Moira Katson > Quotes

“Do you know, I used to feel special, like I would wake up in a fairytale and be a great hero. But now…I don’t know if I want to be in a story anymore. It’s like I am already, and I don’t think I like it. And what would it mean if it were true? What would it mean for you?”
― Moira Katson, Shadowborn

“I think that you’re casting away everything of you. You should feel betrayed that your blood kin would try to kill you, you’re only pretending that you don’t. You’re playing a part, and sometimes you forget what’s you and what’s the other Miriel. You said you would be forsworn if you needed to be, my Lady, but you deny yourself every day for no reason at all.”
― Moira Katson, Shadowforged

“Sometimes, I think I was a child made of that swirling snow, borne of parents who faded into the mountains like ghosts after my birth, never to be seen again.”
― Moira Katson

“Watching Temar, I wondered how the animals of the King’s menagerie felt, able to kill any of the puny beings that looked into their cages, yet bound back by bars of iron. I felt a strange darkness at the thought. I had no true cage, save my own thoughts. There was nothing to keep me from lashing out at any of the nobles who walked these halls. It seemed like a very thin barrier all of a sudden.”
― Moira Katson, Shadowforged

“The Duke would later name me a Shadow, and after his naming, life itself wore me away to make his words true. I have been a Shadow for years upon years now. And yet, I think if I were to trace back to the moment I started to fade away from the world, it would not be when I began my training, or when I first killed, or when I first spied upon my King. It would be the moment that I looked around myself, in that cold mountain village, and realized that I might never have been born and no one would ever have missed me.”
― Moira Katson, Shadowborn

“From somewhere, I was not sure where, Donnett procured a dressmaker’s dummy, and the two of us began to spar to protect it. I started next to it, or far away, but whatever the case, it was my job to keep him from reaching it. Donnett had no clever line, as Temar did: now you’re dead, and Miriel is dead. Whenever he tapped the mannequin with his sword, he only looked over at me, and then raised an eyebrow. If I did not understand the maneuver he had used, he would explain it. When I did understand it, we went again.”
― Moira Katson, Shadowforged

“You, Catwin, no longer exist. You no longer have a fate of your own, a will of your own, or indeed a soul of your own. Henceforth, you and Miriel are to be as one, she the light, and you the shadow. You are to cease thinking of yourself as other from my niece - you are to be her shadow, as Temar is mine. You will go where she goes, you will watch instead of being watched, you will hear instead of being heard. Do you understand me?" - Eral Celys, Duke of Voltur”
― Moira Katson, Shadowborn

“I know a lie when I see one, Catwin—even from you, now. I didn’t once, you know. I thought you incapable of lying to me; I was wrong. You didn’t know how big a mistake you made, when you deceived me for Miriel’s little charade. Because until I discovered your lies, I did not know what it was that I was seeing in you. Now, I do. I know when you lie to me, and I will find out your secrets.”
― Moira Katson, Shadow's End

“In the dark of those nights, I learned then that it was not enough for me to endure and wait. I must find a way out of this maze of misery.”
― Moira Katson, Shadowborn

“sometimes one moment can give you the whole key to a person.”
― Moira Katson, Shadowborn

“He smiled; I was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he smiled for the express purpose of terrifying people.”
― Moira Katson, Shadowborn

“No one listens to what I might think about how to solve the problems Heddred faces. When I became King, I became no longer a person. Now, I think all they want of me is for me to let them rule in my stead, and get them an heir. And of course, all of them have daughters that they push forward.”
― Moira Katson, Shadowborn

“Realizations are strange things. They are composed outside of the conscious self, they are the ends of paths we cannot tread in our waking minds, and for this reason, the most shocking realizations may stab across one’s mind, and yet be gone in an instant, fleeting, known-and-unknown.”
― Moira Katson

“He could not admit mistakes, and his decisions were too weighty to be undone without strong will and a graceful heart, an ability to name himself as wrong. Garad was not that strong, he was too driven to be loved, too driven to be a storybook King with a perfect kingdom.”
― Moira Katson, Shadowforged

“remembering the long list of names and”
― Moira Katson, Shadowborn

“connection between the two of us.”
― Moira Katson, Shadowborn

“The days seemed ceaseless and unchanging, I opened my eyes each morning with weariness.”
― Moira Katson, Shadowforged

“I was so alone, and I was so afraid. I had never faced the world alone. I did not know how to survive alone.”
― Moira Katson, Shadowforged

“I thought privately to myself that with so many omens and prophecies to warn them off, heroes were really awfully stupid to go wandering into dark caves.”
― Moira Katson

“The world had gone horribly, completely wrong and the only way open to them was to keep walking forwards.”
― Moira Katson, Shadowborn

“Do not worry about what words to use. Worry about why this story needs to be told and the rest will take care of itself.”
― Moira Katson