While the Dark Remains (The Winter Dark, #1)

by Joanna Ruth Meyer

without you, the world would be so much smaller. Don’t shrink it back down to nothing.”

My mind snags on the image of a blue-eyed boy with white-and-black hair, pulling me toward him in the dark. I taste the heat of his kiss, of his magic, fizzing blue and silver inside me. Longing floods my senses. This is why I keep distance between me and Vil. The blue-eyed boy is why.

But like anyone, I suppose, Skaandans skew religion to fit their desires, instead of the other way around.

“Your country sustains your body,” she says. “Your faith sustains your soul.”

A monster cannot become a man, but a man can become a monster, and perhaps that’s what makes humanity so frightening: You cannot tell, just by looking, who is monstrous, and who is not.

I kiss him back, careful and a little unsure, my heart raging inside me. His mouth is warm and wet. He tastes of salt and tea and something untamed that I yearn to know more of.

Probably tastes wild cause yall aint got toothbrushes

“Come back to me,” he says, “when you have done what you need to do. Please come back to me.”

My eyes flick once toward Brandr. “My brother already told you. The Iljaria are reclaiming our mountain.”

THE WAY MY JAW DROPPED