Radu Quotes

“My lord...I can explain-," Louis-Cesare began, looking less than certain that he could do anything of the kind.
Radu held up a hand. "I am sure there is a perfectly good reason why my niece is naked and tied to her bed. I am also equally certain that I do not wish to hear it".”
― Karen Chance, Midnight's Daughter

“..If anyone is going to kill you, it will be me. Understand?"
Radu nodded, snuggling into her shoulder. "Will you protect me?
"Until the day I kill you." She jabbed a finger into his side, where he was most ticklish, and he squealed with pained laughter.”
― Kiersten White, And I Darken

“I glanced at Radu. "What, exactly is Louis-Cesare's problem?'. [..]
Suddenly a speculative gleam lit his eyes. It made me nervous. 'He tends to be very protective of women,"he said thoughtfully. "You're a woman Dory."
"Thank you for pointing that out. But I didn't think dhampirs qualified."
Radu smirked. "It appears you've been upgraded.”
― Karen Chance, Midnight's Daughter

“Yes, but knee pants are so much more flattering. You can see my legs."
You want people to see your legs?"
I have very nice legs!" We both paused to admire them for a moment.”
― Karen Chance, Death's Mistress

“I wonder if anyone gets through childhood without being broken. I certainly did not.”
― Kiersten White, Now I Rise

“You once told me some lives are worth more than others. How many deaths before the scales tip
out of our favor?”
She had no answer.”
― Kiersten White, And I Darken

“He would die on the wall tonight, between his brothers and his enemies, because he could no longer distinguish between the two. They had finally come to the end. Whichever side won, neither would triumph.”
― Kiersten White, Now I Rise

“There are other ways to beat someone than with fists.”
― Kiersten White, And I Darken

“I have met your sister, and I have met Mehmed. They love themselves and their ambition above all else. They love what feeds their ambition, and when it stops feeding that, the love will turn to hate with more passion than either could ever love with. You love with all your heart, Radu, and deserve someone who can answer that with all of theirs.”
― Kiersten White, Now I Rise

“I do not know how to live in a world where everyone is right and everyone is wrong. Constantine was a good man, and he was also a fool who threw away the lives of his people. I have loved Mehmed with everything I am since I was a child, and I have longed to enter this city triumphant with him. But now that we are here, I cannot look at him without hearing the cries of the dying, without seeing the blood on my hands. Nazira and I—we ate and dreamed and walked and bled with these people. And now they are gone, and my people are here, but I do not know who I am anymore.”
― Kiersten White, Now I Rise

“He respected them, and he hated them, and he knew the world would be lesser for their deaths.”
― Kiersten White, Now I Rise

“He had imagined Constantinople, had wanted it for Mehmed. It had been simple and straightforward. But now he knew the true cost of things, the murky horrors of the distance between wanting something and getting it.”
― Kiersten White, Now I Rise

“But they were capable of greatness. Destined for it, even.”
“Then do not aim for greatness. Aim for goodness. And however you get there will be the right path for you, my sweet Radu.”
― Kiersten White, Bright We Burn

“Today, he saw the true cost of two men’s immovable wills. He saw what happened when men were forced to fight each other for months on end. It was not merely sickness of the body that plagued sieges, but sickness of the soul that turned men into monsters.”
― Kiersten White, Now I Rise

“Perhaps, looking out over it, Mehmed saw what the beginning of his legacy would eventually lead to. Whatever Mehmed did, whatever he built, the greatest city in the world was irrefutable evidence that all things died.”
― Kiersten White, Now I Rise

“Every time Radu thought he had found a place in the world, the world changed around him, and once again he was left alone.”
― Kiersten White, Bright We Burn

“None of them are real to me.” He paused again, placing a hand flat against the door. “You are the only real thing in my life.”
Radu gasped with the sheer physical pain the words sent through him. But the sound of his agony was covered by that of the door opening. Mehmed reached in and pulled Lada out to him, and then his mouth was on hers and his hands were in her hair and he was holding her so tightly, so tightly, and they stumbled back into Lada’s room and closed the door.
Radu tripped forward, feet dragging, until he stood outside the room. He wanted to be inside it. He wanted to be the only real thing to Mehmed, just as Mehmed was the only real thing to him.
He wanted—
No, please, no.
Yes.
He wanted Mehmed to look at him the way he had looked at Lada.
He wanted Mehmed to kiss him the way he had kissed Lada.
He wanted to be Lada.
No, he did not. He wanted to be himself, and he wanted Mehmed to love him for being himself. His question, the question of Mehmed, was finally answered, piercing him and leaving him shaking, silent, on the floor.
He did not want this answer.”
― Kiersten White, And I Darken

