Grace

“There was something terrible in her, something clawed and angry and afraid and sad… The truth of Ayla, the pain of her, was like a song you could feel vibrating on the air, even if you didn’t know the words. It was a hum, low and throaty and full of sorrow.”
― Nina Varela, Crier's War

“Crier wanted to point to her chest, this is the hurting part, this is the bleeding part, fix it or take it out.”
― Nina Varela, Crier's War

“She had never really seen a pair of eyes like this. It was like standing in the doorway to a dark room, like balancing on a threshold, holding a lantern up and watching how it kissed some things gold and left other things in shadow. It was the kind of dark that hid and held a lot of things. A hot fluid dark, a summer tide pool dark, a wild breathless dark.”
― Nina Varela, Crier's War

“She didn't usually feel the aloneness quite this much, but it was harder, this time of year, to ignore the graveyard in her chest.”
― Nina Varela, Crier's War