Light Bringer Quotes

"To be the master of so much power is to be trapped by it. I prefer my destroyer. To be a dragon rather than a volcano."

"It is better for an enemy to be strong and visible than to be missing and capable"

"my grandmother exposed me to several warrior specimens at a young age to ‘inoculate me from fear.’ She’d put them on a collar in my room, until I could fall asleep at the drop of a pin. Little did she know it’d be a goblin who would haunt my nightmares."

"They are a race of relentless darkness. That is their home, after all: the darkness out there in the Kuiper Belt. And darkness always finds a way. They are the product of a failed rebellion. The scions of the warriors who followed King Kuthul. They are consummate survivors. Clever enough to know what they’re good at, wise enough to realize what they are not. To think of them as simply space-dwelling Obsidians is to underestimate them."

"I too shall lie in the dust when I am dead, but now let me win noble renown."

"if you’re going to eat sausage, you should be able to stomach seeing how it’s made."

"When life springs forth, death follows behind,” interrupts Aurae, quoting from the book. “When goodness is found, evil is close at hand…” “The path straddles the boundary between these things,” I reply."

"Here’s what. We start skinning the Raa’s toes first,” Sevro says a few hours later. Diomedes has gained consciousness, and he’s not talking yet. Sevro has one of his knives out and leans back in one of the lounge’s sofas, his voice soft as if telling a children’s story. “You always start with the digits. I have made a paring knife that will do just fine. There’s lots of nerves in the toes. The most sensitive are under the cuticles. After we flay his toesies, we’ll salt them. Then we’ll bash them, right? One by one. Then I’ll use Tickler here and we’ll work our way up."

"Honor, dipshit. The Rim and Cassius have something in common. They’re new to this war. They don’t know what we know. Honor, if it ever existed, was the first casualty."

"Diomedes was your friend, but barely. So take a moment. Weigh your loss against ours. We who have given our blood, our lives, our futures to House Lune. We who have abdicated legacy for ourselves by forsaking the chance for children. We who would give our lives for you, if you but asked.” He sets his Praetorian dagger on his thigh. “And consider, perhaps we are due more than gratitude, gilded though it might be."

"The future of the Society should be decided by its patriots, not its betrayers. The Rim is eating the meal they served us."

"Ugly business, godhood, but not the first time a man’s hidden behind the visage of the divine."

"A Gorgon once is a Gorgon forever. His birth name is Vagnar Hefga, and he is the finest soldier with whom I have ever served."

"Banished to the dark, we found solace in the fact that we were spending our lives spreading the light of the Society. It was our sustenance. Our religion. Then came the Battle of Ilium. Then Luna itself fell. Then the light went out.” He looks down. “Nothing can live long without light. Nothing good."

"Our most noble families are rife with desire for vengeance. For power. Division is a cancer, Lysander, and I am excising the affected tissue."

"I do not do this for glory or my own satisfaction. I do this because I believe in the Society enough to be the tool it requires. I am a monster because a monster is needed. But after, when the monster has rampaged and terrorized the people, they will need a savior to gather them up, remind them of their better values, and lead them to a better, more unified future. I have brought darkness to the worlds in its fullest extreme so you can bring the light."

"If you wish to be straightened, you must first be bent crooked."

"Couldn’t handle your brother dying in the Passage, even though those were the rules you people made. Had to pout. So big, so small. Needy little Bellona. Sad, lonely Cassius. You’re hollow, man. Can’t even stand straight without a woman inflating your spine."

"I tried to be a da. But it ain’t what Barcas do. We can be nightmares. That’s what we can do. Make the enemy scared. Goblin’s what they need. Out here. Goblin gets shit done."

"The Abomination reminded me of something I’d always known deep down, but had forgotten. Kids. Wife. Money. Fame. Victory. All that soft shit; it ain’t for me. I’m not allowed to have it. Sevro craves all that. Sevro is weak. Sevro slags up. Sevro wants the family and the peace and the quiet. That’s how the clone got me. Sevro needs. Not the Goblin. Goblin eats nails, shits fire. He can do what Sevro can’t."

"I wish you could see what I see, man. What Victra sees, what your girls see, what millions of Red children see when we look at you. The Goblin is a holy terror, yes. He’s a useful tool, he makes the enemy scared and our people brave.” Sevro squints at me, surprised at my sudden agreement. “But Sevro Barca?” I ask. “Hades. He’s the stage on which the Goblin sometimes comes out for a guest appearance. He’s the man who made the Howlers. He’s the one who keeps the Reaper in check. Keeps everyone in check. He was Ragnar’s brother. Sevro’s a leader, a father, a friend. He’s the one Athena sent this message to. Not the Goblin. Not me. We need Sevro to realize how tall he stands. Because if the Golds can beat him into believing he is small, wretched, what hope do the rest of us have?"

"In the cold prison of our minds, we are alone with our self-hatred, our doubts, and guilt. No one more than Sevro. A friend may reach through the bars and hold our hand, but they cannot open the door for us. Only the prisoner has the key. All I can do is remind him we’re waiting for him when he gets out."

"Lysander, this is how it has always been. The vaunted past we so revere saw thousands of cities fall to thousands of armies. Periods of trauma are traded for periods of peace. The greater the trauma, the longer the peace. Bear it, and this year will be the last year you see war in your lifetime."

"A man from the wilderness who has never heard music might come upon a city and hear through a window the song of a violin. It makes no matter if he knows the complexity of the piece, or the reverence culture has for the instrument, he will stop and listen because he can recognize the rarity of beauty. These Ascomanni would go into the house and beat the player to death for making a racket, enslave the children, break the violin, and burn down the house. All of them. They do not seek context, or assimilation, only domination. If it does not fit into their paradigm, they destroy it."

"I find little glory in war,” he says. “Satisfaction yes, for a job well done. I claimed Aleskandar au Rûn upon my blade. He was a worthy foe, and met a worthy end. That was proper. I bested him man to man. But others, great names—Cassander au Megara, Alethia au Codovan, Talia au Anthos…I saw them done under by reptiles, spit, skinned. Their warrior virtue, and it was virtue, was denied. That is why I hang my head, dominus. There is much to admire in our foe, and little in our allies."