A Clash of Steel

Favorite Quotes

Some of these quotes may contain spoilers. I tried to not include as many as I could that would spoil A Clash of Steel. But I couldn’t resist having some, because they were my favorites.

For anyone who has ever wanted more.

Words may disappear like the wind; a story is passed on forever.

“It’s just a storm, Thanh, it’ll pass”
“Hush, hush, it’s fine, it’ll be over soon”
“When?”
“That is not for us to know or decide. All we must do is endure it.”

“Once you’ve experienced ocean, nothing else is considered water.”
Yuan Zhen’s words have always spoken to me; this particular poem filled with longing is no exception. There’s something about describing a feeling that is so magnificent it may never come again, a love that is irreplaceable, that captures my imagination. I sigh, wondering what that would feel like.

I am sixteen, and I have never left the village. I’ve never even been to the bustling metropolis of Canton, despite my mother owning another teahouse—even more successful and busy than the one in the village. Mother has always said the city is no place for a young girl.

I’ve only glimpsed these other worlds beyond my small riverside village in my scrolls and books, precious rare luxuries, stories and poems collected from Master Feng’s collection or gifts from Mother’s travels.

The teahouse and this tiny village are all I’ve ever known. I do not wish to stay, but to be married to some man I hardly know? I can’t imagine that, either. I want to see the world, see the places in my stories, distant coasts and faraway lands.

I wonder if Father would be proud of my accomplishments. I feel like I’ve been trying my whole life to make Mother proud, but she is always leaving.

I wonder how well they know Mother, to see her every day, to know her moods so intricately. I’ve been seeking her approval my whole life, and to have this group of strangers seem to know her better than I ever could is jarring.

“Are you happy here, my treasure?”
I falter at the word happy.
Am I happy?
“Of course,” I finally manage. Positioning myself to want more would be unseemly.
“But you long to live in the city.” Mother sighs. “I can see it, too, the restlessness in your eyes. Perhaps the city would be good for you. And you could be safe in Canton, with the right husband and the right protection.”

“You should know that city can swallow people whole, and many easily succumb to the ease of opium and other pleasures. There are those who would take advantage of you, a naive youth from the country. And to succeed as a business owner, you would need to be ruthless, to make allies, to drive hard bargains.”

After so many years of such sporadic contact, the opportunity for an extended amount of time with her is strange.
I’ve waited my whole life for Mother to see me, to be proud of me and acknowledge me. Now that she’s here, across from me at this small table, it’s all I can do to stare at the gently bobbing tea left in my cup, wondering if she would find it impertinent if I asked all the questions on the tip of my tongue.

Somehow, despite being on the ship with more people than the entire village houses, I’ve never felt more alone.

“Here we are,” Mother says, a glint of pride sparkling in her eyes. She’s never looked at me like that, and a deep hunger gnaws inside me. For her approval. For her to see me as valuable and useful as this business she’s created.
She will, I tell myself.

“Come on!”
“What?”
“You think I just wanted to tell you about all those places? Come on, I can show you!” She extends her hand to me, her palm open and inviting.
I take her hand, and her fingers close around mine. Her hands are warm and solid, and the roughness of the calluses on her fingers brush against my own. Our fingers tangle together, my long brown fingers against her own golden-hued skin, and my heart skips a beat.

“What do you want?”
“More,” I admit in a soft whisper.
“I want the world,” I say, my voice growing steadier as I say the words aloud. “I want to see everything, taste everything. Experience everything.”

I’ve never met someone who I felt such a connection to like this, who seemed to understand my hopes and dreams even without me having to say all of them out loud.

The night air seems to come to a standstill, and I cannot look away. This girl with a warm smile and bright eyes who has seen the world is looking at me. This girl who is within a moment knew me immediately and understood my yearnings for more. This girl who listened to me babble about the sea and my dreams of far-off places and who had a story for each one.

She dangles my dream in front of me like she knows me. She knows me because I let her, and I was a fool.

“Don’t worry, little lily. Whatever you’re running from, that’s in the past now.”

The ocean is constant, the waves drifting and never ending. There’s a peace here, and also endless possibility, the way the waters connect all the lands of the world.

“This suits you,” “You remind me of myself the first time I sailed. I thought I had been missing something all my life.”

“I don’t know if I could miss something I couldn’t fathom,” I say, my eyes on the sea. “I knew the ocean existed, but when all your life has been rivers and mountains, this—this—“ I gesture at the broad expanse and turn around toward the other side of the ship, where the horizon extends to infinite possibilities.

