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“Strength,” she muttered to herself. “What would Father say? Be strong, because there is no one else to be strong for you.”
Keep on living, he had once told her. When the darkness closes in on you, that is the only way you can defeat it. Continue to live in defiance of all the shadows want to take from you. Keep the light inside your chest burning.
“Strength means not only physical prowess,” she replied. “Strength can be a person’s ability to withstand great hardship. It can be a person’s ability to seek flaws in their own soul and fix them.”
Her father would have been disappointed in her. He hadn’t raised a woman to flinch away from monsters. He’d tried to raise her to see beyond the fear and understand why she didn’t feel like she belonged. Or why they wanted to hurt her.
The Dread on the other side of the King snorted. “We got it from your village, girl,” he snarled. “You don’t recognize it?” Amicia straightened her back and croaked, “No. I don’t recognize stolen food.” Only then did the King speak. He grunted out a low growl, then said, “Food is food, whether or not it’s stolen. You’ll eat it.”
Perhaps she still had a little fight left, after all. A meek woman, a scared woman, would never have taken such a tone with the King of the Dread.
Books had a way of transporting the reader into a place better than the one they struggled through.
“You are no more a prisoner than I am.”
Being deemed unworthy to read a book was the ultimate condemnation.
Beside the door, a rose bush bloomed where it hadn’t before. She was certain of it. She stared at the frozen droplets of water suspended on each perfect petal. A rose bush in winter? Impossible. And yet, many things appeared impossible here.
“To end the suffering, a pure soul must plunge a knife into the heart of what remains. The heart of the Celestial who vowed to protect his people with his life, but who betrayed them. Immortality is gifted only to the good and the just.
know you want me to be selfless, to right all the wrongs you have done. But I choose to no longer suffer in a world that has taken everything from me. I would rather burn for all eternity than lose a single moment with you.”
She was every atom of a falling star who had raced an entire lifetime to be reunited with the light she had lost.
