Adrius au Augustus Quotes

"Let me go and I will give you her head on a platter, if you want. If you lend me an apple, I’ll even put that in her mouth so she looks like a pig at feast. Your choice."

"Wish I could have been something more … regal than Jackal, but reputations tend to make themselves."

"I confess, I am a Politico, not a fighter. So if we’re to converse, you must say something, Reaper. You look like a statue. I don’t speak statue."

"After months in darkness, you eat whatever your mouth finds. Even if it’s still moving. It isn’t very impressive, really. Less human than I would have liked, very much like animals."

"Humans are always negotiating. That’s what conversation is. Someone has something, knows something. Someone wants something."

"Reaper. Reaper. Reaper. You think this is the end of the line?” He makes a clicking sound of disgust with his tongue. “Negative. Negative, goodman. But if you let me go, then hardship …” He makes a brushing motion with his free hand. “Gone. My father will become your patron. Hello, command. Hello, fame. Hello, power. Just say goodbye to this”—he gestures to the knife—“and let your future begin. We were enemies as children. Now let us be allies as men. You’re the sword, I’m the pen."

"Cheat or be cheated, no?"

"I told you. I am something different than you. A hand is a peasant’s tool. A Gold’s tool is his mind. Were you of better breeding, you may have realized this sacrifice means so very little to me."

"Then let us rise together. I the scepter, you the sword."

"Power is the crown that eats the head"

"tomorrow, a traitor will be king, and an Empress shall be traitor, so maybe wicked men can be virtuous."

"They were wrong. Your side isn’t made of stone."

"Then farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear. Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost.” He whispers to some distant, fading part of himself as he lazily lifts the scorcher to his father’s forehead. “Evil, be thou my good."

"So now you call me son?” He clucks his tongue scoldingly and straightens his father’s jacket. “Was I your son when you put me on a rock for the elements to claim me? Three days. I was a baby. The Board didn’t even want an Exposure. But you thought I was so weak, and Claudius so strong. Was he strong when I had Karnus put him in the ground?"

"I paid Karnus au Bellona seven million credits and six Pinks to sully Claudius’s girl. I knew Claudius’s honor would lead him into the ring. Funny thing is … it was your money. I asked you for it so I could invest in my future. And I did.” He frowns. “Father, did you really think a ten-year-old cares about the Silver market? You should have paid better attention."

"I am your boy,” the Jackal sneers. “I was a good son. I worshipped you. I feared you. I obeyed you. I learned what you wished me to learn. I went where you wished me to go. I did only as your will commanded. Yet I was not enough."

"This is always how the story would end,” he says to me. “Not with your screams. Not with your rage. But with your silence."

"I listened to your proposal, now listen to mine. Run. Now. While you can. But know, wherever you go, wherever you hide, you cannot protect your friends. I’m going to kill them all and put you back in the darkness with their severed heads for company. There is no way out, Darrow. This I promise you."

"I’ve not parted with your gift,” he says. He traces the head of the jackal. “All my life I’ve been given lions. Nothing of my own. What does it say about me that my greatest enemy knows me better than any friend?"

"It’s easy to fool a romantic. To think he was right there when I took his girl. You went running by in the hall screaming Tactus’s name, and he looked up in confusion. I pushed a sliver of Quinn’s skull deeper into her brain with my scalpel. I thought about letting her live with brain damage. But the thought of her drooling everywhere made me sick. You think he still would have loved her if she drooled?"

"Love is for the weak. The only thing you and I have in common is our hunger. You think that I cannot be satisfied. That I always yearn for more. But look in the mirror and you’ll see the same man staring back at you. Tell your little Red friends what you like. But I know you lost yourself among us. You yearned to be Gold. I saw it in your eyes at the Institute. I saw that fever on Luna when I proposed that we should rule. I saw it when you rode that triumphal chariot up to the steps of the citadel. It’s that hunger that makes us forever alone."

"Not even evolved enough to have a Color, Darrow? Just a homo sapiens playing in the realm of gods."

"My dear father thought a man’s deeds make him. I rather think it’s his enemies."

"Set aside your little grievances. Today we are Gold. We can bicker when the Rising is ash. Most of you lived the darkness of the caves with me. You watched by my side as this…creature stole what was ours. They will take everything from us. Our homes. Our slaves. Our right to rule. Today we fight to keep what is ours. Today we fight against the dying of our Age."

"He’s no Gold,” the Jackal explains. “He doesn’t deserve a razor or a state death. He’ll go like his uncle. In any matter, I very much would like to begin the transition as the hand of justice. Plus, offing Darrow with Sevro’s gun is…more poetic, don’t you think, Octavia?"