Arin Quotes

She turned to look at him, and he was already looking at her. “I’m going to miss you when I wake up,” she whispered, because she realized that she must have fallen asleep under the sun. Arin was too real for her imagination. He was a dream.“Don’t wake up,” he said.

~ Marie Rutkoski

He told himself a story. Not at first. At first, there wasn’t time for thoughts that came in the shape of words. His head was blessedly empty of stories then. War was coming. It was upon him. Arin had been born in the year of the god of death, and he was finally glad of it. He surrendered himself to his god, who smiled and came close. Stories will get you killed, he murmured in Arin’s ear. Now, you just listen. Listen to me.

~ Marie Rutkoski

Someone was coming through the velvet.He was pulling it wide, he was stepping onto Kestrel’s balcony—close, closer still as she turned and the curtain swayed, then stopped. He pinned the velvet against frame. He held the sweep of it high, at the level of his gray eyes, which were silver in the shadows.He was here. He had come.Arin.

~ Marie Rutkoski

As his people positioned themselves in and around the pass, Arin though that he might have misunderstood the Valorian addiction to war. He had assumed it was spurred by greed. By a savage sense of superiority. It had never occurred to him that Valorians also went to war because of love.Arin loved those hours of waiting. The silent, brilliant tension, like scribbles of heat lightning. His city far below and behind him, his hand on a cannon's curve, ears open to the acoustics of the pass. He stared into it, and even though he smelled the reek of fear from men and women around him, he was caught in a kind of wonder.He felt so vibrant. As if his life was fresh, translucent, thin-skinned fruit. It could be sliced apart and he wouldn't care. Nothing felt like this.

~ Marie Rutkoski

A strange feeling: as if filaments trailed from Arin's body. A thousand fishing lines snagging attention. Here and there. Little tugs. People caught on the lines. The way sometimes people couldn't look him in the eye, and when they did they become fish trying to breath air. He wished it weren't like that.He knew it would be necessary.

~ Marie Rutkoski

Arin. I've wanted to do this for a long time.Her words silenced him, steadied him.Antecipation lifted within her like the fragance of a garden under the rain. She sat at the piano, touching the keys. Ready?He smiled. Play.

~ Marie Rutkoski

Something tugged inside him. A flutter of unease.Do you sing? Those had been her first words to him, the day she had bought him. A band of nausea circled Arin’s throat, just as it had when she had asked him that question, in part for the same reason. She’d had no trace of an accent. She had spoken in perfect, natural, mother-taught Herrani.

~ Marie Rutkoski

She had dreams that shamed her in the morning, dreams where Ronan gave her a white powdered cake, yet spoke in Arin's voice. I made this for you, he said. Do you like it?The powder was so fine that she inhaled its sweetness, but always woke before she could taste.

~ Marie Rutkoski

She said, I'm going to miss you when you when I wake up.Don't wake up, he answered.But he did.Kestrel, beside him on the grass, said. Did I wake you? I didn't mean to.

~ Marie Rutkoski

He'd believed it. She couldn't believe that he believed it. Sometimes, she hated him for that.

~ Marie Rutkoski

Yet he understood that there are some things you feel and others that you choose to feel, and that the choice doesn't make the feeling less valid.

~ Marie Rutkoski

It was different to give something up than to see it taken away. The difference, Kestrel said, was choice.

~ Marie Rutkoski

Come closer, and I will tell you.But he forgot. He kissed her, and became lost in the exquisite sensation of his skin becoming too tight for his body. He murmured other things instead. A secret, a want, a promise. A story, in its own way.

~ Marie Rutkoski

It dropped ice to the bottom of his stomach. He thought of the ruined bodies he'd seen, including the ones he himself had ruined. He realized that he had somehow expected that he'd never have to think again about the way people damage other people. The night of the invasion. Kestrel's back. His own. Roshar's scarred face. His own.

~ Marie Rutkoski

Arin, you’re not listening. You’re not thinking clearly.”“You’re right. I haven’t been thinking clearly, not for a long time. But I understand now.” Arin pushed his tiles away. His winning hand scattered out of line. “You have changed, Kestrel. I don’t know who you are anymore. And I don’t want to.

~ Marie Rutkoski

She'd betrayed her country because she'd believed it was the right thing to do. Yet would she have done this, if not for Arin?He knew none of it. Had never asked for it. Kestrel had made her own choices. It was unfair to blame him.But she wanted to.

~ Marie Rutkoski

Little Fists, what's wrong?

~ Marie Rutkoski

The guard hit Kestrel across the face. “I said, what did you give him?”You had a warrior’s heart, even then.Kestrel spat blood. “Nothing,” she told the guard. She thought of her father, she thought of Arin. She told her final lie. “I gave him nothing.

~ Marie Rutkoski

Will you come with me?Ah, Kestrel, that's something you never need to ask.

~ Marie Rutkoski

Her innocence was maddening. She should know. She should know what her steward had done. She should know it to be her fault whether she’d given the order or not–and whether she knew or not. Innocent? Her? Never.He did not want her to know. He did not want her to see. But:Look at me, he found himself thinking furiously at her. Look at me. She lifted her eyes, and did.

~ Marie Rutkoski