More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
To those who have dared to be a beacon of light in the bleakest of moments
My parents do not love me when I am weak, when I fail them, when I err. Who am I, if I am not the perfect daughter?
“You look like a vengeful ghost,” he murmured, adjusting the seat. “And you are the sort I would furiously haunt for all eternity,” Iseul retorted.
“Perhaps you might release my collar. You will appear less like you are strangling me.”
“You remind me more of a thorn.”
“The path we are to take will be littered with death. Freedom will always come at a cost.”
think even one’s beliefs and values collapse under the weight of fear.”
“The heavens have abandoned the king. It is time we abandon him, too.”
But a sword that has lost its heart for its master becomes but a useless object.”
“Let us move the heavens together.”
The ones I loved most dragged me through the darkest of hours. Yet in the next life, I would still love them again.”
“Hopefully in the next lifetime, we will meet again,” he said, glancing down at me. “And in kinder circumstances.” I gazed up and offered him a small smile. “I hope so, too.”
“We ought to quarrel more often.” I reached into his peace offering pouch and picked up a candied lotus root this time. “Given our difference in temperament,” he said dryly, “there will likely be many more quarrels to come.”
“I swear,” he whispered in a low voice, as though to himself, “the next person to harm you will die by my own hands.”
“You have me, so use me.
“You must change the heavens. So go, daegam. Go and move the heavens for her.”
“Why did we trouble ourselves with this coup nonsense when we could have sent you in with your deadly rock?”
“All is well! Iseul is here with her sweetheart!” Sweetheart?
“Hwang Iseul,” his voice rasped, his hands gripping tight onto my skirt, “if by any chance we do not meet again in this lifetime, then I will find you in the next—or as many lifetimes as it takes to see you again.”
“So long as you live, we’ll have the rest of our lives to find each other again. And I will find you again. I promise.”
“You care about me.” “You damn fool, of course I do!”
We mortals exist for but a season, and yet we love as though we are bound by eternity.
No true love awaited me. Mine had already been found, only to be lost just as quickly.
“I have half a mind to truly make you a dead man.”
Have you already forgotten my affection for you? What … what I would do for you?” “What you would do for me? You abandoned me. You, who know the pain of losing those dear to you. How could you be so cruel?” “What else was I to do?”
I would have taken the lives of a hundred more if it meant securing your happiness.
“Then I will be yours,” he confessed, his voice a soft caress, “and I shall be your ruin.”
“You would brave a life with me?” “I would brave this life,” I murmured against him, “and a thousand more.”
I am happy wherever you are.”
He gazed at her honey-brown eyes, greenish-gray in some angles, eyes that had darkened slightly over the years. Eyes he still felt lost in.
“All I desire,” he whispered, tenderly caressing her hair, “is to live a peaceful and honorable life, and above all, to be remembered well by you once I’m gone. Then in the next life, perhaps, you will not pass me by.” “I would never pass you by,” she replied softly. “And should I find you first, I do hope you will not greet me with an arrow.”
