16 Quotes by Varsha Ravi

So this is the power of a god, she had thought, a little unsteady, a little fearful. If that was him fully bound—if even a slight release in the sankhili meant he burned like the sun—then she could not fathom what he would be like once unbound.If you lock away a god’s power, she thought, do they become human?

I have always wanted a brother. I have a sister, instead, and I love her very much, but I also wanted a brother. Have you ever felt like that?” At the other boy’s resounding, bemused silence, he continued, “Do you want to be brothers, then? We can be family.

The ghosts of her past never left her, save for the few moments of aching relief she had in the ring. And soon enough, the ring would be gone—the city itself would be gone, the citizens nothing but ink smudged numbers in a ledger and an addition to the accusatory voices in the back of her head.

I believe in happy endings,” she agreed, “And I believe in the gods who grant them. But I don’t believe in their silence damning us. If the gods never answer, then we learn to make happy endings of our own.

Kiran was dying, but he could no longer tell whether it was from the blood staining the stone red; he could no longer tell whether this death had been pulled from his body long before the knife had ever met his skin. The anger had taken that knowledge from him, had blurred the lines between gold and red. His mouth tasted of blood and ash.

War is war,” he said simply. “People aren’t nations, even though they may wish it. No matter what happens, war will continue, and people will die. But where I stand now, I can try to limit the latter as best I can.

I want to hear all of your stories,” she said, fierce as fire. “Every single one. I don’t care whether they have happy endings or not.

What were love stories but dreams of worlds where the sun and moon could linger beside one another long enough to learn the language of the other’s heart?

But he was still human; even if the flames wrapped him in their warmth and kept him awake, he weakened as any other mortal weakened when kept from sleep. And, eventually, he grew weak enough that the darkness grew closer and closer, and the quiet of the city stole into his blood and silenced it entirely.