Susan Dennard

I can still make a fist, and breath still burns in my chest. So look at my face. Look at my mortal soul, and remember it. You did not crush me, and you will have the rest of eternity to think on it.

There are degrees of freedom. Complete freedom isn't always good, nor is the lack of it always bad.

Eleanor," Daniel said. "Miss Fitt! Wake up!"I fluttered my eyelids open. "I'm not a misfit anymore," I rasped. "I thought I told you that.

She was broken. She was useless. She was the pointless half of a friendship. The one who would live forever in shadows, no matter what she did. No matter whom she fought.

Merik swiveled his wrists slowly. At night, the temple was too dark to see the blood dripping from his arms, pooling on the granite flagstones. He felt it falling, though. Just as he felt the new, burned flesh on his hands stretching beneath torn gloves.Yet even as pain shivered through his body, he couldn__ help but think: Only a fool ignores Noden__ gifts. For if Merik looked at this case of mistaken identity from the just the right angle, it could in fact all be seen as boon.The assassin in the night. The fire on the Jana. The attack of a Waterwitch in Pin__ Keep. Each event had led Merik here, to Noden__ temple. To a fresco of the god__ left hand.To the Fury.Twice now, he__ been mistaken for that monstrous demigod, and twice now, it had worked in Merik__ favor. So why not continue using the fear invoked from that name? Was Merik not doing the Fury__ work by bringing justice to the wronged and punishment to the wicked? It was clear that Nubrevnans needed Merik__ help, and his sister Vivia_Well, she was stil out there. Alive. Wretched.So was it not Merik__ moral duty to keep her off the throne? And he could do that if he could just prove she had indeed tried to kill him__hat it was she who__ purchased that prisoner from Vizer Linday, and she who__ sent the prisoner to kill Merik.Yes. This was right. This was Noden__ will. It throbbed in Merik__ wounds. It shivered across his scalp and down his raw back.Take the god__ gift. Become the Fury.Merik rose, stiff but strong, from the temple floor, and with a new purpose in his movements, he tugged his hood, his sleeves, his gloves into place. Then he turned away from the Fury__ gruesome fresco and set out to bring justice to the wronged.Punishment to the wicked.

Curiosity is a strong fire, and once ignited, it is not easily put out.

Miss Fitt, you know curiosity gets men killed."I grinned. "Then I daresay it's good I'm a woman.

We waddled through life blindly, hoping to find something__nd someone__orth fighting for.

The fault is not in our stars," I whispered to the ceiling. "But in ourselves. This was my choice.

There was no heaven here. Eternal life meant waking up as a putrid corpse.