Elyse DeBarre > Quotes

“Carefully she peered around the doorway, blade clutched tight… And looked directly into the surprised gaze of one of the guards." The tension was real—but was the threat?

Copyright, 2025, published on Novelo behind high paywall”
― Elyse DeBarre, Rise of the Magi: Babylon Under Watch

“In days of old – that’s when it all began – they say the gods made a pledge with man, and Gaia gave us the gift of prophecy.”
― Elyse DeBarre, The Spy of Delphi: That Which is Hidden

“And may you burn in Hades before the night is done.”
― Elyse DeBarre, Rise of the Magi: Babylon Under Watch

“If you go to war,” she intoned, “A great nation will be destroyed. A mighty empire will be laid low, if go to war you do! Its cities will be sacked and its people slain, and their wails will be heard high and low across the land and on the battlefield – and the fields will run red with their blood.”
― Elyse DeBarre, The Spy of Delphi: That Which is Hidden

“Beneath his illusion of calm lies another world – one he cannot imagine, one he will never control. Those who know the game, rewrite the rules.”
― Elyse DeBarre, Rise of the Magi: Babylon Under Watch

“As I said, they created a decoy. But they wanted most of us to live, so we’d return to tell the Lugal. They wounded me, but they didn’t wish me to die. They wanted to distract us from the true site of their scheme. And if they saw me reach the Euphrates, then that wasn’t the actual location for their plans. Why did they do this? To create fear, and confusion. How do I know? Since I do this myself.”

Available on Novelo (final draft behind a high paywall).
© 2025. All rights reserved.”
― Elyse DeBarre, Rise of the Magi: Babylon Under Watch

“This isn’t about justice. It’s about power, and it appears you’ve just handed her yours!”
― Elyse DeBarre, Rise of the Magi: Babylon Under Watch

“Trust," he said, bitterness lacing the word. "Is a commodity I can ill afford.”
― Elyse DeBarre, The Tower of Malatha: A Novel of Ancient Rome

“Roma Aeterna: Quod occidit etiam oritur. That which sets also rises.”
― Elyse DeBarre, The Tower of Malatha: A Novel of Ancient Rome

“As I said, they created a decoy. But they wanted most of us to live, so we’d return to tell the Lugal. They wounded me, but they didn’t wish me to die. They wanted to distract us from the true location of their scheme. And if they saw me reach the Euphrates, then that wasn’t the actual location for their plans. Why did they do this? To create fear, and confusion. How do I know? Since I do this myself.”

Novelo (final draft available behind a high paywall).
© 2025. All rights reserved.”
― Elyse DeBarre, Rise of the Magi: Babylon Under Watch

“In days of old – that’s when it all began – they say the gods made a pledge with man, and Gaia gave us the gift of prophecy. And so… she caused a crack to open up from the hallowed realms below the earth, from which arose sacred steam which, when the Holy Oracle, the Pythia, breathed it in, could make her see and speak her visions of things that were to come. But thence came Apollo and slew the Python, whom he claimed was evil, freeing Delphi from its spell. And so she remained, the Pythia priestess still, but under his priests’ control, in the cavern beneath the Temple, and breathed in the sacred fumes from that deep crevice below where lay the rotting Python’s corpse, and spake in prophesy the words of the gods.”
― Elyse DeBarre, The Spy of Delphi: That Which is Hidden