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480 pages, Paperback
First published February 16, 2021
“The mask has its appeal, but personally, I think it’s what’s underneath that counts.”
“Books became more than just stories. They were a reminder that the whole world wasn’t a bleak tapestry of violence, and while she might never see anything beautiful again, at least she could read about kinder things. It was easier to breathe between the pages of a book.”
“People still tell stories about magic, you know. If you show them that the Lyandors aren’t the only wielders still here—that you’re still here—you could very well start a revolution.”
“She [Adley] wasn’t going to let him steal her one chance at freedom, at happiness, at righting all the wrong she’d done.”
“None of us are good people. We’ve all done things we’re not proud of. We’ve all made mistakes. Your demons might be louder than mine, but we each have one or two hanging around. We’re all just people, Ren. We’re doing our best.”
“The story might have been erased from the history books, but it was as well-known as any folk tale. A century ago, King Tallis Lyandor, a wielder himself, had been so terrified of losing power that he’d outlawed the use of magic by anyone but the royal family. He’d sent his armies across Erdis, burning villages of wielders, hanging magical families, beheading anyone caught fleeing. The Silver Purge was the reason the only magic left in the kingdom belonged to the crown, why the only silver wielders in the past one hundred years had been Lyandors.”
“The people said what they would about the king and his Children, but there was no denying that their training was effective.”
“The gods forgive,” she said. “So should you.”
"The player slapped his cards against the table, leaned back in his chair and grinned."
“Let yourself feel it. (...) The pain. You need to let yourself feel it. If you don’t, you’ll never let it go. If you shove the pain away, if you ignore it, you won’t move past it. (...) Feel it. Don’t make yourself numb.”
“Silver is a part of me. I was born with it. I guess I just think about it like any other part of my body. I tell it what I want it to do, and it does it.”
“but assurances and soft smiles were kindnesses Ren didn’t deserve. She was terrible and rusted. She was the kind of thing that gave you an infection if you were unlucky enough to scratch yourself on its edges”
“She was not a delicate cherry blossom drifting down from the trees on a spring breeze. She was more like the storm that upended the cherry tree, the kind of person who wasn’t satisfied unless she was putting her fist through something.”
“I can’t say the rebellion isn’t important to me. Since my mother died, it’s one of the only things that’s mattered.”
“An Erdis free of the Lyandor rule was my mother’s dream. I’m just trying to finish what she started.”
“That was the problem with Ethen and all the men like him. He thought because she was quiet, because she liked books and the way flowers blossomed on the hills in spring, because she was a girl, he could dismiss her as frivolous and unimportant. Weak. He was wrong.”
“She’d never enjoyed inflicting pain, enjoyed carrying that pain to a final, irreversible end even less. Every time she did it, she wished she could take it back.”
“The crown had made her what she was.
A lethal weapon. An archer who didn’t miss.”
“Kellen recognized that he was a prince, and princes didn’t have the luxury of love.”
“When Kellen wore the mask of pit lord, he usually succeeded for a few hours in convincing himself he was someone he wasn’t, someone cold and malicious. But then he’d take the mask off. He’d come back to the castle and find he was still the same kid his mother had raised and tossed aside when he no longer suited her tastes. Kellen wished Heath would tell him how he was supposed to stop being soft, how he was supposed to tear his beating heart from his body and discard it like a broken toy. How he was supposed to stop being him.”
“[He] heard his brother’s words. They sounded in his ear. He felt the heat of them as close as a whisper. Stop being so soft. Then his father’s voice was there, too, seething with contempt. Nineteen years of criticism. Two decades of failure. Their voices bled together, pouring into his head like a vein that had been ripped open, and there was no staunching the flow. It kept coming, and it seemed like it was never going to stop, and Kellen just wanted peace. That was all. Just a little peace.”
“Freya was more idealistic than a kid who’d grown up in the slums had any right to be.”
“There was a steadiness about Freya, something in her that a drowning person could grab on to and stay afloat.”
“You may be a prince, but I will not tolerate being treated as an inferior. I am your equal.”
