Melinda Salisbury Quotes & Sayings

Death always seemed so easy, I would read stories full of brave warriors and assassins and how they would deliver speedy deaths, and then walk away. They'd go to the taverns and drink with their friends, or go home to their lovers. They never said anything about how they felt afterwards. They took a life, and that was that. So easy. So . . . normal. And yet I don't think I'm ever going to forget how it felt to kill that man. It's one thing to cause a death, but another to deliver it. With hardly any pressure, or thought, I managed it. And I felt every inch of the knife sliding into him. I think I always will. They don't tell you that part. — Melinda Salisbury

And that, my girl, is the secret. Quake all you must on the inside. But on the outside you must be stone. And you never know; with enough practice it might become the truth. — Melinda Salisbury

A person can say a lot without speaking. — Melinda Salisbury

I was willing to make us into a proper family; I was willing to put the time into it. I've sent your brother to fetch your mother, despite needing him elsewhere, in a bid to make you happy. But I don't have time to play with you any more. Your friends are not the only ones who understand you're replaceable. You're alive only because I permit it, and I am fast running out of patience with you. So tomorrow evening, you will present yourself in the Great Hall an hour after sunset. You will wear something very pretty, and your best smile. And we will dine together, companionably.You will not try to stab me. You will not spit at me, or slap me. You will behave with decorum. In short, sweetling, you will make yourself special to me, or I will remove you from my game board. I need your brother, and I need the philtresmith. But I don't need you. Bear that in mind. — Melinda Salisbury

I was robbed, Errin." He strokes my face with his thumb before turning it back to him. "Of my life. Of my inheritance. Snuffed out at barely twenty-two years old. I have spent five hundred years asleep. I woke to nothing. The legacy my family spent generations building is ash, scattered to the wind. I was promised a kingdom," he snarls. "I was promised the greatest kingdom the world had ever known. And I will have one. If it means cobbling one together from the ruins of Lormere and Tregellan. — Melinda Salisbury

I've learned that being alone and being lonely are not the same thing. Once I was surrounded by people and lonely for it, but now I'm alone and I've never been so content. — Melinda Salisbury

That's the problem with fairy tales, they change with the telling. — Melinda Salisbury

Scarecrow queen. Nothing but a dupe, alone in a field, hoping to keep the crows at bay. — Melinda Salisbury

If I come to you, I want it to be because I am choosing you, for no reason other than that. I don't want for to ever doubt it. — Melinda Salisbury

Burn all the food, and people will starve, weaken, and turn on one another. Destroy the temples and their acolytes, and the people will have nowhere to turn, no sanctuary, no charity. No hope. — Melinda Salisbury

I am not cunning...I'm good at seeing around obstacles is all. — Melinda Salisbury

Forgive me again." He lifts the carafe and refreshes his goblet. "What happened to those two children who laughed at dandelion fuzz?" he says softly. "Are they gone forever, do you think? — Melinda Salisbury

It's difficult to grieve for an idea. — Melinda Salisbury

I would have sooner believed in fairy tales coming true.
Of course, we all believe in fairy tales now. The Scarlet Varulv has slunk out of the pages and lives with me in this cottage. The Sleeping Prince has woken and sacked Lormere, an army of alchemy-made golems behind him as he murders his way across the country.
Stories are no longer stories; characters run rampant through the world these days. All I'm waiting for is Mully-No-Hands to knock on the window, begging to come in and warm himself, and my life will be complete.
Actually, no, that's not what I'm waiting for. — Melinda Salisbury

People don't forget what it is to be loved. No matter how young or old you are, or for how long you had it, you always remember what it is to feel loved. — Melinda Salisbury

When will I be sure?"
"Sure of what?"
"Of me. Of who I am. Of what I'm here for. When will I know?"
"Never. You never will. No matter what happens. You will always have those moments of doubt and you will always make mistakes. — Melinda Salisbury

We're not Lormerians, with their temples and their living goddesses, and their creepy royal family. We're people of science, and reason. — Melinda Salisbury

I've been waiting for you," he says in his low, ragged voice.
All of him is ragged: his patched cloak; his shabby gloves, the fingertips thin and worn; his scuffed boots. His words always seem to catch on my insides, like a goose grass burr, or a torn fingernail dragged across silk. His voice sticks. — Melinda Salisbury

I am the perfect weapon, I can kill with a single touch. — Melinda Salisbury

That's the trouble with knowing things: you can't un-know them. Once you let yourself look at them, or say them aloud, they become real. — Melinda Salisbury

I can see the things he doesn't say, because they're written all over him. — Melinda Salisbury

What now?" he asks the rat catcher's daughter."What is your command?"
She frowns, then takes the writing stick and paper from him. She writes quickly, and then thrusts the paper towards him. Kiss me, it says. He pulls her into his arms and thinks, Finally. He does not need any further commands from her. — Melinda Salisbury

How could there be different Gods, Lief?"

