Luke Crain

“I can't do this," Genya whispered. Her face was swollen from crying. Her vibrant hair lay limp down her back.
"You don't have to do anything," Zoya said. "Just be here. Stay standing."
"Not even that."
"I've got you. I won't let you fall.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Rule of Wolves

“Nikolai winked at her. "If I had anyone but Genya Safin in charge, I might be worried."
Zoya rolled her eyes. "She doesn't need your flattery. She already thinks enough of herself."
"Let him go on," said Genya. "David never gives me pretty compliments."
"Don't I?" asked David. He patted his pocket absently. "I have the list of your good qualities you gave me somewhere."
"You see what I endure?”
― Leigh Bardugo, King of Scars

“When the last of the foreign dignitaries had filled the hall, Genya and David entered. Genya looked serene, but he could see the strain around the corners of her mouth. David seemed distracted as always.
“No need to worry,” said Genya. “You’re doing marvellously.”
David frowned, his face thoughtful. “So when you said This is a fiasco—”
“It’s a figure of speech.”
“But—”
“Be silent, David.”
“That bad?” whispered Isaak miserably.
Genya offered him a brittle approximation of a smile. “At best, our visitors think Nikolai is eccentric, and at worst insane.”
― Leigh Bardugo, King of Scars

“I relied on him to find answers I couldn’t, to blaze a path when I found myself lost. David saw things no one else did. He saw through the world to the mysteries on the other side. I know that he’s gone on to solve those mysteries.” A faint smile touched Nikolai’s lips. “I can see him in some great library, already lost in his work, head bent to some new problem, making the unknown known. When I enter the laboratory, when I wake in the night with a new idea, I will miss him…” His voice broke. “I miss him now. May the Saints receive him on a brighter shore.”
“May the Saints receive him,” the crowd murmured. But David hadn’t believed in Saints. He’d believed in the Small Science. He’d believed in a world ordered by facts and logic.
What do you believe? Zoya didn’t know. She believed in Ravka, in her king, in the chance that she could be a part of something better than herself. But maybe she didn’t deserve that.
All eyes had turned to Genya now. She was David’s wife, his friend, his compatriot. She was expected to speak.
Genya stood straighter, lifted her chin. “I loved him,” she said, her body still trembling as if it had been torn apart and hastily stitched back together. “I loved him and he loved me. When I was … when no one could reach me … he saw me. He…” Genya turned her head to Zoya’s shoulder and sobbed. “I loved him and he loved me.”
Was there any greater gift than that? Any more unlikely discovery in this world?
“I know,” said Zoya. “He loved you more than anything.”
The dragon’s eye had opened and Zoya felt that love, the enormity of what Genya had lost. It was too much to endure knowing she could do nothing to erase that pain”
― Leigh Bardugo, Rule of Wolves