A Vision in Smoke Quotes

“She had wanted to break. She had wanted, for one desperate moment, to let herself shatter into a thousand pieces, to reach out and fall apart. She knew he would have been there, welcomed that. But she was afraid that if she broke, she would not know how to put herself back together.

So she had stopped it. When the cracks were spreading just wide enough for everything to crumble, Ari had sealed them back up, pulled herself together, and moved on.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“Some would say that sacrifices are necessary in such times,” Mateo argued. “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

“Not when some of them are already sunk at the bottom of the sea,” she shot back.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“I fought back in my own way. But I think all of you know what it’s like to settle into a different skin for a time, to let people see what they wish to see while it is convenient.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“Be warned, my dear, that experience does not equate to truth, nor does knowledge promise us happiness.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“You are wise beyond your years. How many lives have you walked this earth alone?”

Ari felt a chill run down her spine as those strange, ancient eyes stared into hers, but she set her jaw and looked right back. “Only the one.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“Eventually, when they have seen so much pain, people can only remember to survive.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“She had long since learned that the world would be no good to her unless she made herself as threatening as possible. Those perceived to be weak were always punished.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“The last thing she needs is one more person who believes her invincible. She needs someone who knows she is not.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“It had been a long time now since the last fireball. Or maybe it had only been a minute. He couldn’t track time anymore, only death.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“She wanted to pray. She wanted someone to tell her it would be all right. She wanted someone to tell her it wasn’t all her fault.

But she did not believe in the stars. She knew better than to rely on anyone else to save her. And it was all her fault.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“It is dangerous to make promises in wartime,” Ari said, staring at Samorin with something like anger in her eyes.

“Wartime is dangerous no matter what,” he returned. “We might as well promise to be everything we can.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“You told me once that you had nothing to learn from your parents because they raised you in times of peace.” He watched the snow pass beneath their feet, then met her eye again. “I disagree. I believe that we all have an opportunity we have not had for fifteen years.”

“What’s that?”

“To learn to hope. To be caring and kind. To be good again and to love one another because we can, instead of hating each other because it’s safe. Don’t you want to walk in the woods without fearing for your life?”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“I like the snow when it falls behind me, not ahead of me.”

“Do you ever appreciate anything for its beauty? Or only its usefulness?”

She thought of the towering Belem, the quiet of the Nyinan Forest, the sparkling stars hanging their lights in the sky. She thought of the fires, the empty cities, the slaughtered horses. “When has beauty ever fixed anything?”

“It doesn’t,” Ely replied, “but it makes the broken things worthwhile.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“I only know I would be scared for my life if I ever betrayed her,” he answered bluntly. “If you gave her reason, she could destroy you.”

As the mountain man stared at him in shock, Ely gathered his reins and nudged his horse into a trot. “I would threaten to do it myself,” he said, “but we both know that she would not need any help.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“I chose this,” she said simply. “Let them hate me for stealing their riches. Let them chase me down for breaking their laws. I will be their criminal any day, but damn the stars of those who hunt me for who I was born.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“No one should have to carry that many memories alone.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“But this... this was something else, and it burned so deeply that Ely felt it too, the hurt welling up, dark
and heavy and suffocating.

It felt like his grief from the dragon tunnel, but it was
ancient, like the Old Hall, a darkness forged under years of pressure until it had hardened into something sharp, rock- hard, weighted with a feeling of sad, lonely eternity. Stars, it was crushing. He felt it pressing against his heart and it was a vice, a crippling despair that he had to break.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“It made him feel so good that the lingering discomfort he’d carried in his chest vanished entirely and he said, “Sometimes I really love making you mad.”

“No, you don’t,” she told him, visibly softening now. “You love making me irritable. You’ve never seen me mad.”

Ely snorted. “Plenty of times!”

“But never at you.” She looked up at him, every inch of her face serious, like she was worried he didn’t understand this. Her eyes were wide, solemn. “I’ve never been mad at you.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“The Old Hall loomed ahead, caught directly in the setting sunlight. For a brief moment, it was perfectly illuminated, as if lit by a thousand burning lanterns, glowing in some kind of mighty revelry. I am ancient, it murmured. I was powerful and grand. Now I am wise and beautiful.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“And the ones that were not plotting against them might very well be advocating for her, for some kind of future that Ari feared and despised with all her heart. Was it worse, she wondered, to be wanted dead or wanted Queen?”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“She ran her fingers over the smooth stone and then tilted her head to look up at the sky, breathing slowly, as if she could smell and taste the stars in her lungs and on her tongue. They would be cool, she imagined, and crisp before breaking sweet under her teeth, like a honeycomb cracking open to ooze out its golden-yellow syrup. Dav had liked to think of touching the stars, of one day rising to live among them, but never had they considered together how they would taste. She shut her eyes. She wished she could ask him and wondered, like she did every night, what he would think of her now.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“How do I find calm when I am afraid? she asked Dav’s memory. But he had only taught an angry girl about anger. He had never taught a fearless girl about fear.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“I didn’t think...” She wasn’t quite sure how to express everything that was surging in her chest, threatening to drown her.

“That you were special? That you hold a power no other person here could ever possibly grasp?” Odaan grinned now, and it was like watching a fortress raise its gates, watching the barricades lift back into place. He was done talking about the pain. “You seem to think that you can still turn back, but it’s too late. You’ll have to face it, Princess. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but soon enough. And you can’t be this scared when the time comes.” He let out a real laugh and drawled, “The people can smell fear.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“Odaan sighed, a slow, breathy huff that sent shivers down Ari’s spine. She could feel it all, the pain and the memory and the deep, aching loss that would never, ever be filled. And she felt a twinge of something else too – jealousy that he had been just a bit older, had just a few more years to learn his parents in a way she would never learn hers. Would her memories be crisper now, if she had been eight, ten, twelve when they left her? Would she still see her father’s face and hear her mother’s voice? She couldn’t bring herself to ask him.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“I have always expected too much from you. But I think you also expected too much from me. I thought you could not make mistakes. You thought I would always understand. Would never feel hurt. But, Deen, sometimes people don’t understand unless you make them. Sometimes you have to take the time and explain yourself.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“The only creatures that powerful women worship are
other powerful women. It’s a law of nature. You, my darling, are just like all the rest.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“Don’t be fooled, boy. The earth keeper doesn’t need water to drown a man.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“She may think I am being cruel, calling her by her title. Maybe it is a bit harsh, but it is not because I don’t understand. It’s because I do.” His eyes had a new glint to them now, something fierce and almost angry, a look that Ely had only seen in one other person. “I know that names have power. That is why I cannot let her forget hers. She has something that no one else does. And she needs to fight for it.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“Ari was a very good listener, even if she didn’t like to admit it. He could see it in her eyes, and in the slant of her shoulders, the way she took in every word, memorizing his stories like they were her own. Perhaps that was the reason she hated talking to people so much; the world got more complicated when you took responsibility for memories outside of your own.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke

“Was she the one who had changed, or had he? Or had both of them stayed too much the same in a world that was shifting faster and faster around them? Maybe they were too old to be what they had been. The problem, Ely thought, was that he wasn’t quite sure what they were supposed to be now.”
― Allyson S. Barkley, A Vision in Smoke