Mark Anthony

“And yet that did not frighten her as it should have. She knew how many faces people possessed, one hidden beneath the other, good and monstrous, brave and cowardly, all of them true. She had learned young that a fine-bred brother could turn into a brute over nothing. Nothing. She had sat with lords and princes and kings, binding them to the vision of Emperor Aditya upon the throne. She had known the size and clout of their personal armies, the names of their wives, their greed and whispered sins—she had met them and learned them as one learns any stranger. She had learned them in person; pried them open and controlled them, and had still been aware that beneath all their carefully cataloged hungers and weaknesses likely lay a multitude of selves she would never see.”
― Tasha Suri, The Jasmine Throne

“... people have many gifts," Kirah continued, "But our greatest good is the one we can't contain: compassion, loyalty, softness, fierceness. The ability to win hearts, or recognize beauty, or weather a storm... Our gift could be anything, really. And when we use our greatest good for something beyond ourselves, that's our best desire. Our purpose.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“The moment I saw you, I felt a tug. You are the feeling of falling, the tidal waters, the way a living thing will always turn, seeking light. It isn’t that I think you are good or kind, or even that I love you. It is only that, the moment I saw you, I knew I would seek you out. Just as I sought the deathless waters. Just as I sought my brother. Just as I seek all things—without thought, with nothing but want.”
― Tasha Suri, The Jasmine Throne

“It arrived. The brightness between us.”
― Eliot Schrefer, The Brightness Between Us