The Oleander Sword Quotes

“Hate me, Malini. Hate me and live. I can love enough for the both of us.”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“You are like ink, Malini thought helplessly. Ink, and all I want is to make poetry of you.”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“I barely understand it, the way I would willingly kneel for you, anywhere, for anything. The way I would fight for you. The way I want to be at your side. Is that what love is, Malini? Is that how awful love is? Because if it is, then I love you, the way that roots love the deep and leaves love the light. It’s—the way I am. And no matter how much I try to be good, to do right—I’m all flowers in your arms, for your war, for you—”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“Don't you realize I want to know everything about you? That even now, when I should have forgotten you, all I desire is to know your heart better than my own?”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“I am always thinking of you. I think of you in battle. I think of you in the dark of night. When my mind is silent or full, you wait there for me. It galls me that I want you as much as this. That my heart so thoroughly belongs to you. The power you have over me, Priya. Why does it refuse to fade?”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“What is a star, he thought, in Aditya's slurred, smiling voice, but distant fire, reaching for you across worlds?”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“What greater love is there than wanting to lay the world in your beloved's hands?”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“When I am alive and I am empress. When you have everything I've vowed to you and Ahiranya..." Silence, as Malini cupped Priya's waist with a hand; as she stretched her fingers wide, as if she could encompass it, hold Priya and keep her. "I've dreamt of garlanding you," Malini confessed. A small, secret thing. "Flowers around your throat, and you garlanding me in return. The two of us making our own promises to each other. I've dreamt of naming you my own. My heart. My wife.”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“You, like everyone, are but a single light dancing at the whim of cosmic forces.”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“She’d spent so long controlling herself that saying something truly honest was pure relief.”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“I have looked upon the ocean, she wrote. And it made me recall the tale of a river. And of a fish, searching for a new world on its bank. And I remember a tale of garlands. And ill stars. And two people who found their way to one another.”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“Don’t you realize I want to know everything about you? That even now, when I should have forgotten you, all I desire is to know your heart better than my own.”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“I miss you, she thought, speaking to nothing in the quiet of her heart. I will always miss you.”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“That's a cruel thing to let yourself dream of," she whispered. "Isn't it?"
"It is," Malini agreed, sounding wretched and yet sweet, sweet because she was Priya's. "And yet. Women could marry women once in Ahiranya. And in my foolish dreams I can't forget that.”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“Try and break me, Priya said. If I'm— I'm so much, if you think I'm so much more than any other person, then— then bring me back down to just skin. Make me human. Try to break me. Try.”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“I have never,” she said, “been a woman of faith. And you forgot one truth about me, faceless son: I have never been afraid of killing priests.”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“And yet. And yet.
There were always words, words under words, with Malini.
Malini never lid. But her truths were deep waters.”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“I miss you, the letter said. Artless words. She could feel Priya in them, and it made her heart bloom with helpless fondness.”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“There were two truths inside Malini's heart. It was the colder one she spoke.
But the other was this. Because I need her. Because she saw me once, for everything I was and could be, and wanted me anyway. And she sees me and wants me still, over the chasm that should make enemies of us. And yet it does not. Cannot.”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“You know one of my faces.” “Yes. The one that’s under my hands now,” said Priya. “The real one.”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“And Malini was watching her, devouring her with her eyes, until suddenly she was not. Suddenly Malini was gasping, her throat flushed; Malini was tilting her head back, her body arching and falling, and her hands gripping ever tighter, until Priya could feel nothing but her, and taste nothing but her, and want nothing but her.”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“Let them stare. She was a temple elder. She had more power in her bones than any of them had in their titles.”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“But anyone can do harm if they have the right tools. Anyone can be a monster if they have a knife. I just wear mine under my skin. I just… cut differently.”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“I have looked upon the ocean , and it made me recall the tale of a river. And of a fish, searching for a new world on its bank. And I remember a tale of garlands. And ill stars. And two people who found their way to one another. Tell me, do you remember it too?”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“The fragile thing in Priya’s chest splintered, just a little. Malini’s words were a reminder that there was so much more at stake than her soft feelings for Malini, or Malini’s for her. Politics and war and history all stood like a chasm between them.”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“Malini, she wanted to say. Wanted to shape that name in her mouth.”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“How can you trust me not to ruin everything?

Who else do I have to trust but you, Pri?”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“I am always thinking of you. I think of you in battle. I think of you in the dark of night. When my mind is silent or full, you wait there for me.”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“Don't you know how I love you?’ Malini asked. Those were not soft words. She threw them out like a lash. ‘Don't you know that I hold everyone at bay, that I cannot stand to love anyone and yet I love you utterly? Don't you understand?”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword

“She loved Priya. The feeling was dark and deep within her, with its own steady undercurrent, always reaching for her, always dragging her under. But she needed to win this war. Needed it more than tenderness or love, needed it with a fire that burned and burned and screamed in her heart sisters' names. She needed it because her brother's blade had found her and cut the goodness from her long before she'd ever learned the shape of a gentle, encompassing love. If she had to risk Priya for her vengeance—if she had to place her in danger in order to win, and see her brother dead?
So be it.”
― Tasha Suri, The Oleander Sword