Best Of Catherynne M. Valente's "Deathless"

Painting above: Portrait of a Woman c.1860 by Hans Makart

When Marya saw something extraordinary again,

she would be ready.

She would be clever.

She would not let it ruler her or trick her.

She would do the tricking,

if tricking was called for.

p.24

When I am Tsarita, I will break all these machines

and I will set them free.

p.110

A marriage is a private thing.

It has its own wild laws, and secret histories, and savage acts,

and what passes between married people is incomprehensible to outsiders.

We look terrible to you, and severe, and you see our blood flying,

but what we carry between us is hard-won,

and we made it just as we wished it to be,

just the colour, just the shape.

p.215-216

This house, she knew.

It stayed within her as it had always been,

the architecture of her girlhood.

The wood held the oils of her skin deep in its grain;

the windows still bore the imprint—

long gone, invisible—of her tiny nose.

p.239

I cannot make you understand that I forgive you,

that I know you loved both he and I,

the way a mother can love two sons.

And no one should be judged for loving more than they ought,

only for loving not enough,

which was my crime.

p.320

the yak occidental