The Heartless Divine Quotes

“Love is dangerous, blinding,’” he quoted, voice soft against her cheeks in an empty semblance of amusement. He pulled back slightly, just enough that she could see the gentleness, the raw warmth in his gaze. The clean lack of regret. “And yet, I see you so clearly.”
― Varsha Ravi, The Heartless Divine

“What were love stories but dreams of worlds where the sun and moon could linger beside one another long enough to learn the language of the other’s heart?”
― Varsha Ravi, The Heartless Divine

“I am not… I am not the kind of god that others worry for.”

“I do.” The words fell from her lips like a confession, the only holy act she had ever performed. “I worry for you all the time.”

He smiled, and it held his old warmth. “Then you will have to be the first.”
― Varsha Ravi, The Heartless Divine

“I believe in happy endings,” she agreed, “And I believe in the gods who grant them. But I don’t believe in their silence damning us. If the gods never answer, then we learn to make happy endings of our own.”
― Varsha Ravi, The Heartless Divine

“I want to hear all of your stories,” she said, fierce as fire. “Every single one. I don’t care whether they have happy endings or not.”
― Varsha Ravi, The Heartless Divine

“Who do gods pray to?” she asked aloud, a dream with open eyes.

The line of his mouth was sharp enough to draw blood. But when he spoke, his voice was snow soft, death soft. “This is not prayer, Suri. It is atonement.”
― Varsha Ravi, The Heartless Divine

“When they had been young enough that they neither of them could reach the tops of bookshelves without stools and magic, he had told her that sometimes he felt like dreams split him from the inside out, dreams that bloomed into tales of faraway worlds. He had told her that he gave those stories to her in the hopes that one day they would grow into life, buds opening like blades and catching on the edges of reality. He had told her, quietly, so that their parents could not hear, of a world he had dreamed up—a kind world, where war was a thing of days past and life was not something they crushed in calloused hands.”
― Varsha Ravi, The Heartless Divine

“But he was still human; even if the flames wrapped him in their warmth and kept him awake, he weakened as any other mortal weakened when kept from sleep. And, eventually, he grew weak enough that the darkness grew closer and closer, and the quiet of the city stole into his blood and silenced it entirely.  ”
― Varsha Ravi, The Heartless Divine

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said, and the words came out surprisingly steady. His eyebrows arched, slightly, in a silent question.  She hesitated, reaching for the words and continued, “I know you said I should be afraid of you. Because the gods aren’t kind.” She tilted her head, and her headband unsteadied in her hair. “Can’t you be the exception?”

“You misunderstood me.” His voice was low, empty; mountains carved into shells. “I’m not unkind because  the gods are unkind. It is true enough that they are not kind, not a single one of them, but you must understand that I am the worst of them all.”
― Varsha Ravi, The Heartless Divine

“I have always wanted a brother. I have a sister, instead, and I love her very much, but I also wanted a brother. Have you ever felt like that?” At the other boy’s resounding, bemused silence, he continued, “Do you want to be brothers, then? We can be family.”
― Varsha Ravi, The Heartless Divine

“And, as it is clear that no one has taken the time to inform you, the gods favor no one.”

“Then what are you?”

He smiled, lovely but hard. “An accident.”
― Varsha Ravi, The Heartless Divine

“Gods are not kind. They have never been kind, and they never will be. Humanity would do well to remember that.”
― Varsha Ravi, The Heartless Divine

“Bitterly, he thought, I had always thought that death would be louder than this”
― Varsha Ravi, The Heartless Divine

“Kiran was dying, but he could no longer tell whether it was from the blood staining the stone red; he could no longer tell whether this death had been pulled from his body long before the knife had ever met his skin. The anger had taken that knowledge from him, had blurred the lines between gold and red. His mouth tasted of blood and ash.”
― Varsha Ravi, The Heartless Divine

“There is no divine wrath, Viro, just as there is no divine virtue. I am not a tool for you to wield as you would a scythe, reaping souls as payment. And if this country falls, it will be you who tore it down.”
― Varsha Ravi, The Heartless Divine

“There is an old rumor that the gods reside in the stars.”

She looked over at him. “Is it true?”

His expression turned strained. “I wanted it to be, when I was younger. But I think I was wrong. They are here with us, in every word and every breath.”
― Varsha Ravi, The Heartless Divine

“So this is the power of a god, she had thought, a little unsteady, a little fearful. If that was him fully bound—if even a slight release in the sankhili meant he burned like the sun—then she could not fathom what he would be like once unbound.

If you lock away a god’s power, she thought, do they become human?”
― Varsha Ravi, The Heartless Divine

“The ghosts of her past never left her, save for the few moments of aching relief she had in the ring. And soon enough, the ring would be gone—the city itself would be gone, the citizens nothing but ink smudged numbers in a ledger and an addition to the accusatory voices in the back of her head.”
― Varsha Ravi, The Heartless Divine

“In the shadowed corridor, he looked incandescent and young. All the right components of a boy slotted into all the right places, but not quite a boy. Build A Boy’s singular business failure, she thought hysterically, and then rubbed at her eyes until the smile passed.”
― Varsha Ravi, The Heartless Divine

“War is war,” he said simply. “People aren’t nations, even though they may wish it. No matter what happens, war will continue, and people will die. But where I stand now, I can try to limit the latter as best I can.”
― Varsha Ravi, The Heartless Divine

“My blood is the color and consistency of champagne. I have been running a fever for the past seventeen hundred years.”
― Varsha Ravi, The Heartless Divine