“Some things are worth the pain.”
“(...) she was as talented at killing as the rest of the King’s Children, there was something different about her. It was like she’d managed to hold on to a shred of warmth despite her training, which was intended to render her as cold as the mountains of Glynn. She hid her heart well, but Kellen suspected it was still there.”
“It was a shame Kellen wasn’t set to inherit the throne. This country would be a better place with him as king. Maybe if more kings were a little more like Kellen and a little less like his father, there wouldn’t be a need for King’s Children at all.”
“I’m always concerned about Ren. It’s a natural state of existence when you’re friends with her.”
“Alone, both girls were their own forces of nature. Together, they might very well be cataclysmic.”
“Books are written about romances such as these,”
“Lesa knew as well as Adley why it had to be this way. They were King’s Children; they were forbidden to love. If they fell in love—with each other or anyone else—the crime would be punished by death. Their feelings were embers and needed to be stomped out, not stoked into an uncontrollable fire.”
“They were so different. Lesa was hard, and Adley was soft. Lesa didn’t care enough, and Adley cared too much. And maybe if they had met in any other circumstances, they never would have wound up wrapped around one another. But somewhere along the way, things had slid into place.”
“Her life had gone so horribly wrong, but with Lesa, one thing had gone right. Maybe it was luck or a small mercy from the gods that she’d found someone who cared about her in a place where it shouldn’t have been possible.”
“Ren didn’t want to get into the way Darek had reached inside her and pulled at all the wrong threads. She didn’t want to admit that it had stung. She hated him. For bringing her into a budding revolution, for putting so much weight on her shoulders, for voicing every ugly thought she’d ever had about herself.”
“But Darek had thought maybe when they spoke she would show a hint of compassion, an indication that she cared about more than stolen jewels and card games—something resembling decency. Anything. He’d hoped she’d surprise him.
She hadn’t.
The only language she seemed to speak was one of greed and gold.”
“Darek thought he’d had Ren figured out, but he was starting to realize she was not as unshakeable as she pretended to be. He didn’t know if the fire had done it, or if the streets were to blame, or if she was tearing herself apart because she thought she deserved the pain, but there was something a little bit broken inside of her.”
“Whenever he was with Holland, he forgot about everything plaguing his mind, his shortcomings and failures. With her, he didn’t have to try to be someone he wasn’t, to be something more than simply himself. He wasn’t a prince or a pit lord. He was just Kellen, whoever that was. She didn’t ask anything more of him than that.”
“Why does anyone look at art? Perhaps it makes her feel a little less alone.”
"But time is running out for all of them, including the youngest Prince of Erdis, who finds himself pulled into the rebellion"
This book is for you if… over the top banter that should be labelled 'cruel battle of words' does not taint the originality of a story for you. There's some heartbreaking truth to many of the narratives that might make this a better read for others than it was for me.
‘Ren was last to take a seat. She tapped the deck against the table. They made her swear not to cheat, but what would be the fun in that?’
Con:
⇢ ferocious soldiers on their heels
⇢ two hot-heads make for icy atmosphere
⇢ enemies around every corner
Pro:
⇢ unlikely allies
⇢ two hot-heads make for lots of looks
⇢ each fight brings new improvements
We’ve all done things we’re not proud of. We’ve all made mistakes. Your demons might be louder than mine, but we each have one or two hanging around.
Why does anyone look at art? Perhaps it makes her feel a little less alone.
He thought because she was quiet, because she liked books and the way the flowers blossomed on the hills in spring, because she was a girl, he could dismiss her as frivolous and unimportant. Weak. He was wrong.
'Of Silver and Shadow' is about Ren, who is a self-taught silver wielder that nearly escaped death as a child before she went into hiding in the Kingdom of Eris, where magic is outlawed and being outed could be the death of her. While attempting to survive by succumbing to thievery, card games, and dangerous pit fighting to pay an overdue debt, along the way she encounters a Rebel, King's Children, and Prince that pulls her towards a rebellion she wants no part of in which case forever alternating the course of her life forever.![]()