The Wolf And The Woodsman Quotes
"Nothing that might break through the tree line could be worse than the Woodsmen."
"By the time the song is done, each girl is gripping a small iron stake, as slick and sturdy as any that might come off a blacksmith’s blazing forge."
"The trees have a tendency to uproot themselves when they sense danger."
"We can't afford to look hungry or weak or frightened."
"The only girl in Keszi, our village, with no aptitude for any of the three skills."
"It's not an easy peace, but it's made me a mean shot."
"Everyone has their own whispered theories about why the gods passed me over."
"If you stare long enough into the darkness of the forest, eventually something will stare right back."
"The journey to the capital takes half a moon at best, enough time for visions to change."
"I am drowned up to my waist, and the beasts are paddling toward us."
"I'd rather be eaten alive in Ezer Szem than freeze to death in the Far North."
"You wouldn't dare show up at the capital with your whole party dead and only a useless wolf-girl in tow."
"In less than a month Király Szek will celebrate Saint István’s Day, which Nándor has taken to claiming as his name day as well. If there’s any moment for him to make his challenge, it will be then."
"I’m not proud of my hatred. After all, if I don’t belong with the pagans, I’m not certain I belong anywhere."
"The king has his own fetters. But he’s the best hope for Régország’s survival, and for your own people—pagan and Yehuli both."
"You could have cut off his head, instead. At least then he wouldn’t have suffered, and I wouldn’t have had to watch it."
"Your life still depends on my survival. If the prince perishes on your watch, you’ll be the one to pay for it. Tell me, wolf-girl, who belongs to whom?"
"The Prinkepatrios rewards sacrifice," he replies. "Sometimes sacrifice comes in the form of flesh."
"Perhaps he is far too grim and pious to think of me the way I have been thinking of him."
"I remember sitting cross-legged on the floor of her hut, my fingers twined with Boróka’s, listening as she filled our heads with stories of man-dragons and trickster gods."
"Perhaps you should ask me for mine, since you just damned us both to fighting a monster."
"You think the Woodsmen are righteous, but you’re the one who tried to cut a man’s throat because his villagers made some callow slights about the pagans and the Yehuli."
"A word hangs in the air between us, battered back and forth in the frigid wind."
"Real witches are not human: their bodies are made of sculpted red clay; their bones are twigs and bog wood."
"The wind gives a blood-chilling widow’s wail."
"I can’t explain it. Perhaps I am a witch after all."
"The peasants cried out for my father to disinherit me, and Nándor and the Érsek whispered in his ear until one day he finally picked up the knife and took my eye."
"The Holy Order of Woodsmen will have many more years of bitter work to do, if they aim to erase Kaleva’s magic for good."
"Creation can only exist alongside destruction, peace alongside pain."
"The Élet River foams beside us, carrying water all the way from the Half-Sea."
"We have seen more winter villages along the riverbed, their sod houses like rock outcroppings."
"Our horses’ footsteps are hushed in the soft, damp soil."
"There is only the low churning of the river, oddly companionable."
"I keep thinking about the way her body came apart in my hand."
"This sudden fearlessness is like a song that begs for singing."
"You can’t possibly have an appetite after that."
"If I’m to die Király Szek, I would like to die with a full stomach."
"I’ve spent the last fortnight fearing you would destroy me."
"Let the old ways die, and the false gods with them."
"You’ll have a much easier time pleading your case in front of my father."
"You don’t understand. If Nándor had even the barest suspicion that I might care for you at all, he’d torture you to death or madness."
"You are still a Woodsman, a prince. His son."
"No true heir of Saint István would rise to stop a pagan girl from dying by his holy blade."
"It is nothing more than animal instinct, the rawest, most feral desire to live."
"As long as you are in my service, no harm will come to Keszi or to the Yehuli man, Zsigmond."
"My power is yours, as long as you uphold your end of our bargain."
"When something is no longer true, it is no longer real."
"I may die, eventually, but I will go chasing you out of this world, because I will kill you first."
"You look as sweet and pretty as any Patritian girl now."
"They call it the Stake. It is cobbled from the worst bits of land in the Rodinyan empire."
"If we only celebrated on the days when there was no danger, we’d never have occasion to celebrate at all."
"All I can think of is Nándor rising out of the ice like some pale hallucination."
"You think I wouldn’t have endured half your wickedness if I could?"
"I am already hell-bound. So I will go with my heart."
"You’re just like any other hungry Southerner, thinking you can tear the North apart and eat its most tender bits."
"No matter how high a hill might be, the rain will find a way to soften it."
"Memories, like fire, can be a warmth to savor or a pain to endure, yet we cannot choose to live without them."
"In the heart of the storm, the faintest whisper of hope sings louder than the howling of the wind."
"The true measure of courage is found not in the absence of fear, but in the will to continue despite it."
"Love, in its purest form, asks not for perfection but for the courage to stand beside another, flawed and unyielding."
"A promise, once woven into the fabric of one's heart, becomes a beacon guiding through the darkest nights."
"Every ending, no matter how grim, paves the path for a new beginning, unseen yet inevitable."
"The strength of a bond is not tested in the ease of joy, but in the depths of adversity."
"To face the unknown with a heart unyielding is the greatest bravery of all."
"In the symphony of life, every heartbreak contributes to the melody of growth."
"You’re going to lose, Nándor. Most of your Woodsmen have already been slain, and it will take weeks for the rest of the army to make its way here from Akosvár."
"I wield the sword of a king—my sword by right. I am the only true-born son of Bárány János and heir to the throne of Régország."
"I’ve never really tried. This time, I won’t show you any restraint."
"The crown was always mine. I only lacked the strength to claim it."
"Kindness until he cut out my eye. Kindness until he banished me to the Woodsmen."
"Blood cannot be either blessing or curse. It can only be."
"I don’t want to kill you. It’s not worth blackening souls for—mine or yours."
"A king shouldn’t begin his rule with a blackened conscience. My soul is perfectly content to bear the burden of it instead."
"If there is anyone I would damn my soul for, it would be you."
"The thought of it makes my chest swell and, unbidden, tears leap to my eyes."