“A brother,” she said, her voice soft.
The baby started to cry, a weak, garbled sound that worried the nurse. Lada’s scowl deepened. She slapped a dimpled hand over his mouth. The nurse pulled him away quickly, and Lada looked up, face contorted in rage.
“Mine!” she shouted.
It was her first word.
The nurse laughed, shocked, and lowered the baby once more. Lada glared at him until he stopped crying. Then, apparently satisfied, she toddled out of the room.”
― Kiersten White, And I Darken

“Radu put one hand on her shoulder, felt Lada’s body contract with silent crying. “Get out,” she said again. He climbed onto the narrow bed and curled around her, holding her until she slept.”
― Kiersten White, Bright We Burn

“It was wrong, this weighing and measuring lives as though they were coins that could be spent or saved. He longed to be free of it all, to live among men seeing everyone as his brother, to view no one as his enemy.”
― Kiersten White, Now I Rise

“Radu had been wrong all this time. He had felt guilty for the way his heart yearned for other men. But it was not his own love that was poisonous and destructive. His love destroyed nothing, hurt no one. [...] Nazira was right. His love had no evil in it.”
― Kiersten White, Bright We Burn

“No!” Lada shook her head, eyes still wild. “I cannot go in there! If a woman enters the harem complex, she belongs to the sultan!”
Mehmed peered out the window they had climbed through, to make sure their path was clear. “I would not hold you to that, Lada, and—”
“It would not matter! Everyone would know, I would be labeled your concubine, and—”
Radu took her hand, which still hung in the air pointing accusingly at Mehmed, and squeezed it in his own. “And you would be unmarriageable? What a tragedy. I know how dearly you treasured the hope of marrying some minor Ottoman noble, dear sister.”
She finally met his eyes, hers still feverish and frenzied. “But I would be his.”
“I think our Mehmed is smart enough to know he could never claim you. Right?”
Radu’s tone was light, and he turned to Mehmed with a playful smile. Perhaps it was the dimness of the room, or the stress of the night, but Mehmed’s face was clouded with…disappointment? Hurt? Then a tight, false smile took its place, and he nodded. Radu’s own chest felt equally tight with anxiety and fear and a twisting, bitter sense of jealousy.”
― Kiersten White, And I Darken

“Did you do this?”
“There are other ways to beat someone than with fists.” Radu poked her in the side with a finger.
She surprised him by laughing. He stood up straighter, a proud grin at having surprised and delighted Lada bursting across his face. She never laughed unless she was laughing at him. He had done something right!
Then the lashings began.
Radu’s smile wilted and died. He looked away. He was safe now. And Lada was proud of him, which had never happened before. He focused on that to ignore the sick feelings twisting his stomach as Aron and Andrei cried out in pain. He wanted his nurse—wanted her to hold and comfort him—and this, too, made him feel ashamed.
Lada watched the whip with a calculating look. “Still,” she said. “Fists are faster.”
― Kiersten White, And I Darken

“Being a Dracul had cost him so much. He had thought he was done paying for the blood that ran through his veins. But he would never be done. The price of being in his family was everything he held dear, taken from him over and over again. They were the dragons. The devils. There was no mercy in them or for them.”
― Kiersten White, Bright We Burn

“It had felt unavoidable at the time, but how many unavoidable choices of his had resulted in unforgivable consequences?”
― Kiersten White, Bright We Burn

“What is wrong with you?” Radu sounded on the verge of tears. “Why do you have to destroy everything good we have here?”
“Because,” Lada said, voice flat with the sudden wave of exhaustion pulling her heavily to the ground. “We have nothing. Can you not see that?”
“We have Mehmed!”
Lada looked up. The stars were static, still and cold in the night, all the fire gone from the sky. “It is not enough,” she said.”
― Kiersten White, And I Darken

“I have tried so hard to escape this, but my path was always leading here. I took every turn I could. I found faith and God. I found a new home and country, even new tongues and a new name. But I cannot escape becoming a Dracul. The cruelty, the willingness to destroy everything else in pursuit of a goal. I know what she would do. I know what I need to do. But I do not want to do it.”
― Kiersten White, Bright We Burn

“That compliment is a bit like a rose. It comes with a lot of barbs and thorns.”
― Kiersten White, Bright We Burn