Julia's Book Haven

“You are now Korwahk warriors. You serve me,” she said just after Lahn thumped his chest. “You serve your golden queen,” she said after Lahn, not looking back, swung a muscular arm and pointed my way before dropping it. “You know nothing now but horseflesh between your legs, steel in your grip, blood on your tongue, victory your only focus. There is no other path. You have no mother. You have no father. You have no brothers except those who wear the paint. You have only The Horde. You are The Horde. You serve me, your queen, your Horde. You will seize bounty; you will claim your bride. You will grunt and sweat and bury your seed to create warriors. You do not own your flesh; The Horde owns your flesh. You sink your blade into flesh; you do it for The Horde. You will wake up a warrior, you will sleep a warrior and you will die a warrior.”
― Kristen Ashley, The Golden Dynasty

“Good Bones"

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.”
― Maggie Smith

“You know I love you," I whispered in his ear.

"I know," he whispered back, turned, I pulled my arms away and he got on his knees in front of me, his hands framing my face.

I looked in his dark eyes.

"Do you know how much?" I kept whispering.

"How much, baby?" Lahn kept whispering too.

I bent my forehead to his and told him the truth. "More than my world.”
― Kristen Ashley, The Golden Dynasty

“Courage
It is in the small things we see it.
The child's first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.

Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it with only a hat to
cover your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was a small coal
that you kept swallowing.
If your buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.”
― Anne Sexton