Braxton Bird

“heads in shame.” “Why? I don’t understand. Dragons were monsters.” “Dragons are truth,” snapped Maralina. “Dragons are magic. Without them, the world would have been overrun with darkness of every kind. They should have been protected rather than exterminated.” “Why? If they hunted men and—” “Hush. Remember the parable of the wolf and the shepherd. Remember the history of the fall of Hakkia. You believe with all your heart that the truth is that dragons are evil, Kagen Vale. You were told this by teachers and Gardeners and others. But they told you what they were told, and what the generations before told them. All those repetitions make you believe this is a known and immutable truth, but is it? How would you—or could you—know otherwise?”
― Jonathan Maberry, Kagen the Damned

“Life is not as simple as good and evil. It is mostly lived in the pages in between.”
― Evelyn Skye, Damsel

“If you didn't figure it out, you weren't worthy of knowing." She huffs. "I waited six hundred and fifty years to hatch. Waited until your eighteenth summer, when I heard our elders talk of a weakling daughter of their general, the girl forecasted to become the head of the scribes, and I knew. You would have the mind of a scribe and the heart of a rider. You would be mine." She leans into my hand. "You are as unique as I am. We want the same things."
"You couldn't have known I would be a rider."
"And yet, here we are."
A thousand questions go through my head, none of which we have the time for, so I give her exactly what I wanted–to be seen for who and what she is.
"You are not a black dragon, or any of the six that we know of. You're a seventh breed."
"Yes." Her eyes widen in excitement.”
― Rebecca Yarros, Iron Flame

“There is no pride in conquest or bloodshed, only in kindness, only in decency. You enslave six hundred thousand. I saved two from the bull, and now I will save a third from you. That makes me worth more than all your wars could ever make you.”
― Daniel Arenson, Flame of Requiem: The Complete Trilogy