Yen

“You think because you can humiliate me, you can control me?” I say, looking him in those black eyes. “Well, I think you’re an idiot. Since we started being tutored together, you’ve gone out of your way to make me feel like I’m less than you. And to coddle your ego, I have made myself less. I have made myself small, I have kept my head down. But it wasn’t enough to make you leave Taryn and me alone, so I’m not going to do that anymore. “I am going to keep on defying you. I am going to shame you with my defiance. You remind me that I am a mere mortal and you are a prince of Faerie. Well, let me remind you that means you have much to lose and I have nothing. You may win in the end, you may ensorcell me and hurt me and humiliate me, but I will make sure you lose everything I can take from you on the way down. I promise you this”—I throw his own words back at him—“this is the least of what I can do.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Though he’d trusted her with his life countless times, it felt much more frightening to trust her with his shame.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“The world, no matter how big, is often smaller than we realize.”
― Jennifer L. Armentrout, A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire

“And I realized—I realized how badly I'd been treated before, if my standards had become so low. If the freedom I'd been granted felt like a privilege and not an inherent right.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Mist and Fury