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Did he even care that they were asking me to be used as payment for a debt?
My fate was not my own, and my future would be determined by these men.
A King cannot kill his Sparrow, and a Sparrow cannot kill her King, either directly or indirectly, without death befalling them both.
“I will listen when it’s a matter of safety for myself. For other people. I will do my best to ‘stay the fuck out of the way.’ But I will not bend to your every whim. I will not humiliate myself because you deem me insignificant. If you wanted me to stay quiet, then you should have let that marroweel kill me. I am not one of your warriors to lead. I am not your wife to command. So no, we do not have an understanding.”
Yes! Stand up for yourself! Thank you!
Jenny liked this
“Not all monsters are born from the gods, my queen. Some of us were made.”
Foreshadowing?
“You might earn my name one day. But make no mistake, Cross. I will never trust you.”
mmmmm I bet that's a lie.
“I hate you,” I seethed. “Yes, you do. Don’t forget.” “Never.”
The Guardian. There was a vulnerability in his green eyes when he looked at me again. “You have Lyssa,” I whispered.
The Voster’s eyes were the same dark-green shade as blood from the infected monsters. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
“Would you kill me if necessary?” The question startled me into silence. So we stared at each other, a dying monster in my arms, and I realized that he was asking for the same mercy. That if he became a monster, if he lost control, he’d want a quick death. “Yes,” I whispered. “If I must.” “Swear it.” There was an intensity, an edge, to his voice that made it difficult to breathe. “I swear it.” “I will hold you to that vow.”
I smiled at Faze. “I guess I have a soft spot for monsters.”
Strange that this was the moment I saw my husband’s bare chest for the first time. We’d been married for nearly two months. And now I knew the reason he didn’t visit my bed. He’d been in Jocelyn’s instead.
Well this is fucked.
It wasn’t that he’d chosen Jocelyn. It was that he hadn’t chosen me. Why was I never the first choice? Why was I always the consolation prize? With Father. With Margot. With my tutors. And now with Zavier.
“You went into the water with brown hair and emerged with red. And as you hurried into the castle, dripping wet, I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Then you were there, in the throne room, your hair dyed again. And I saw in you what I see in myself.”
“You have always been my queen.”
If it was Ransom, he could fuck off. If it was Zavier, he could rot for participating in Ransom’s charade. And if it was Jocelyn, well…
“You are mine, Odessa.” It was a growl,
I was tired of being a Sparrow in a cage.
“Husband.” I narrowed my gaze. “You know where the Voster live, don’t you?” Ransom held my eyes. And didn’t speak a word. He didn’t have to. His silence was answer enough. Allesaria.
“I don’t know what to do. I’m failing you. Do you really want to go back to Quentis? If you do, then say it. Tell me you want to leave, and I’ll take you back to Roslo myself.” He was giving me the choice. All I had to do was say yes. “No,” I whispered. His eyes drifted closed, his forehead dropping to mine. “Good. I have no desire to live in Quentis.”
When the claw was worn around his neck, the man never again felt pain or sickness. The day he took it off and gave it to his son was the day he died.”
Reminds me of the deathly hallows. When the guy with invisibility cloak takes it off and gives it to his son, ready to meet death at an old age.
There are ten of us who took the elixir, and not a single one has gotten Lyssa. I think the elixir we gave you was the fundamental magic for Lyssa and the bariwolf’s saliva was the missing piece. When it bit you, a bond formed. A bond between man and monster and magic. That day, you both created Lyssa, and it has since morphed in your bodies. The bariwolf continued to spread it as it bit other monsters.
Lyssa was born from two beings. A bariwolf. A one-eyed monster. And Ransom. “That bariwolf was never the beginning.” His voice cracked. “It was me. I started Lyssa.”
“Did he try to kill you because of your affair? Or because he found out you gave me this elixir?” “I don’t know,” she whispered. “He came to my bedroom in a rage. It escalated when he saw Mikhail.”
Flash back to his father repeatedly saying "you killed him"... initially we thought it was about her affair, but maybe he was referring to her killing Ransom by giving him the elixer. The king knew what she had done.
Except I was frozen in place, eyes glued to that book on the table. It had flipped over when Ransom had tossed it, showing the other side. There was an intricate etching on the cover. A winged emblem. The same emblem on the pendant I wore around my neck.
He lifted my hand to kiss my knuckles. “I wish we didn’t have to pretend.” “Me too.”
These monsters… We didn’t understand them, did we? They were more than animals. More than beasts. They truly had magic. Faze was only a baby, but I was constantly surprised by how much he understood. Not just commands but moods. There were times he’d look at me and it was like he knew exactly what I was feeling. Joy. Anger. Heartache.
“Then you have to come back to me. Or I’ll hate you forever.”
A growl came from Ransom’s throat before he was free, casting those soldiers aside like they were nothing. Then his heat was at my back, a snarl in his voice as his father’s grip only tightened. “I will kill you. I swear it.” Ramsey’s nostrils flared. “I see the way you look at her.” “She is my life,” Ransom said.
Jocelyn tried to slink to the wall, but the crux pecked at every human, like a chicken eating bugs. My former lady’s maid was gouged in two.
A death better than the one she deserved. I honestly wish she would have died at Odessa's hands.
“Luella!” It was Ramsey’s shout that carried above the chaos. She was still with that injured soldier—one of his soldiers—and their progress was slow. Too slow. “Run!” He screamed for her, pushing off the wall where he’d taken shelter. She looked up, looked over her shoulder. But it was too late. With that single beat of her wings, the crux leaped from one side of the courtyard to the other. And with a snap of her beak, she cleaved Luella’s body in two.
This was the reason I’d asked Ransom and Zavier for a sword. This was what I’d spent months and months training for. Not for someone else to come to my rescue. To rescue myself.
Banner whirled, gaze wild. His hand moved like a bolt of lightning, flicking that knife, sending the blade tumbling end over end. It buried deep into Zavier’s gut. At the same time, I drove my knives through Banner’s.
“Papa!” Evie’s voice cracked, and with it, another piece of my heart. His eyes filled with tears of his own as he reached for her with garbled, bloody words on his lips. “I love you.”
He untangled his hands from my hair. Then, with a hopelessness the depths of which I’d never seen before, he unclasped the cuff on his forearm. And fastened it around mine. “You know what this is?” The road to Allesaria.
“Run. Now, Cross.” Hot tears dripped to the dirt at my boots. “I love you.” “Yes, you do. Don’t forget.” “Never.” “Neither will I.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I will find you. Here, or in the shades.”
