Reckoning Quotes

“Everyone around here has their demons, Grey. Most people won’t be able to see yours past their own.”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“What drives you to such lengths?"

Grey's brows rose in surprise. He cleared his throat and stood suddenly. He was silent so long I didn't think he was going to answer, but then a sad smile crept across his features, an expression that contained so little yet so much information. “I owe it to everyone I left behind to come back strong enough to take care of them.”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“B-brother? Is that really you?” I felt my expression soften and my body relax. “Hey, El. It’s been a while.”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“I felt the granite-hard coldness of his mind through our tentative connection. This wasn’t the boy I had known. He had sacrificed so much to return to us, leaving something of himself behind wherever he had been.”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“This was the moment I had foreseen, where all the threads ended, but I could never make sense of how we might be saved, only the when and where. But now I knew why. “Arthur…”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“The features were hidden, but there was something about the shape and stance that was so familiar. Almost like… A smile crept across my face as my eyes drifted shut. I felt safe for the first time in a very, very long time.”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“Indrath, Agrona. Agrona, Indrath. You speak as if they are the only two beings in the world, as if there is no choice but to serve one or the other.” “No,” I said, my breath roiling the dust still thick in the air. “Neither of you are worthy of service, in the end.”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“From where I stood in the crowd, I could see the very moment when the crack in Virion’s disciplined, royal demeanor formed—the empathy and the emotion winning out as Virion’s eyes grew wet with barely suppressed tears.”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“The idea of killing her myself flashed through my mind for the dozenth time, but I couldn’t risk alienating both Agrona and Arthur in a single move.”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“Because of his relationship with Tessia Eralith, he didn’t have the stomach to do what needed to be done.”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“I nodded, giving his hand a firm shake. “Arthur. Call me Arthur.”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“After all, I had been that boy. Taken from my family, raised first by Sylvia, then the Eraliths, my parents having no idea what had happened to me…”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“I could have grabbed her, God Stepped away with her…”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“Tessia was still in there. She had taken over her body, just for an instant, long enough to tell me.”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“You were never in danger. I knew he would try, and I knew he would fail.”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“I had almost let him run me through. But no, that wasn’t entirely true—she had almost let him run me through. Choppy and full of turmoil, my thoughts raced back along the short span of my new life, and I realized she’d always been there, hidden inside this body, tangled up within the elderwood guardian’s will. Rooted inside me. And she’d taken over. Just for a second, but long enough to show me she was more than her memories.”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“Oh, that was close, wasn’t it?” Agrona said, amused. “You really thought for a second you could do it, didn’t you?” Agrona’s arm snaked around Cecilia’s shoulder and pulled her to his side. “You’re only cold-hearted and calculating when it’s easy, Grey. In reality, you’re weak, emotional, and rather prone to attachment.” I looked down at my empty hand, my mind blank except for Agrona’s words. What should have been a moment of victory instead rang hollow and empty, filling my mouth with the taste of cold ashes.”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“I released the aether blade. She held my eyes for a heartbeat, two, then…”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“Her teal eyes followed me every inch of the way, as if she were able to trace my progress even when using Burst Step. When the tip of my sword was pressed against her sternum, her eyes widened and flashed green. Mossy green veins spread out across her face beneath her skin and, for an instant, she looked…resigned as a strained smile graced her painted lips. Her body trembled, her hand rising not for the blade—not in defense—but toward my face. A caress. “Art, please…” It was Tessia’s voice.”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“I grew slightly sick at the thought. But it was the clearest path forward, the most decisive measure. I could assure that Agrona couldn’t use Tessia or Cecilia, that whatever power the Legacy had couldn’t be controlled. I felt my eyes grow wet, but I hardened my heart. Forgive me, Tessia.”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“Before following Regis’s advice, I again met Cecilia’s eyes, searching within them for something. Some sign. I had made a promise. But I didn’t even know if the woman to whom I’d promised myself was alive in her own body.”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“Logically, I understood what I was looking at. But the cold, distrustful look Cecilia gave me from Tessia’s eyes still drove a knife through my chest.”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“Although she looked the same—gunmetal gray hair draped down her back and over her shoulders, braids tucked behind her pointed ears, shining teal eyes—she was immediately and unequivocally not Tessia. Tessia…”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“As I looked down on him, I felt only the cold acceptance of justice finally fulfilled. “This is for Sylvia.”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“I felt an icy claw clutch at my insides as I remembered the last desperate moments of my battle against Nico and Cadell, racing away from this same hellfire conflagration with Tessia, desperately exhausting the last of my strength. Only this time, Cadell wasn’t holding back.”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“Your new bond is a rather crude excuse of a beast.” “I think the word you’re looking for is ‘majestic’,”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“The persona of Grey was like a shield, one I wrapped around my mind, keeping out thoughts of those I couldn’t help right now: Tessia, Ellie, my mother, everyone back in Dicathen…”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“And although I could look backwards at the path I’d taken, I couldn’t change its shape. Nor could I change where that path had brought me. But I could look forward, and make new choices—different ones—to change the direction I was headed.”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“Say something!” Nico growled, almost shouting. A burst of soulfire ate away the ground beneath him, leaving him hovering in the air. “Like what?” I snapped, his petulant whining working at my nerves like an old wound. “That I didn’t kill Cecilia? That I never meant to abandon the two of you? Would you even listen if I told you the truth? And what would it change, Nico? Certainly not the fact that you’ve killed thousands of innocents, that you took Tessia out of pure selfishness⁠—”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning

“But, regardless of how we’d both arrived at this point, we’d come much too far for apologies, for reconciliation. Despite knowing what Tessia meant to me, Nico had aided Agrona in Cecilia’s reincarnation, using Tess’s body as a vessel—the ramifications of which I still didn’t understand. Cecilia, who had wanted to avoid being someone else’s weapon so badly she fell on my sword to do it… And he, in his infinite selfishness and ignorance, had handed her to Agrona.”
― TurtleMe, Reckoning