The Six Deaths of the Saint Quotes

“I would rather love a coward than mourn a legend.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“That I have lived and killed and lived again in the name of a man who does not deserve it because I wanted so badly to be beloved. But only one person in all my lives has ever loved me, and he does not wear a crown.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“He doesn’t move or speak, but he doesn’t need to. I know his desires by the pace of his breath and the tilt of his shoulders, by the shape of his jaw and the heat of his gaze. I know him, and in knowing him I love him, and in loving him I cannot do as he wishes.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“And you found you did not mind being a devil, so long as you were his.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“And you understood, finally, that there had never truly been a she or a you but only a terrible, lonely I.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“You saw yourself as an unholy triptych, three into one, one into three: she the girl, you the Devil, and I the Saint. And you understood, finally, that there had never truly been a she or a you but only a terrible, lonely I.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“I could have killed you,” you said, and he had answered, obscurely, “You never do.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“You grew strong over those years, and fast, until your body was no longer something you wore but something you wielded, and Lord, what a weapon it became.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“I wonder what the songs will say about the Devil now that she is covered in the blood of her own God.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“This time, when I push my face into the pool, when my water fills my mouth and floods my lungs, I am smiling. They will never sing my name.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“But in the end, there was no saint, just a lonely girl telling secrets to herself in a dark mirror.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“but only one person in all my lives has ever loved me, and he does not wear a crown”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“your squire watched you carefully. his eyes landed on every pink scar, every old injury that still ached. “is this love?” he asked softly”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“You woke panting and sweating, your body fighting battles you’d already won or hadn’t yet fought.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“Do you truly mean to die, just so the King can hang a new map behind his throne?”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“Gwynne’s voice cut through yours, his brow still resting heavily on your forehead. “I would rather love a coward than mourn a legend.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“When you die, little Devil, a kingdom will fall to its knees and crawl to your bier. In a thousand years and a thousand after that, they will still sing of the Prince and his Devil.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“Well, she is my Devil now.”
And you found you did not mind being a devil, so long as you were his.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“Well, she is my Devil now.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“I know him, and in knowing him I love him, and in loving him I cannot do as he wishes.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“You could not decide if they were prophecies or memories, or whether there was any difference between the two.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“You couldn’t name the emotion you felt, in that last second before you fell into your squire’s arms, but I can: relief.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“When you die, little Devil, a kingdom will fall to its knees and crawl to your bier. In a thousand years and a thousand after that, they will still sing of the Prince and his Devil. So long as you do as I say.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“Perhaps I sense, in the hazy way of an early memory, that I will never grow old, will never see my squire again.
Perhaps any tool, used hard enough and long enough, begins to fail.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“You grew strong over those years, and fast, until your
body was no longer something you wore but something you
wielded, and Lord, what a weapon it became.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“Once you dreamed you were killing a boy in some distant city, and you woke to find your sword in your hand, the blade cutting down toward your squire’s upturned face, his eyes like grave dirt. He did not flinch or scream. He simply sat beneath the arc of your sword as if God Himself bade him be still. You wrenched the sword aside so belatedly that a soft lock of his hair fell to the dirt. You called him a fool and a child and many worse names. “I could have killed you,” you said, and he had answered, obscurely, “You never do.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“You saw yourself as a sickly child, and you understood once again who you were, and would be, and are now: a woman following her own footprints, a snake eatinf her own taul, forever.
[...] I understand that I have made my life a work of bloody alchemy, transforming a child into a devil into a saint.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“Would you make a coward of me, here at the very end? After everything I've done, everything I've become—"
Gwynne's voice cut through yours, his brow still resting heavily on your forehead. "I would rather love a coward than mourn a legend.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“You buried your face in your treacherous hands. “Gwynne,” you said. “Gwynne. I could have killed you.”
He took your hands away from your face and held them, his fingers so slim and fine around the knotted scars of your knuckles. He kissed the center of each of your palms, precisely where the priest said the Savior suffered the nails to be driven.
“Why do you stay with me? I am a devil. A butcher. Not even a butcher—his knife, falling over and over.”
Gwynne said, softly, “Before all this, before the Saint and the Prince, you were the girl who still shared her meat with the begging dogs, no matter how hungry she was. Who took a beating for a boy who deserved it, for no reason except that she could bear it better than him. Who shone, even in the shadows.” He said your name, even more softly. “You are not a knife.”
And you said, wretchedly, “But I am his.”
Gwynne did not answer. He pulled you down beside him in the tall grass and touched you in that heady, secret way that transformed the brutal weapon of your body into mere flesh. It was like shucking plate armor after a long campaign and walking naked into a river, letting the current take you. It was like surrendering on the field and finding mercy.
Gwynne touched you until you shuddered and went still in his arms.Then he whispered, so gently you barely heard it—but I did, oh, I did—“You are not his.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint

“The Saint came to you again and again, always with that terrible fury on her face. You wondered if perhaps she did not want to be the Saint of War any longer, and you sympathized; you often didn’t want to be what you were. You were a shrike, a leopard, a plague, a thing that lived only to kill.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint