Lada Dragwlya Quotes

“You are precious to me. What is so wrong with wanting to take care of you?”
“If I needed or wanted to be taken care of, I would be no better than the women in here! I am nothing like them.”
“No, you are not! I love you, Lada.” He closed his eyes and lowered his voice, trying to regain control. “Please allow me to love you. You are the most important person in my life. You and your brother are the only people who truly know me.”
Lada flinched, and Mehmed’s eyebrows raised as he noticed her reaction. He did not understand why, though. Lada had not told him about her last fight with Radu, nor that she had heard nothing from him since they parted. Mehmed remained blind to the true depths of Radu’s love—and to how much Lada missed her brother.
“Please,” Mehmed said. “I have already lost Radu to my father. He rarely writes, and when he does it is as though he addresses a stranger. I cannot afford to lose you, too.”
“You cannot lose something you do not own. Take me with you.”
― 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

“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

“And that was why she would win in the end. Because she would offer up everything on the altar of sacrifice, so long as she kept her country.”
― Kiersten White, Bright We Burn

“She swung her fist at Nicolae’s head. He raised an arm to block the blow, and she delivered a killing stab with her wooden dagger.
Nicolae laughed, staggering dramatically to the ground. “Dead, again, at the hands of the ugliest girl in creation.” He stuck out his tongue, face contorted in a grimace.
Lada kicked him in the stomach. “I am no girl. Who is next?”
The other Janissaries, gathered in a loose circle around Lada and Nicolae, shuffled their feet and avoided eye contact. Nicolae pushed himself up on an elbow. “Really? Cowards!”
“I still have bruises from the last time.”
“I cannot sit without pain.”
“She fights dirty.”
Ivan did not even respond, having never forgiven Lada for besting him when they were introduced. He refused to fight her and rarely acknowledged her presence.
Lada laughed, showing all her sharp teeth. “Because when you are on the battlefield, honor will mean so much. You will die with a blade between your ribs, secure in the knowledge that you fought with manners.” She picked up her dull practice sword, abandoned on the edge of the circle, and swung it through the air, sweeping it across the line of the Janissaries’ collective throats.”
― Kiersten White, And I Darken

“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

“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