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Her hair sparked with yellows and poisoned red, and heat rose from her, cracking and splitting the wood and beams.
the pain devouring her faster than the fire.
hoped he would deny it, save her father instead. But gods love martyrs.
The mindspeak of gods was worse than a needle to the skull. It felt like a tearing of her mind, an invasion.
gods kept appearing. Beings of power, spirits, given life and will by people’s love and fear until they became strong enough to exploit. Humans were foolish creatures, and gods were cruel.
the good times were gone, and the secrets remained.
The woman was sitting at a table wearing leather that looked hard enough to be used as armour and just low enough at the throat to show a tattoo at the top of her chest, a kind of loose spiral.
WOOOO
It was a while before she realised it was that little god of white lies diverting eyes away. If she focussed as she had been taught, she could hear his whispers nipping at the edge of her mind, and everyone else’s. There is a bit of silver on the ground. Your shoe has a stone in it, better check. Look, are those rain clouds? You can’t see us. We’re nothing interesting.
IF INARA HAD KNOWN IT WOULD BE THE LAST TIME SHE SAW her, she would not have lied to her mother and slipped away into the night. She would have hugged Tethis, the steward she was sure the soldiers had been joking about, and Erman, her tutor. She would have thanked them for always bringing her pistachio treats and honey. She would have stayed. She would have burned.
Misery made her good silver.”
zeal had burst from her like sunlight, scorching and unrepentant.
She can still feel her leg hurting, she said. Her toes, ankle, shin, pain she can’t touch. She gestured to the scars on her own face. The body doesn’t forget what was once there. She looked at Kissen, sadness in her face, then added in small gestures. Nor do hearts.
“I am a baker,” he said coldly, finally turning to follow Jon. “Yeah,” said Kissen, “and I’m a grapefruit.”
He could smell the pine sap mixed with her sweat, and a thrill of anticipation stirred him. Anticipation of what, he wasn’t sure. It was like when the scent of bread changed in the oven, just as it began to crisp.
man experiences horniness and immediately makes bread comparison. he's cooked
Fate was a fairy story and a bullshit one at that; fate could get fucked and go bother someone else.
She didn’t burn the prayers of the poor just for fun.
Berrick scrabbled around for a stone or a branch. He found a log, the worst of both,
her wild reddish hair and smile like a snarl.
the blackness and chaos of divine rage;
“in our world, power turns good people bloody.”
I was a supplicant with bare arms and one leg, and I asked to be made beautiful. Told her how desperately I wanted to be beautiful, more than anything.” “She would have seen your lies,” said the little god quietly.
“I didn’t lie,” said Kissen. “I was young, scarred, and ugly. The one I loved most loved someone else better, and I had left them behind in an unkind place. That is enough to make a person want what they can’t have.”
Women like that made him question his immortality.
You were willing to kill to help her . . .” “I was tricked.” “That’s by the by; it’s the killing I want, not the excuses.”
Ex-knight, full of secrets, full of terror.
It landed like liquid in water, baring its broken teeth.
It was fun to fluster a pretty knight.
“Revenge takes a lifetime,” she said quietly. “Sometimes . . . you’ve got to take what you can get of it.”
The people with the sharpest edges sometimes hid the deepest wounds.
“Funerals are for the living,” said Kissen as she noticed Inara looking. “The dead don’t mind what the world does to them.”
She had an edge of sureness to her now that suited her. Like she was coming home to herself, and had found strength there. Kissen decided to be more proud than afraid.
“Gods are not always the enemy; even your godkiller knows that. People make gods, and, for better or worse, gods make people. We show each other for what we truly are. Yearning beings, desperate for love, power, safety.”
“I don’t have it in me to leave a child to face the world alone,” she said. “So, tell me what you heard, and I will think about believing you.”
“You think he should have to live with that?” She grabbed both his arms, trying to shake him into seeing her point of view. “That weight of loss you would give to him?”
If you’re trying to martyr-fuck me, I’ll tear both your legs off.”
what
