Naomi Novik

I’m not stupid, nor a liar,” I said, “and if I can’t do any good, I can at least do something

But I had not known that I was strong enough to do any of those things until they were over and I had done them. I had to do the work first, not knowing.

The only thing that had ever done me any good in my father’s house was thinking: no one had cared what I wanted, or whether I was happy. I’d had to find my own way to anything I wanted. I’d never been grateful for that before now, when what I wanted was my life.

They all had stories. They had mothers or fathers, sisters or lovers. They weren't alone in the world, mattering to no one but themselves. It seemed utterly wrong to treat them like pennies in a purse. I felt the soldiers understood perfectly well that we were making sums out of them-- this many safe to spend, this number too high, as if each one wasn't a whole man.

A power claimed and challenged and thrice carried out is true

A robber who steals a knife and cuts himself cannot cry out against the woman who kept it sharp.

And I wasn’t old enough to be wise, so I loved her more, not less, because I knew she would be taken from me soon.

But the world I wanted wasn't the world I lived in, and if I would do nothing until I could repair every terrible thing at once, I would do nothing forever.

A crowd of women around me doing the ocean of women’s work that never subsided and never changed and always swallowed whatever time you gave it and wanted more, another hungry body of water. I submerged into it like a ritual bath and let it close over my head gladly.

She was safe for another moment, one more moment, and all of life was only moments, after all.

Thrice, mortal maiden,” in a rhyme almost like a song, “Thrice you shall turn silver to gold for me, or be changed to ice yourself.

Of course I was afraid. But I had learned to fear other things more: being despised, whittled down one small piece of myself at a time, smirked at and taken advantage of. I put my chin up and said, as cold as I could be in answer, “And what will you give me in return?