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It’s never the enemy who attacks outright who will strike your killing blow, he’d taught me. It’s the one who hides in the shadows and waits. The one who strikes when you’ve finally looked away. Those are the true predators to fear.
“How would you like to be one of mine, child? We could do such terrible things together, you and I. Might even be worth risking the wrath of the Blessed Kindred.”
Daughter of the Forgotten.”
“When forgotten blood on heartstone falls, then shall the chains be broke,” she crooned. “Life for life, old debt requires, or eternal be his yoke.”
Beware of answered prayers.
The world will try to disarm you, Diem. Do not let them. By wits or by weapon, be prepared at all times.
Descended’s abilities being tied to the soil of their realm of origin—or as they called it, their terremère.
Only the very strongest get both. In Fortos, it works differently. The female Descended always get healing magic, while the male Descended get the power to kill—they can make your body decay right in front of their eyes.
Hm sounds familiar
“That cage is warded so only the King of Fortos can open it,” Leona hissed. “Even the Chief Healer doesn’t have access. How did you get some?” Her voice turned shrill, almost accusatory. “How?”
INTERESTING
A shadowed figure stood nearby, and lifeless bodies—Descended and mortal—lay in a broad ring at my feet, as if they’d been thrown back by the force of a massive explosion.
War is death and misery and sacrifice. War is making choices that will haunt you for the rest of your days. You fight to protect, or to survive, but never for the joy of killing, no matter how brutal your enemy.
“Would I get to work with her?” “I hope so,” he said, his eyes softening with some inscrutable emotion. “She is a force to be reckoned with—just like you.”
Imma take a wild guess as to who this could be
Before I knew what I was doing, I staggered a step closer, my own hand rising as if drawn in by its siren call. It was the same inexplicable pull I’d felt toward the gryvern—perhaps I had a thing for cranky, dangerous beasts. Luther’s eyes ticked toward me, freezing me in place. His face remained passive, almost
Hot
Evie liked this
“I think,” he said, tugging it from my grasp, “it’s safe to say, Miss Bellator, you’ve already won me over.”
I stepped back and felt a tug at my hip—his hand still lingered there, still holding on to the hilt of my blade. He slowly pulled it away.
It was only then that I realized how close Luther and I had been standing, how near our faces had come—close enough to feel a brush of warm air at his quiet exhale as I pulled my hand free. Almost as if he, too, had been holding his breath.
lessons flowed mechanically from my lips. “If you cannot be stronger, be smarter. Choose both your battles and your enemies with care. Know when to flee a fight to win a war.”
“You told me the Guardians were run by a woman.” “She’s in another realm on a mission. Vance is leading us now.”
!!!!!!
They trailed around my ribcage, thumbs moving in slow circles beneath my breasts—far enough away to stay appropriate, but not nearly far enough to keep muscles from tightening on both of our throats.
I risked a glance down, expecting to see the same obnoxious smirk his guard had worn, but for once, Luther looked as flustered as I felt.
Oh, the Prince was pissed.
His touch was strikingly gentle as he examined the wound. I didn’t even feel pain, only the slow, careful stroke of his thumb beneath my jaw and down the curve of my neck, pausing at an old scar on my collarbone. A shiver rolled through me.
acreaming rn. just so we’re all aware
“Oh, don’t give me that bollocks. The two of you can’t keep your eyes off each other. He can’t stop touching you, and you can’t stop provoking him.”
Vance, standing outside the healers’ center, looking in at me through the window.
Long-buried suspicions bubbled to the surface, sending my heartbeat galloping. No, I shouted to myself over the roar of my own thoughts. It was a mistake. A hallucination, maybe. Nothing more. It can’t be more.
It hit me that Lana, the trainee healer who had accompanied Maura and I that day, had seen the secret entrance, and she was a Guardian, too. If these men didn’t know about it already, she had chosen not to tell them. Whatever other vows she may have broken for them, she’d kept that one.
Yikes
hard-won respect he’d only recently developed.
He would be slow on the respect train
“But it’s a good step. You could move in with me and my father. And after the Guardians win the war, you could stop working and stay home so we could start a family. You would be such an incredible mother.”
Idiot
Henri walked me home, beaming the entire way like I’d given him the fervent yes I knew he deeply desired. I buried the growing disquiet in my soul down, down, down, as far as I could dig.
I wish to be this delulu about peoples emotions
Not a patient—a visitor. Whispering with my mother.
IM TELLING YOU
“Did they hurt you?” he growled.
Gives “who did this to you”
Through the smoke and the flames, I spotted an opening to the starry night beyond, and in that opening, a face. Bright blue-grey eyes. “Diem!” Luther. His voice sounded hoarse, almost panicked. So unlike the frosty calm I had come to expect.
As my hand brushed against Luther’s magic, the sensation that thrummed along my skin was unlike anything I’d ever felt—like starlight made solid, like holding a shaving of the moon in my hands. It seemed almost to flow into me and coat my body in a shimmering, silvery sheen.
We both froze in place as something ancient, something profound passed between us. It was a primal force that transcended word and thought, as powerful as a crack of lightning, a child’s first breath, the endless depth of the sea. It was not of this world but entirely woven within it. It warmed my blood with a calming peace I’d never known, yet filled me with the terrible dread of a fate I could not avoid.
A vision came to me. The same one I’d had before—a battlefield drenched in silver flame and strewn with dead bodies in a circle at my feet, my body clad in glittering onyx armor and a gilded, night-black blade in my hand. Only this time, I wasn’t alone.
“Diem,” he whispered. “Luther,” I answered.
Someone was holding my hand, our fingers interlocked. A tingling thread of energy crept up my arm where our skin made contact. And they were talking to me.