I’ve felt so alone my whole life, waiting to fulfill some expectation, to perform. In some way.
All my life I’ve been waiting, and now I’m doing.

“Nice work, little lily,” Thanh says, giving me a reluctant nod.
I can’t tell if the salt on my face is from the sea or exhausted, happy tears of relief. We are all weary, but the embrace seems to go on forever, and I am surrounded by the warmth of my crew as the storm rages on.

There is something here in the way she’s holding my hands, a feeling inside me that might be the more I’ve been yearning for all along. These weeks in the ship, Anh has worked alongside me, teaching me the ways of sailing, and I’ve found friendship here, yes, but there’s another layer—something in the way she’s listened to me ramble about my dreams and has shared her own, and now this…this steadfast belief in me.

I swallow hard. She hasn’t let go of my hands as the waves crash down around us. In fact, she’s holding on tighter, like I’m an anchor and she’s afraid she’ll float out to sea.

“I can’t speak to what you’ve endured,” I say quietly, “but my life was not perfect. You have people who care about you, a mother who respects you and your opinion, a home where you belong. I had this…this expectation, and it was like trying to win a race I couldn’t even finish. I wish…I wish I was loved like you are.”

Anh lowers her sword and arched her eyebrow at me. “Why didn’t you move?”
“I—” I didn’t know I was supposed to, I don’t say, because even as the thought forms in my head, I can hear how silly it would be to say aloud. I’d been so captivated by Anh and the way she moves, the way she carries herself, that I had completely forgotten about the point of the lesson.

The truth of what I’m feeling, what I’ve been feeling about other girls for so long, jumps out at me. I’ve been pushing it back, focusing on my studies and how to make Mother proud. I’d pushed far into the back of my mind why the idea of marrying a man had always seemed loathsome to me….I’d read poetry and stories about love and yearning, about this deep longing and wanting, and I couldn’t place why I hadn’t felt it. Or maybe I had, but recognizing it would mean naming it, speaking it aloud.

“I’ve always considered my crew my family. I’ve seen the way you look at Anh…and the way she looks at you.”
My breath catches. The words aren’t an accusation, just a statement.
She smiles at me. “You could be happy here, if you wanted to stay. You’re welcome to be a part of this crew. Continue to sail with us.”

“I enjoy getting things to where they need to be. If privacy is the means by which I must do it, then a pirate I am.”

I have no answers, only questions about why in every story I’ve heard, the pirates were always the ones portrayed as monsters.

It’s like she’s in my head and I’m in hers, and we move in sync, each blow met in exchange.

“We all came on this ship for our own reasons. The past is the past. Whatever Xiang’s past is, she came to us for this chance at a greater future. Like many of us once did.”

“I’ve been grateful to have a place here. All my life I thought I was suitable only to be married off, and you all…you all taught me I could be more.” “The truth is, I ran away from a betrothal, and—“ “I’ve found a home here. I hope you will want to keep me.”

In sleep, her face loses the tough edge she tries to maintain…
Something about this moment is precious, the way Anh seems small and vulnerable here—such a contrast to the loud, boisterous energy she usually brings to the world. I see the confident and nonchalant way she appears not to care, but beneath that I also see the softness.

“You’re not the grand mystery you think you are. I know you.”

“I want more than that,” I say, the honesty raw in my throat. “I want you by my side always.”

I wonder if all of them knew Mother more than I ever did. I feel hollow and strange. This journey to prove myself has just been one wide circle.

I’m tired of others deciding my story for me.

I set out on this journey to find the treasure, all to prove that I was capable.
It took me leaving home and running after what everyone had thought was impossible to know it.
I’ve been taught that blood was everything—that family, where you come from, defined who you could be. Mother claimed she cared about me, but she was only ever looking after her own ends.

“You’re my family, Anh,” I say. “She…she is my blood , yes. But that’s all I am to her. She always called me her treasure.” “She wanted to keep me safe. Like a doll. Like a story. She didn’t see me as a person, just…something else she could control. At the end of the day, the treasure was more important to her than I was.”

“The man who raised me, protected me, encouraged me to follow my heart. He told me I should find you. Because that is where my heart is.”

For so long I’ve dreamed of impossible destinies, of adventure. These past few weeks I’ve had all of that and more. I’ve found love where I wasn’t looking, and a crew that cares for me as if I were their own. I found my father and lost him.
I found myself.
I don’t need to prove anything to anyone.
I know who I am, and I know what I’m capable of.

