Sarah Connell’s Reviews > The Silver Tide > Status Update

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.’”

“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.”

“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.”