"I don't believe there are any at all," he says quietly. "But I believe there are men and women whose lives are made easier by believing someone is watching over them. — Melinda Salisbury

In the stories of old, a hero is the one who sweeps in with a drawn sword and noble face, to kill the Dragon and free the princess. In the stories of old it never seems to dawn on the princess that she should be careful not to put herself at mercy of those who would do her ill in the first place.

I don't live in the stories of old. — Melinda Salisbury

Enough. I don't have time for this; self-pity's a luxury that I can't afford.
Like bread. Or pride.
Enough, Errin. There's work to do. Get up. — Melinda Salisbury

You're here," he says, and his voice is like sunshine, like honey, it's warm and rich and moreish. "I'm so very glad." Where Silas's voice is spikes and edges, every word a warning, this man's voice is smooth, velvety and beckoning. — Melinda Salisbury

Fortune favors the bold." I smile weakly.
"So does death," she counters immediately. "The craven tend to live much longer than the heroic. — Melinda Salisbury

In every fairy tale there is a kernel of truth, and that is the truth of this one. For him, I am poison. I am his death. And I will deliver. — Melinda Salisbury

Silas's mother walks to us, standing by her son. "We haven't been formally introduced," she says, looking down at Dimia and me. "I am Sister Hope, of the Sisters of Naeht. We're joined tonight by Sister Wisdom, Sister Peace, Sister Honour and Sister Courage." Each ones nods in turn, though there's nothing in their manner that would be recognized as friendly. Sister Peace even goes so far as curling her lip at us. — Melinda Salisbury

Were you disappointed?"
She takes a deep breath, looking down at her hands. "My heart was. My head wasn't. Most days I'm at war with myself. My head wins, usually. And for that I'm glad. — Melinda Salisbury

We're to be married. Does it matter if I permit it?"
"To me it does, yes," says Merek. "And I imagine you, like me, appreciate the illusion of having a choice, even when illusion is all it is. — Melinda Salisbury

But I want you," he smiles at me. "Not just to make me a king. I've always wanted you. Despite it all, you are still the bride I would choose. I do choose you. — Melinda Salisbury

I'm tired of taking people's sins on myself.
I'm tired of running away from everything.
I want to be like Errin. Like Nia. Like Sister Hope. I want to be the girl who fought a golem, the girl who slammed her hands on a table and told a room full of powerful women that I was going to fight, and to hell with them.
I survived the court of Lormere. I survived the journey to Scarron. I survived the Sleeping Prince's raid on the Conclave. I am a survivor. — Melinda Salisbury

I dream of the man, but it's fragmented: he's there, but he isn't. He's always one room away, in a place with more rooms than seems possible. I run down endless halls, longing for and dreading him being around the corner. I hear him call out for me and the skin on the back of my neck tightens and prickles. I don't know if I'm running to him, or from him. — Melinda Salisbury

High in the Tower of Love, the last remaining tower of Tallith, he rests on a bier, not living, not dead. He doesn't age, or change, needs no sustenance. He sleeps. He waits — Melinda Salisbury

... but for now it's too great a pleasure to stay in my own cottage, with my own books, and do exactly what I want to do. — Melinda Salisbury

Why do I matter to you?" I say, my voice breaking.
"You don't."
"Then why are you doing this?"
"Because I can. Because I slept for five hundred years and now I want some sport. — Melinda Salisbury

Sometimes he has me climb into his lap and sit there while he strokes my hair and tells me about the old days in Tallith. The seven towers of Tallith castle and the walkways between them, his life with his sister and his father. That sometimes he sounds so wistful and lonely that I forget for an instant that he's a monster, lulled by his soft voice and his hands in my hair. Until he turns my face to his and I see him, and I recall exactly what he is, and the look in my eyes reminds him that he might control my body, but he can't control my mind. Then he throws me to the ground and leaves me there for hours, unable to move until he wills it. — Melinda Salisbury