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If my beauty was of the destructive kind, his was a beauty that pressed exquisitely close to sorrow; something as cold and untouchable as the stars scattered overhead.
In a world where everyone will demand something from you, it requires a certain degree of selfishness to be happy, you know.”
“We are most tempted by what we cannot have. Men will dream of the mountains they have yet to scale, the rivers they have yet to set sail upon, the plains they have yet to conquer. They are told from birth everything belongs to them, and so when something does not, they view it as a personal challenge.” I thought about it longer. “But also, from a distance, everything looks more beautiful; we are better able to conjure our own fantasies about them. Sometimes the fragrance of a feast is better than the taste itself.”
“The heart is a fickle thing; it takes and takes. It is easily swayed, and tempted, and made weak. Too many have fallen victims to their own irrational desires. But the mind—the mind is dependable, accurate, deadly. It destroys the enemy, not the self, and ensures that we do what we need to, not what we want.”
“So this is how it feels,” he murmured, almost under his breath, “to be cut by your own blade.”
Wu Zixu clenched his jaw. Likely, he had not expected his king’s first key impression of the military advisor to be how pretty he looked.
“Your Majesty, please. Don’t lower your guard against the Yue. Have you already forgotten your father’s dying wish?” At this, Fuchai’s eyes, which were close to falling shut, opened again. “Of course I haven’t,” he said brusquely. “I am reminded of it every day.” He squinted around the court. “Reminder! Where are you?” Immediately, a scrawny servant ran into the hall and fell to his knees with a loud thump. “Your Majesty, you must remember your grudge against the Yue king for causing the death of your father!” Then, as soon as he’d finished this dramatic little declaration, he got up and
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I wasn’t even surprised. How many women throughout history were blamed for the weaknesses of men? We made such convenient scapegoats. We were raised to be small, to be silent, to take whatever we were given and no more.
Love is a knife; it cuts both ways.
was a reversal of the popular stories passed among the villagers. The beautiful girl with blood under her nails, who did not need saving from danger but was instead the danger itself.
Trust was such a fragile thing; it took decades to consolidate, seconds to shatter, and a lifetime to repair again.
“When the hares have all been caught, the hunting dogs are cooked.”
The moon rises white illuminating your beauty, your shadow which wounds me until my heart’s devoured
When the hares have all been caught, the hunting dogs are cooked.
The moon rises white illuminating your beauty, your shadow which wounds me until my heart’s devoured
