Jane

“Rise, red as the dawn.”
― Victoria Aveyard, Red Queen

“All right, silent dark bear with angry frown, tell me more about your land.”

He settled back down, picturing it. “I would tend to our land from the moment the sun rose to when it set and then you ...she would tend to me.”

He laughed at her expression again. The world of exile camps and the Valley felt very far away, and he wanted to lie there forever.

“Let me tell you about your bride,” she said, propping herself up on her elbows.

“Both of you would cultivate the land. You would hold the plow, and she would walk alongside you with the ox, coaxing and singing it forward. A stick in her hand, of course, for she would need to keep both the ox and you in line.”

“What would we...that is, my bride and I, grow?”

“Wheat and barley.”
“And marigolds.”
Her nose crinkled questioningly.

“I would pick them when they bloomed,” he said. “And when she called me home for supper, I’d place them in her hair and the contrast would take my breath away.”

“How would she call you? From your cottage? Would she bellow, ‘Finnikin!’?”

“I’d teach her the whistle. One for day and one for night.”

“Ah, the whistle, of course. I’d forgotten the whistle.”
― Melina Marchetta, Finnikin of the Rock

“The beautiful thing about books was that anyone could open them.”
― Victoria Schwab, This Savage Song

“She bewitches you," Trevanion said. "And she is yours for the taking. Any fool can see that. So take her and get whatever needs to be gotten out of your system."
...
"Maybe you are right, Trevanion," he said, turning back to his father. "But it is her hope that bewitches me, and that hope I may never get out of my system, no matter how many times she's to be gotten. Can you not see it burning in her eyes? Does it not make you want to look away when you have none to give in return? Her hope fills me with... something other than this dull weight I wake with each morning.”
― Melina Marchetta, Finnikin of the Rock