Roshani Chokshi, The Star-Touched Queen
21 quotes
"Her power was a wrenching thing, starless black and sorrow, but my magic was something more...it was hope."
"And in such bliss does devastation grow."
"Who wanted to be smiled at by the girl that trailed shadows like pets, conjured snakes and waited for Death, her bridegroom, to steal her from these walls?"
"I love you," he murmured into my hair. "You are my night and stars, the fate I would fix myself to in any life."
"I wanted a love thick with time, as inscrutable as if a lathe had carved it from night and as familiar as the marrow in my bones. I wanted the impossible, which made it that much easier to push out of my mind."
"Neither the secret whirring song of the stars nor the sonorous canticles of the earth knew the language that sprang up in the space between us. It was a dialect of heartbeats, strung together with the lilt of long suffering and the incandescent hope of an infinite future."
"I know your soul. Everything else is just an ornament."
"You know nothing about me." "I know your soul. Everything else is an ornament."
"My joy was ghostly, like something not quite realized."
"He loved her. And she loved him. And in such bliss does devastation grow."
"A memory is a fine legacy to leave behind."
"I promised you the moon for your throne and stars to wear in your hair," said Amar, gesturing inside. "And I always keep my promises."
"Father once said the real language of diplomacy was in the space between words."
"Ruling Akaran is a strange task. In many ways, it is like balancing an illusion. You must separate the illusion of what you see and the reality of its consequences," he said. "Tell me, my queen, are you ready to play with fate?"
"Where are we going?" I asked. "The main road leads to all of the major kingdoms.""Not all of them," said Amar."
"The worms do not take heed of caste and rank when they feast on our ashes," the Raja said. "Your subjects will not remember you. They will not remember the shade of your eyes, the colors you favored, or the beauty of your wives. They will only remember your impression upon their hearts and whether you filled them with glee or grief. That is your immortality."
"Night coaxed out the stars, my jailers."
"I would rip the stars from the sky if you wished it. Anything for you. But remember to trust me. Remember your promise."
"I will not let us be beings of regret. I know my past. What I want is my future."
"Guilt is what makes you accountable."
"His smile banished my loneliness and limbed the hollows of my anema with starlight, pure and bright...his touch hummed in my bones like an aria -- a song to my dance, a beginning of a promise."