So Let Them Burn

“Being forced to learn the language of your oppressors is an oppression of the mind. They rewrite your history when you're too young to know what you're giving away, and before you know it, it's too late to reclaim what you've lost,' she had said. 'Patois is your island's tongue, Elara. It's your heritage. It is the true expression of your heart. Don't give it away.”

“War didn't prove one country was stronger than another. It just snuffed out lives from each nation until only mourners were left to make sense of it all.”

“But myths were lies by nature, transforming humans into symbols.”

“The rest of the world would make her a footnote in the books written about her sister, if she were ever mentioned at all. And maybe she shouldn't care about that, but she did. Sometimes it felt as if she were drowning so deep in Faron's shadow, no one could hear her screams.”

“That was one of life’s most tragic secrets: War never actually ended. It survived in the lives destroyed by things large and small.”

“Faron's heart stopped entirely as she stared at him. Like friends, romance was a sacrifice she'd made to be the Childe Empyrean. It hadn't mattered much to her until now, because Faron had figured out long ago that she didn't feel attraction the way other people did. She had never looked at a random person and wanted them. She had never seen the beauty of others as anything other than an objective observation. She had never pictured herself kissing anyone the way she'd seen her sister kiss Cherry McKay.But she pictured it now.”

“In the meantime, I need you to say here and protect San Irie if anything should happen.""Um." Faron exchanged a glance with Reeve, who looked similarly mystified. "Your Majesty, I'm seventeen years old.”

“You're the Childe Empyrean. If we stack out burdens against each other's, you'll win every time." "That doesn't mean we're not both carrying them.”

“you speak patios almost like a native. How quickly you adapt to the blood on your hands" -commander warwick”