Five Broken Blades (The Broken Blades, #1)

by Mai Corland

hope is a jagged knife. Hope pieces together dreams out of broken glass only for reality to come and smash them all over again. Hope is the cruelest punishment of them all.

“You remembered after forgetting, and that’s just as valuable as knowing the first time,”

The world will grab and pull at your humanity, try to strip you bare, but ultimately you decide whether to hang on or let go.

The scents are sharper, the colors more vibrant. The air is hot but clean, and the chatter of shoppers sounds like music. But a dead man savors every last vision, every last breath.

I’d expected something else when I heard about him. A bad man. A brute. And he isn’t one. I mean, yeah, he’s a violent killer, but no one’s perfect.

For now, we’ve saved each other. Tomorrow, we may stab each other in the back. Hard to say.

What does one wear to kill an immortal king?

I shift at the sound of her voice. It’s the sound of wished-for rain on a scorching day. The clear, soul-rising ring of temple bells. The divine music of the gods. And ordinarily, she’d rather kiss a toad than talk to me.

Mortality makes people careful, makes them care, makes them reasonable. Gods are not reasonable.

Loving somebody is needing two hearts to live instead of just the one.

A thief, a strongman, a spy, an assassin, a nobleman, and an exiled prince add up to a ring of liars. Trust is a surefire way to wind up with a blade in your back.

The scandal wouldn’t be because we’re the same gender. No one would bat an eye about that. No, the issue is that Mikail isn’t noble. Class is more important in Yusan than simple differences like skin color or sexual preference. And I am at the top of the hierarchy, and Mikail is a commoner.