A Twist of the Blade (Shadows and Crowns, #2)

by S.M. Gaither

What sort of woman offered a dagger to the God of Death and encouraged him to stab her with it? “Go on,” she said. This woman. Damn this woman.

“It wasn’t all lies, was it? Everything that happened between us?” He stared back at her. Hesitated so long that the waiting caused an actual, physical pain in her chest. “No, Thorn. It wasn’t.”

“But that’s the problem with loving deeply, isn’t it?” she asked her hands with a bitter little laugh. “It means you have to hurt deeply, too. And that hurt can twist you up in unexpected ways.”

is not a competition. Everyone has their own battles. Their different hells. Different demons. And you don’t have to apologize for the things that hurt you, as I said, or for what you have to do to survive these things—not to me or to anyone else.”

But that was so often how it happened, wasn’t it? Left instead of right. An arrow hitting its target. Or missing it. A minute too late. A minute too early…life was full of these tiny moments of profound impact—moments balanced on a blade that might twist one way or the other.

“But in all seriousness, you essentially already have two brothers prepared to threaten and kill on your behalf, so who cares about Varen? Family is not always blood, and blood is not always family.”

You can be afraid, and you’re allowed to feel stuck…you just can’t stay there. You have to keep going until you see what’s on the other side of that fear.

All he knew for certain was that he had fallen in love with her twice now. I answer to a higher power, he’d told her. But perhaps there was no higher power than this. Than her.

“I love you,” he said. She dropped the bag she’d started to rifle through. “What did you just say?” “I love you. And I always have—in this lifetime and in every other.”

“I don’t know what happens next, either. But I am certain of one thing: If you are going to war, then I am going with you.”