“I want what you want. To be by your side. To make you smile every day. To have a life together.”
“However short it might be,” Anh says. Her hand finds mine in the darkness, and the water rises even higher.
“I love you,” she gasps.

“Can you live on love?” I ask her.
“Of course,” she says.

For the first time, I can see that we can do it. That we can get away from everyone who expects us to be what we aren’t, to be pawns in someone else’s game, to be used as bargaining chips or to be made in someone else’s image.

“I’m sorry we weren’t able to get any of the treasure.”
“Are you sure we didn’t?”
“I think what we have here is worth far, far more.”
Anh interlaces her fingers with my own, and together we face the beckoning horizon.

Title: A Clash of Steel

Author: C.B Lee

Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

Publication Date: September 7th, 2021

Genres: Young Adult, Historical Fiction

Synopsis:

Two intrepid girls hunt for a legendary treasure on the deadly high seas in this YA remix of the classic adventure novel Treasure Island.

1826. The sun is setting on the golden age of piracy, and the legendary Dragon Fleet, the scourge of the South China Sea, is no more. Its ruthless leader, a woman known only as the Head of the Dragon, is now only a story, like the ones Xiang has grown up with all her life. She desperately wants to prove her worth, especially to her mother, a shrewd businesswoman who never seems to have enough time for Xiang. Her father is also only a story, dead at sea before Xiang was born. Her single memento of him is a pendant she always wears, a simple but plain piece of gold jewelry.

But the pendant’s true nature is revealed when a mysterious girl named Anh steals it, only to return it to Xiang in exchange for her help in decoding the tiny map scroll hidden inside. The revelation that Xiang’s father sailed with the Dragon Fleet and tucked away this secret changes everything. Rumor has it that the legendary Head of the Dragon had one last treasure—the plunder of a thousand ports—that for decades has only been a myth, a fool’s journey.

Xiang is convinced this map could lead to the fabled treasure. Captivated with the thrill of adventure, she joins Anh and her motley crew off in pursuit of the island. But the girls soon find that the sea—and especially those who sail it—are far more dangerous than the legends led them to believe.

Review

C.B. Lee’s A Clash of Steel was a breath of fresh air. It hooked me right from the opening paragraph. Lee’s writing is so descriptive that you could imagine you were watching a movie instead of reading. It was a little slow-paced for me, but maybe it was because I was also reading back-to-back slow-paced books. I wished that I could listen to the book rather than read it because although I know Vietnamese, I can understand it more through hearing rather than reading. I can talk and understand Vietnamese but cannot read or write it. Other than that, I enjoyed my experience reading A Clash of Steel.

Growing up, my parents never told me Vietnamese stories. Which is something I wish they had done. Maybe it’s either because they didn’t have the time to, or I never asked/shown any interest. I believe that part of my Vietnamese culture was lost to me because I was raised in America. We go back every few years because most of my family are still there, but you can only learn so much in a limited time.

I didn’t know anything about Treasure Island, but what caught my attention about A Clash of Steel was the representation of Vietnamese, Chinese, and queer characters. There weren’t many books that had it when I was growing up. But I am glad that more and more representations are present in today’s books. People can be seen through our media today. It’s slow, but at least it is still progress.

Xiang wants more than the life she has. Her mother is never there, and she doesn’t know her father. All Xiang seeks is to have her mother notice her and be proud of her. She isn’t your typical Chinese girl who imagines having a husband and being a wife. She wants more.
She found a family who loves her on her journey, even if they aren’t her blood. Not only that, but she found love and herself along the way as well.

Book links:

Author Information:

CB Lee is a Lambda Literary Award nominated writer of young adult science fiction and fantasy. Her works include the Sidekick Squad series (Duet Books), Ben 10 (Boom!), and All Out Now (HarperTeen). CB loves to write about queer teens, magic, superheroes, and the power of friendship.

Lee’s work has been featured in Teen Vogue, Wired Magazine, and Hypable. Lee’s first novel in the Sidekick Squad series, Not Your Sidekick was a 2017 Lambda Literary Awards Finalist in YA/Children’s Fiction and a 2017 Bisexual Book Awards Finalist in Speculative Fiction. Seven Tears at High Tide was the recipient of a Rainbow Award for Best Bisexual Fantasy Romance and also a finalist for the 2016 Bisexual Book Awards in the YA and Speculative Fiction categories.