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Hell and Earth

Book by Elizabeth Bear · 50 quotes · Speculative Historical Fiction, Morgan Le Fay

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Hell and Earth Quotes

“She smiled as he came closer, her eyes as violet now as twilight, matching the shadows that surrounded them and lay under her cheekbones. The lines of her collarbone glinted like knives, and he could see the rings of her larynx through the translucent skin of her throat. He thought the bones of her fingers might crumble if he simply reached out and took her hand; even her amazing hair was lusterless and dry in its floor-long beads.”

Speculative Historical Fiction
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“Will swallowed despite the lump that now always blocked his throat, and with a flash of the insight that had given him Hamlet, William understood his Queen in return. Not the ragged, painted old woman before him, but the girl who had led a man like Francis Walsingham to beggar himself in her service, when with his dying breath he had known she could never show his gratitude. A woman who had given Kit Marley to the Faeries, when it would have been easier and safer to end his life and let him tumble into an unmarked grave. It doesn’t matter if Essex betrays her. It doesn’t matter what Scottish Mary did or did not know when she was led to the block. Elizabeth understands that every drop of blood stains her own hands. She knows. She knows she goes to judgment to face each life she’s wasted. And she’s always known. This is not a Prince who loves to kill.”

Speculative Historical Fiction
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“His heart filled up with something vast and terrible at the realization, a shadowy whirl of wings and storm and light, and he knew why men died for Elizabeth. He would have died for Elizabeth himself. And he understood as well that there were things bigger than Elizabeth, bigger than England, for all they were things for which he did not have a name. Faith. God. Liberty. None of it was enough. Worse things had been done in those names than Elizabeth’s.”

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“The trees leaned over; their wind stirred fingers interlaced like bones. Kit found himself ducking as if through low doorways whenever he looked up, and drawing shallow breaths that tasted of moss and musk and mildew. His right eye showed a smoky power moving within the coarse-barked trunks. The trees were young, saplings scattered among a few old giants, the wood had been cut from memory, and Kit wondered if that were the reason for the appalling stench of hate and old blood clotting the senses.”

Speculative Historical Fiction
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“What reason could possibly suffice for the murder of a boy barely old enough to prentice?” “What’s one mortal boy, more or less? They die soon enough, and one can always get another. Breed like rabbits, mortals do. And I needed thee, Kit, and needed thee fighting and thinking, not drowning in the dark. I thought if thy Shakespeare stepped back from his Queen, and thou didst go to comfort him, that there was a chance thou wouldst see the Mebd and dark Morgan for what they were, and win thy soul free. And it worked, it worked. How canst condemn me for that, when I had thee at heart, my dear?”

Speculative Historical Fiction
Book:Hell and Earth
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