Sarah Connell > Recent Status Updates

“You can’t look around every time you think you’re not alone otherwise you may never stop”

“It wasn’t right, she mused, to know so much of someone else’s future. No one should have such knowledge.”

Not what i was expecting.

I swear this author 1. Wants the villains to win and 2. Is trying to give me a heart attack.

That’s a bit of a stretch.

I’m still wondering, why is everyone afraid of the 8 gods returning?

“The red moss covered the left side of his face, completely obscuring one eye and colonising the inside of his nose, and for the last hour or so he had been shouting random phrases, gibbering as though in the grip of a terrible fever. He quietened for a moment, and Augusta pushed a damp cloth against what was left of his forehead. ‘It’s in his eyes, I’m telling you, it’s getting in their brains.”

Hmmmmmmmm

wooo glad we made it out of that throne room scene. 80 pages is a LONG prologue. This new character seems much more interesting.

“Sometimes no power is the wisest choice, he reminded himself. Power led to a knife in your hand, a series of empty rooms, and blood. Always blood.”

“The site itself had not been easy to find – she supposed that there were whole sections of Euriale that were simply much easier to traverse when you were a giant sentient spider – and now they were met with more obstacles.”

“Another monster was crawling its way over the shattered edge of the wreck: a giant, glorious lizard of cream and gold scales, its eyes like beautiful amber lamps.
It was a dragon, and on its back was a wild man with black hair and beard, a sword held in one hand, and a look of triumph in his eyes.”

Ohhh it’s old school norms.

“We were eating lunch. It may not be interesting to you. [father] said, ‘humans will always have need of three things: food, transport and funerals.’ And so i became a funeral director. and now it’s my job to dispose of terminated workers…i don’t know if you grieve over a coworker. But we perform the ritual anyway, out of respect.”

“Don’t go into the second room. It’s not nice in there. You’ve got the choice, you can make us go in your place. We’ve already been in there. You can still save yourselves. I don’t know if i’m human anymore. Am I human? Does it say in your files what I am?”

“All of us here are condemned to a dream of romantic love even though no one i know loves in that way or lives that kind of life. Yet these are the dreams you’ve given us. I know the smell of oak moss…tell me, did you plant this perception in me? Is it a part of the program? Or did it come up inside me of its own accord?”

“It’s only two rooms. You’d probably say that it’s a small world. But not if you have to clean it.”

…why are we still talking about how helping a pretty older woman with her bag makes this guy feel important? Pages upon pages of it.

“The web had ended just below her neck; when she looked down she could see the contours of her own body outlined in pale silver, as though she were already a ghost.

‘There,’ said a voice from directly behind her. It was low and deep, with strange harmonies. Wydrin felt all the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. ‘Now there will be no distractions.’”

“Bigotry is an odd thing. To be bigoted you have to be absolutely sure that you are right and nothing makes that surety and righteousness like continence. Continence is the foe of heresy.”

“The voice was low and somehow insubstantial, and it seemed to come from inside his head. At the same time, the pond in front of him grew dark, as though something behind him were casting a large shadow. He could feel a presence, a terrible unseen shape, standing so close behind him that he was sure he should feel its breath on his neck. He knew, somehow, that it would be a bad idea to turn around.”

“She brushed her hands together: green and pink ghosted away like smoke; violet and white tumbled to the ground. The steerswoman closed her eyes and listened. The endless sound of [ocean], now quieter; the sudden cry of a gull, sharp, like a little knife of sound. No sound of demons, no voices or footsteps of humans.”

“What might the world be like, in the absence of humankind?

Perhaps like this, everywhere. Perhaps nothing like this. Perhaps stranger.

She tucked her hands under her arms and sat wrapped in her cloak, with the cooling earth beneath, the cooling air falling from above, and the chill sight and sound of the stars all around her.”

“The [mooring] line was marked by a sphere of murky yellow glass…Above the tide line there was a small but solid hut…Outside, water barrels crowded against the hut, some in various stages of being reduced to firewood. These last gave Rowan an eerie feeling; there remained here a feeling of work interrupted. Rowan caught herself looking around warily, half expecting someone to suddenly return.”

“It was a little like making the Edenier trap – the same sense of cold satisfaction at creating something from nothing – but without the creeping horror and sensation of violation that came with using demon-tainted magic. A fly touched his face, and he batted it away impatiently, smearing black mud there. He barely noticed.”

Glad I’m on vacation bc I can’t put this book down

“he couldn't fight them with a sword, like Rowan, or with a bow, like Arvin. Maybe he wasn't any better with words than he was with a sword or a bow, but he wouldn't die if he tried and failed at it. Which he might, with a sword or a bow. "Right."

She clapped him on the shoulder, like he'd seen
the militia do with each other. "Good man. You start on one end, I'll start on the other"