Elyse

“If there was one thing Zafira didn't do, it was hope. Hope was as much a disease as love was.”
― Hafsah Faizal, We Hunt the Flame

“No one truly measured a mother's touch until they could no longer feel it. No one missed a mother's love until the well was depleted.”
― Hafsah Faizal, We Hunt the Flame

“He felt a flood of shame because she didn't fear him and a crackle of comfort before she didn't fear him.”
― Hafsah Faizal, We Hunt the Flame

“Will there ever come a time when you won't see me as a monster?' he asked suddenly.
She stopped at the softness of his tone, so unlike the unfeeling prince she had come to know. Some part of her wanted to reach for him, to smooth away the unhappiness creasing his face, to touch the scars that made him him.
'Monsters cannot become men,' she whispered instead, and the darkness hummed its agreement.
He exhaled through parted lips, and his unhappiness only increased. 'Of course. That was selfish of me.'
That does not mean I cannot love a monster.”
― Hafsah Faizal, We Hunt the Flame