anymore.”
“That's perfectly all right. Most people dig their graves with their own teeth as it is.”
― Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Chains - Part 1: Bonds of Hate

“What? Oh, of course. Siuria, you mean. No, no, Tinka's leg fell off. Tinka, Siuria's doll. So she brought her to the doctor. As she should. Bright young thing.”
― Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Chains - Part 1: Bonds of Hate

“Ah, you want the tale of Anaxantis. I see. Of Anaxantis of the House of Tanahkos, Prince of Ximerion. You want wisdom and hot blood all in one. You like your tales strong and bitter. You want to hear about the downfall of a prince. You want to know how royal blood came to flow so low. I can tell you that tale, but not in one evening. And every evening you must pay my price anew. I know shorter tales.”
― Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Chains - Part 1: Bonds of Hate