sabina

“Thud. Her father was immortal. Thud. The face she’d known all her life was a lie, aged forward by a sooth. Thud. How? Thud. How? Thud. Thud. Thud.”
― Joan He, Descendant of the Crane

“It should have healed without a scar. But no queen had time to apply tiger balm twice a day, and a bumpy seam of new skin gleamed under the lantern light.”
― Joan He, Descendant of the Crane

“She raised a hand, struggling to reach Hesina’s cheek. “Promise… you’ll finish this… in style.”
― Joan He, Descendant of the Crane

“I have done it," she says. At first I do not understand. But then I see the tomb, and the marks she has made on the stone. A C H I L L E S, it reads. And beside it, P A T R O C L U S.
"Go," she says. "He waits for you."

In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles