Valent’s Reviews > A Court of Frost and Starlight > Status Update

"She tried and failed to muster the shame. But nothing came. Nothing at all.
There was anger, occasionally. Sharp, hot anger that sliced her.
But most of the time it was silence.
She hadn't felt anything in months. Had days when she didn't really know where she was or what she'd done. They passed swiftly and yet dripped by."

"—How do you keep creating, despite what you lost?
—I have to. I have to create, or it was all for nothing. I have to create, or I will crumple up with despair and never leave my bed. I have to create because I have no other way of voicing this. It is hard, and it hurts, but if I were to stop, if I were to let this loom or the spindle go silent... Then there would be no hope shining in the void."

"I knew the words found their mark. My mate. Low. It was a low blow. I had everything I wished for, dreamed of, begged the stars to grant me.
He had nothing. Had been given everything and squandered it. He didn't deserve my pity, my sympathy.
No, Tamlin deserved what he'd brought upon himself, this husk of a life.
He deserved every empty room, every snarl of thorns, every meal he had to hunt for himself."

"—They train and train as warriors, and yet when they don't come home, their families make us into villains for sending them to war?
—Their families have lost something irreplaceable,— I said carefully.
—They're hypocrites.
—And what would you have me do, then? Disband the largest army in Prythian?"

"Keir ignored her.
His prefered method of insult: to act as if a person weren't worth the breath it'd take to speak with them.
Try something new, you miserable bastard".

"—There's a group of us who paint together at my studio. One night a week. We're meeting in two days' time. It would be an honor if you joined us.
—What sort of things do you paint? —My question was soft as the snow falling past us.
Ressina smiled slightly. —The things that need telling."

"And for the females: drudgery. They didn't see it as such. None of them did. But their required task, whether old or young, remained the same: cooking, cleaning, child-rearing, clothes-making, laundry... There was honor to be found in such tasks. But not when every single one of the females here was expected to do it. And if they shirked those duties, the males controlling their lives would punish them."