More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
January 31 - February 21, 2024
“The gift already existed amongst the wolves, but the Asteri encouraged it. Bred it into certain lines. They still do.”
“You think the Asteri had Micah kill Danika? After all that trouble to breed her into existence?”
“I think Danika was reckless and willful, and the Asteri knew they could never control her as they could Sabine. I think they realized that with Danika, they’d produced a wolf so powerful she rivaled the ones I faced in the First Wars. True wolves. And she was not on their side. She had to be eliminated.”
“I don’t know. In all likelihood, it’s because he was an asset in life, and remains so in death.” “To who?” “The Asteri. They know what Connor means to Quinlan, to you—that makes his soul very, very valuable.”
The Murder Twins Ruhn had mentioned, capable of prying into minds as they saw fit.
your sister has landed in a heap of trouble, Tristan Flynn.”
Ruhn’s shadows were gentle, stealthy night; theirs were the dark of lightless caves.
her choice between the males who stand beside her. And as a female has no worth here beyond the offspring she might bear Avallen, I don’t see a reason why your sister should remain in this haven another moment.”
Are you saying you’re requiring any females who seek refuge here to marry?”
what’s the point of giving females refusal rights at all if you punish them for it?”
Stitches popping, Sigrid slowly turned her head. But her chest … it didn’t rise and fall. She wasn’t breathing. The lost Fendyr heir opened her eyes. They burned an acid green. “Reaper,” Jesiba breathed.
If you divorce her, she won’t have any chance of ever marrying again. She’ll be sullied goods. After the first marriage, the only ways out are death or widowhood.
a divorcée … it’s not even a thing. She’d be persona non grata.”
Tharion found himself with a wife.
“She had no Sailing. Her soul was there for the claiming. You offered her one option, witch. I gave her another.”
A Fendyr was a Reaper. A half-life, a walking corpse— It was sacrilege. A disgrace. And it was all his fault.
“Necromancy can lead her to that threshold; it can haul her back again, too.”
“We need a thunderbird.”
The thunderbirds were once able to aid necromancers, to use their lightning to hold the souls of the dead. They could even imbue their power into ordinary objects, like weapons, and give them magical properties
“I think the lightning might be able to pull her soul back toward life,” Hypaxia said. “And give her the chance to make the choice again. A few days as a Reaper might change her mind.”
“It’s on Avallen. With the Stag King.”
“The earth feels … rotted. Like there’s nothing for my magic to grab on to, or identify with.
the entire place had an air of neglect. Emptiness. The castle did, too, as well as the small city and surrounding lands.
The Fae don’t deserve to be united.
“It seems weird that two Fae strongholds, both islands, were once archipelagos, and then both lost all but the central island in the wake of the arrival of … unpleasant forces.”
Bryce wasn’t entirely sure she could find anything to help her unite the blades. To kill the Asteri.
They found nothing else regarding the missing islands, the mists, or the sword and the knife in the hours they spent combing through the catalog.
“Made,” Bryce whispered with a shade of fear. “That’s what it feels like. Whatever power can flow between us … my Made power from the Horn can, too.”
“I guess it flows both ways: my power into you, and yours into me.”
“The rumor is that the magic of the mists is so old, it predates even the Asteri’s arrival.”
“She allowed me to see that you, despite your … transgressions … are our people’s only hope of regaining some credibility in future generations.”
“Can you feel it, then? How … dead it all seems? Like there’s something festering here.”
There was nothing left in the heart of Asphodel Meadows beyond a giant crater, still smoldering.
But maybe the Fae and their bloodline didn’t deserve Bryce’s light. Maybe they deserved to fall forever into darkness.
“I think the Avallen they first visited, with all those ley lines and magic … I think it existed. But then something changed.”
They left the mists intact, but the rest was altered—entire islands gone, the earth itself festering.”
“Whatever happened, the mists kept it hidden from the Asteri.”
right leader makes all the difference.”
think about who’s led them for the last five hundred years.
They wanted to keep their secrets to themselves, yes, but also to destroy the kernel of hope Danika offered. Not only to the wolves, but all of Midgard. That things could be different. Better.”
Morven stalked out of the mists. And behind him, flame simmering in his eyes, strode the Autumn King.
“Pollux isn’t their father.”
“I come from a long line of powerful stag shifters. We have rituals. Secret ones, old ones. We don’t necessarily worship the same gods that you do. I think our gods predate this world,
A fertility rite, deep in the Aldosian Forest. I was selected from the females of my family. A male from another family was chosen. Neither of our identities were known to each other, or to each other’s families. It was quick, and not particularly interesting,
“My father took me from my mother when I was three. I remember being taken, and not understanding, and only learning later, when I was old enough, that my father was a power-hungry monster.
“I trained, and I schemed, and I wound up in Sandriel’s triarii, a high honor for my family. I’d been serving Sandriel for ten years when my father chose me for this ritual. I had become adept at … getting people to talk. Pollux and I were dancing around each other, but I had not yet decided to let him into my bed. So I went to the ritual.”
staged my own kidnapping and disappearance. I made it look like Ophion had grabbed me. I didn’t even know where I was running to.
I would do anything to keep them out of my father’s hands. Out of Sandriel’s hands.
I could stay on her ship, bear the babies, and remain for a time. But in exchange for her protection, and the continued protection of my children … I had to go back. I would spin a lie about being interrogated and held prisoner for more than two years, and I would go back. Work my way up in the Asteri’s esteem, gain their trust. I would feed any intel to Ophion—and by extension, the Ocean Queen.”
who were about to talk, to spill vital secrets. Those, I had to kill. ‘Accidents’ during torture. But I gave them swift, merciful deaths. The ones who held out, or who stood a chance … I tried to get them out. Sometimes it didn’t work.”
