Aeduan Quotes

“Sometimes justice was all about the small victories.”
― Susan Dennard, Truthwitch

“Mhe varujta. Trust me as if my soul were yours.”
― Susan Dennard, Windwitch

“I trust you as if my soul were yours.”
― Susan Dennard, Bloodwitch

“She trusted him. She had claimed his Aether, and she would guide his blade.”
― Susan Dennard, Bloodwitch

“He was caught, like the man from the tale who wanted to feed his family during a blizzard, but could not bear to kill the lamb. In the end, everyone died of starvation, including the lamb. For Lady Fate makes all men choose eventually. Even Bloodwitches.”
― Susan Dennard, Bloodwitch

“He was a Bloodwitch no longer. He was a monk no longer. He was man, just a man. It would have to be enough.”
― Susan Dennard, Bloodwitch

“Aeduan.” She’d never said his name aloud. She was surprised by how easily it rolled off the tongue.
He looked back, his expression inscrutable as always. But laced with … with something. Hope, she found herself thinking, though she knew it was fanciful.
Aeduan was not the sort of man to ever hope.”
― Susan Dennard, Windwitch

“This young man had stalked Iseult through Veñaza City. Had smiled cruelly at her, his crystal eyes swirling red. Then he had saved her too, in Lejna. With a salamander cloak and a single phrase: Mhe varujta. Trust me as if my soul were yours.”
― Susan Dennard, Windwitch

“Someone owed Aeduan a life-debt. It was …
A first.
A first that he didn’t know how to swallow. The Threadwitch Iseult was alive because he had made it so. She could breathe her current breaths and could taste the river’s water because he had saved her life.
Though she had also, in a way, saved his. First, she had not killed him while he lay unconscious in the bear trap. And second, she had been the one to hook them to that stone before the Falls.
But Aeduan decided not to mention any of this, for if the Threadwitch believed she owed him three lives, then that gave him an advantage. That, he could use. He didn’t know how, he didn’t know when, only that he absolutely would.”
― Susan Dennard, Windwitch

“But one need not be evil to become it”
― Susan Dennard, Bloodwitch

“Aeduan didn’t contradict her. She was what she was, and fighting one’s nature only brought pain. Sometimes death too.”
― Susan Dennard, Windwitch

“But there was no reason. There never had been. He was just a child, trapped in the wreckage of war. He had not done this, he had not caused this. Yet he had lost his life to it all the same.”
― Susan Dennard, Bloodwitch

“This girl had fought Aeduan—tricked him and broken his spine. She had battled city guards and faced cleaved Poisonwitches head-on, yet never had Aeduan seen her show fear.”
― Susan Dennard, Windwitch

“We will need to move fast. Are you up for that?”
She snorted, and when Aeduan glanced back, he found her face had softened. The slightest—almost imperceptible—glint of mischief hovered there now.
“I think we both know the answer to that, Bloodwitch.” She stalked past him, her chin high. Challenging. “The question will be if you can keep up.”
Then she broke into a run, Aeduan broke into a run after her.”
― Susan Dennard, Windwitch

“This was not the Threadwitch who had cornered Aeduan beside a bear trap. Nor the Threadwitch who’d sparred with him that very morning. This was a woman changed.
Aeduan knew because he’d been there before himself. Soon she would learn—just as he had—that there was no outrunning the demons of one’s own creation.”
― Susan Dennard, Windwitch

“And they fell. Together.”
― Susan Dennard, Truthwitch

“No one asks for what life gives them”
― Susan Dennard, Bloodwitch

“Because it is always easier to blame gods or legends than it is to face our own mistakes. This land is no more cursed than any other. It is simply steeped in too much blood.”
― Susan Dennard, Windwitch

“Forever after today, she would flex and furl her fingers, precisely as she did right now. She would roll her wrists and crack her neck. She would stretch her jaw and wonder who might next die at her hands. Who might not get away.
And forever after tonight, she would be hungry to outrun the nightmares. She would race and she would fight and she would kill again, just to make sure the ghosts were real.
They were.”
― Susan Dennard, Windwitch

“The air, the sky, the water—it was so much like their encounter two nights ago.
Yet also nothing like it at all. Iseult and the Bloodwitch had been enemies then, bound only by coins. Tonight, they were allies bound by … Well, Iseult didn’t know precisely.”
― Susan Dennard, Windwitch

“Who betrays whom first.”
― Susan Dennard, Windwitch

“When Aeduan had said he would kill her in Lejna, she hadn’t believed him. When he’d said he would kill her last night, she had.”
― Susan Dennard, Windwitch

“Why so much fighting? Is the land valuable?”
“There is nothing of value here. Yet men have always believed that they know better than those who came before. That they will be the ones to claim the Contested Lands.”
― Susan Dennard, Windwitch

“He twisted back to the slaver, who was clearly at a loss for who posed more of a threat: Aeduan or the mountain bat. To Aeduan, the answer was obvious. “You should run now,” he warned the man. “Or I will kill you.”
The man’s lips curled back. “Seven of us and only one of you.” He grabbed Aeduan’s shirt.
“Exactly,” Aeduan said. “Which is why you should be running.” Then, with a speed that no man could match, he clutched the man’s hand to his chest, and punched up. His fist connected just above the elbow, breaking the joint and snapping the humerus in two.
Bone tore through flesh; the man screamed.
This was only the beginning. With the man’s arm angled in a way it was never meant to be, Aeduan thrust the limp elbow toward the man’s neck. The jagged tip of bone that had erupted outward now pierced soft throat.
The man’s beard was instantly red, and with a soft flick of his wrists, Aeduan pushed the body over.
After that, everything was a blur of shaking earth and screams and blood. Of terror that expanded in men’s pupils when they realized that they were going to die.”
― Susan Dennard, Windwitch

“Iseult hated herself for that truth, but there it was. She wanted to go after Safi; she wanted Aeduan to lead the way; she wished this child would simply disappear.
Monster, she told herself. You’re a monster.”
― Susan Dennard, Windwitch

“No stopping, though. Only running onward through the weak rain. Men charged with blades, but swords were so easy for Iseult to evade with Aeduan at her side. Together, they arced, they lunged, they ducked, they rolled. A fluid combination of steps built on blood and Threads.”
― Susan Dennard, Windwitch

“The coat was almost to him. He stretched. He reached … He was too far. His hand gripped only icy water. So without another thought, he thrust off the bank and dove into the waves.”
― Susan Dennard, Windwitch

“You’ve been there all along, Bloodwitch. Somewhere, l-lurking. You are the reason I had to go to my tribe—which means you are the reason Corlant c-c-could attack. So if I had never met you, then would I even be here right now?”
“If I had never met you,” he countered coolly, “then my spine would never have snapped, and Leopold fon Cartorra would never have hired me. Monk Evrane would not have almost died.”
― Susan Dennard, Windwitch

“Iseult knew what she had to do. She knew what Safi would do in this position. What Habim or Mathew or her mother or anyone with a backbone would do. So why was she finding it so hard to summon any words?”
― Susan Dennard, Windwitch

“So this is how I will die. Aeduan had never thought it would be flames. A beheading, perhaps. Old age, more likely. But not fire—not since he’d escaped that death all those years ago.”
― Susan Dennard, Windwitch