K. Vale Nagle > Quotes

“The prisoner was in bad shape. Broken, golden feathers over deep cuts and bruising. The very tip of his beak had been broken off.
"He's an opinicus?" Not just any opinicus, the missing opinicus, she'd wager.
"I'm Cherine," he gasped. "Thank you.”
― K. Vale Nagle, Eyrie

“The other had come from that very same taiga gryphon. They'd been young and playing on a frozen lake. Both were adults with their hunting grounds. Both were new adults with their first hunting grounds. The taiga gryphon had seen her try to pounce a bog hopper and miss. The light snow had concealed the ice underneath, and Satra had gone sliding. The taiga gryphon's name was Mignet, but Satra hadn't known that yet.
Satra heard the laughing and growled - well, squeaked, her voice giving out - a challenge. Mignet had flown down and landed daintily on the ice. She'd been beautiful, graceful. While taiga gryphons included several designs and shapes, she's been the one most strangers conjured up if asked to describe the taiga pride: white with black bars and rosettes. She was Satra's first, and only, crush.”
― K. Vale Nagle, Eyrie

“Even the Crackling Sea Eyrie's reeve, whose consort and interests were exclusively male, had felt the pressure to father a small flock of children. She understood that pressure. She'd never been attracted to another opinicus - the power dynamic complicated issues further - but she'd found time to lay seven eggs.”
― K. Vale Nagle, Eyrie

“The nearest opinicus tried to grab an egg and fly away, but Jun launched himself into the air and caught the opinicus's legs, pulling him to the earth.

The egg hit the ground with a wet crack.”
― K. Vale Nagle, Eyrie

“Thirty feet up a tree that reached twice that height into the forest canopy, Zeph clung beak-down and surveyed the forest floor. Several large, flightless ground parrots pecked at crushed berries. Violet stains covered their green plumage. The berries were casualties of a conflict much higher up.”
― K. Vale Nagle, Eyrie

“To a fisherfolk, everyone was a gryphon and everyone was an opinicus.”
― K. Vale Nagle, Eyrie

“Quess’s beak shook. Her whole body shook. There were silver tears coming out of her eyes as she looked at Urious.
“Y-y-you killed my children,” she managed.
Urious’s eyes were wide, in pain or shock, Tresh didn’t know.
“You k-k-killed my mate.”
Urious nodded. Blood pooled behind him, a mixture of his own and Vitra’s.
Tresh gently gripped the spear in her paws and pulled it out of Vitra. The dead gryphon’s body fell atop Urious.
Tresh tried to take the spear from Quess, but her brother’s mate pulled it away and placed it against Urious’s throat. The point of the spear was as unsteady as Quess.
“I still hear the screams of gryphlets and chicks when I sleep,” Urious said. “I knew one of their parents would find me. It’s okay. Please, end this. I’m so sorry.”
Despite everything Tresh had been thinking since the attack, she found herself putting a paw over Quess’s talons. “The dead cannot forgive,” she said. The dreams of her nieces and nephews played in her head. “We must forgive for them.”
Quess quivered. “They are restless in the ocean of s-s-stars.”
This time it was Bruen who put his talons on Quess’s shoulders. “This is how you quiet them. You do what they cannot.”
Tresh’s heart beat in her chest, over and over, a hundred times before Quess’s grip slackened. Bruen carefully took the javelin from her and held her while she cried.”
― K. Vale Nagle, Starling

“How was your trip?" Zeph asked. "Did they teach you how to hunt? You're growing up so fast."
"I'm older than you," Xavi protested. "And I know how to hunt. This wasn't for beginners. I killed a snake!"
Zeph stepped back and put on his surprised face for Xavi to see. "A real snake, not just a vine? Well, I guess you have your adult feathers now. What did you fall in? You're sticky."
“It was a big snake. Like, bigger than three gryphons.” Xavi looked around for a gryphon to illustrate his point.
Hatzel had glided down and was giving them a strange look. A tiny gryphlet bounded up to chirp at Hatzel and see if she wanted to play. While Xavi was trying to point at Hatzel, Zeph sat back on his haunches and measured out the size of the gryphlet from shoulder to shoulder, and expanded it by three.
Xavi sighed. “No, like three Hatzels.”
“Now you’re just telling tales,” Zeph protested. “Nothing as big as three Hatzels.”
“This is why I throw rocks at you,” Hatzel said as she took the gryphlet back to the nests.”
― K. Vale Nagle, Eyrie

“for you and your pretty mate," Gressle said and flew back to her people.
"Wait, what did she say?" Kia asked.”
― K. Vale Nagle, Eyrie

“Kia knew of only one opinicus who regularly entered and left the headmaster's study: the black cockatiel with the ink-stained harness. In her own notes, she called him "the scribe" or "the forger".”
― K. Vale Nagle, Eyrie

“I never wake up to find someone in my nest,” Hatzel complained. She began the grooming process, starting with her face.
“That’s because you bite in your sleep,” Zeph remarked.
She balked. “What? No, I don’t!”
“It’s why we put Orlea’s sleeping nest closest to yours,” he explained. “She’s like a safe sleeping shield.”
Hatzel did not dignify him with a response but instead returned to morning preening with redoubled efforts.”
― K. Vale Nagle, Eyrie

“Kia would be the first to admit she'd led a sheltered life. She didn't know much about red fern abuse, but she'd heard that addicts could possess super-opinicus strength and speed when confronted.”
― K. Vale Nagle, Eyrie

“Staring at the soft fur of his stomach, listening to his heart beat, it required a different gryphon to have the strength of will to operate the saw. She was not that gryphon, and not a day went by when she didn't wish she'd pushed Mignet up at the cost of her own life. The way her pride ha treated her had made her cold and cruel like the ice that had taken her lover, but Satra was not that gryphon.

She stood up and kicked the saw away from Jonas with a bloody paw.”
― K. Vale Nagle, Eyrie

“Urious was a strange sort of child murderer. He made her uncomfortable.”
― K. Vale Nagle, Starling

“Hearing her mentor talk of genocide the way he spoke of plans or logistics made Kia uncomfortable.”
― K. Vale Nagle, Eyrie

“He coughed and wiped something shiny out of his eyes. He’d lost himself for a moment. A minute. An hour. How long had he been doing this?
He thought back to the situation on the rafts, when he was killing the rangers. It was play and hunting rolled into one, and he wished it had felt like neither. Even now, he didn’t feel like himself, and that feeling was growing.”
― K. Vale Nagle, Ashen Weald

“Thenca awoke with a yawn and slow-blinked at Deracho. It was good to see him again.
“I heard there was a gryphon making her way up here who shouted at the monitors and sent them running. And I thought to myself: there’s only one gryphon I know who would do that.”
Thenca rolled her eyes. “My brother would have done the same, if he thought to.”
“Yes,” Deracho admitted, “But the messenger also said it was a beautiful gryphon in addition to being talented. That could not have been your brother.”
“He looks the same as me.”
“He does not! His browns are less brown. His blacks are charcoal at best, if we’re being kind. His beak is a little crooked.”
“You’ve never actually met him, have you?” Thenca asked.
Deracho grinned. “Only by reputation: Thenca’s muddy-and-charcoal crooked-beak brother, Urious.”
― K. Vale Nagle, Ashen Weald

“She’d killed him.
Not just killed him – she’d never actually considered letting him live once the fight had begun. She knew he would never have backed down to her or any of the taiga gryphons. She’d set him up to die, then killed him, and now she would never get the chance to fix their broken friendship. She wanted to curl up in a bunch of fur, feathers, and blood and cry.”
― K. Vale Nagle, Ashen Weald