More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Though these odd contradictories are rare, they are consistently tragic.
That understanding alone draws together even the most unlikely of allies. Even hooded and shrouded in shadows, these two strangers have never felt so seen.
His is the hand my bloody fingers reach for because there is comfort in his imminence.
Because this fate may prove to be worse than Death himself.
Damn the pretending. Damn the hiding. Damn everything but him and us and this moment where I need him.
That gesture of goodwill is me.
It is my turn to become the difference I always dreamed of being, even if the king’s reasonings do not resemble my own.
I thought I’d known torment until it wrapped around her finger. No, torment is tangible, and it gleams atop her tanned skin. I stare, unblinking, at the symbol my brother slid onto her finger. It is binding. It is infinite. It is my undoing. A laugh threatens to slip past my numb lips. It’s not as though she hadn’t promised to be my ruin, hadn’t already become my demise. She is the single most destructive thing I have ever desired, and yet, it is the diamond on her finger that will destroy me. I watch Paedyn through the gaps of a gawking crowd, just as I will for the rest of my life. I’ll be
...more
I’ve been nothing but willing when it comes to drowning in those ocean eyes. But now, I can’t fathom drowning if she is not the anchor I’m sinking with.
“I… I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this.” I feel each vigorous shake of her head. “I was ready to die. I was ready for you to be the last thing I saw and now—”
“Everything I thought I knew about my life was a lie. And now I’m expected to live it alongside someone I thought wanted me dead?”
In fact, my entire life is in shambles and all I can do is stare at the jagged pieces in my palm and laugh. I don’t dare look in a mirror because what stares back is a mosaic of every mistake, every tragedy traced into my skin, and the looming shadow of each one to come.
My entire existence has been reduced to appearances.
I nod. Smile. Try to grip the shambles of myself tight enough to sound okay.
“I’m sorry for being so… distant before you left. But I’ve grieved. I feel lighter, if that makes any sense.”
Those blue eyes crash into mine like a wave, along with the sudden realization that I’ve been nearly deprived of drowning in them since our arrival to the castle.
My breath catches at the comparison my muddled mind has made. I keep my gaze lowered after the jarring thought, hiding from my own reflection in the mirror. Because I’m scared of what I’ll see there. Will it be the broken girl staring back, or the traitor queen I’ll soon become?
That tether between us grows taut, heavy with the weight of so many unspoken words. But even the strongest of ties wear over time. It will be the slow death of us, spending every day alongside each other but never truly together.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” “It’s not promises I care to keep—it’s you.”
The Kitt I saw mere minutes ago was a glimpse of the boy I grew up with, the boy I loved before I’d even understood the meaning of the word. And I wish so badly to hold on to that familiar version of him,
Something broken staggered out of the Bowl Arena that day. And I have only been stronger for it.
The sea is kind today, perhaps only to lure us into a false sense of security. Water is fickle, and man is foolish enough to think we can tame it.
Nothing and no one has ever devastated me more. Not the sand, the sea, the slow brush of Death’s hand. Because maybe, just maybe, he is the most ruinous thing of them all.
And maybe I’m looking at her the same, like nothing has ever terrified me more than losing her.
