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.

“You can’t just disappear, Thorn. Nothing so bright and powerful as you simply fades away without leaving a mark. It can’t be that simple.”

“There is nowhere you can go that I can’t find you,” he told her. “And when the time is right, I will find you again.”

“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.”

here was an enemy that he couldn’t put a sword through. It’s not your job to fight her enemies, he reminded himself.

And he realized how dangerous his question really was. Because in that same instant, he realized that he would have given it to her. It didn’t matter what it was. It might have eventually meant the ruin of himself, of her, of kingdoms and crowns and gods alike, but it didn’t fucking matter

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.

Twist of the blade

Family is not always blood, and blood is not always family.”