Ricarda

“He brushed his lips against her forehead as he drove the knife deeper into her back.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic

“All my life,” she said, “I have been told ‘go’ and ‘come.’ I am told how I will live, and I am told how I must die. I must be a man’s servant and a mare for his pleasure, or I must hide myself behind walls and surrender my flesh to a cold, silent god. I would walk into the jaws of hell itself, if it were a path of my own choosing. I would rather die tomorrow in the forest than live a hundred years of the life appointed me. Please. Please let me help you.”
― Katherine Arden, The Bear and the Nightingale

“Three little girls all eating things they weren’t supposed to eat. Three little girls all eating things in order to fill their bodies with something other than the anger, the rage, that would otherwise consume them.”
― Katrina Leno, Horrid

“There will be no redemption. It is not me who is wrong. It's everyone else.”
― Xiran Jay Zhao, Iron Widow