More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Because she might not believe in the gods, but she had believed in him, that he was good and kind and cared about everyone.
“Because you thought they’d accept what you are if you only reduced yourself enough.”
“Everyone who wins says they were good, but they’re the ones who tell the story. They get to choose how we’ll remember it. What if it’s never that simple?”
“Is there really a difference between having someone die for you and killing them?”
He only hurt her on certain days, and this wasn’t one of them, so she sat very still.
She didn’t stop until she was hollow, as though she’d sobbed out everything inside her and now the only thing left was a shell. She was so tired of existing.
The world was not supposed to be beautiful any longer. It was supposed to be dead and cold, forever mirroring the misery of Helena’s life. Instead it had moved on, tilting into a new season, and she could not. She was trapped forever in winter, in the season of death.
“I have warned you, if something happens to you, I will personally raze the Eternal Flame. That isn’t a threat. It is a promise. Consider your survival as much a necessity to the Resistance as Holdfast’s. If you die, I will kill every single one of them.”
“Whether you win a battle or lose it, all I see is the cost.”
“You think you’re better than us because you’re immortal, but you’re dead inside already.”
No, he was altering the terms of their agreement because of what she’d said to him.
“Did I—did I d-do something?” “You exist, Marino. I think that’s reason enough.”
“What have you ever said no to?” Pace asked. Before Helena could reply, she continued, “You think a man like Crowther hasn’t noticed that?”
Ferron knocked back the contents of his second drink and straddled a chair backwards, unbuttoning his shirt.
yeah that’ll do it for me 🫡
“Don’t die, Marino. I might miss you.”
“You’re like a rose in a graveyard,” he said, and his lips twisted into a bitter smile. “I wonder what you could have turned into without the war.”
Her hands were on his shoulders, fingertips brushing across the outermost point of the array while he deepened the kiss as if wanting to consume her.
She knew that people enjoyed sex, but she had always thought it was an indulgence. She had not known it was a hunger. Or that she was starving.
“You made me feel like the parts of me that aren’t useful still deserve to exist. Like I’m not just all the things I can do.”
She wasn’t crying. It was just the spray of the shower. It was just water on her face.
so real
They were the inverse and counter to each other. A healer and killer, circling slowly, the push and pull inexorable.
She used to think she had so much to give that she could never run out; now she felt like an upended pitcher, with an impatient cup waiting for the last drop.
“You know, I just realised, if I succeed, you’ll control Ferron the same way you use Luc to control me. It makes me feel rather sorry for him.”
“It felt like whatever I chose, someone was disappointed. Everyone—” She fluttered her fingers but, catching herself gesturing, folded them in her lap. “Everyone wanted a lot for me, and I’m not sure I ever knew what I wanted.” She shrugged. “Probably good that I didn’t, since it didn’t matter in the end.”
Don’t limit yourself to what Paladians do.”
“I live among idealists, but all I see are bodies.
“There are far worse fates than dying, Marino.” She nodded. “I know. But that one you don’t come back from.” He gave a bitter laugh. “All right, then, but only because you asked.”
Funny how often people in power hate politics, as if what they really want is to do as they please and be praised for it, and if they aren’t, then it’s all beneath them.
!!!!
“Tell the truth! You don’t get to make up history to suit your preferences.
“You don’t get to lie to me and then get angry when I make the mistake of believing you,”
Why was it always the hospital’s fault when things went wrong? If Helena had come out and said that surgery was a success and Lila was already getting out of bed, they’d all be off to the perihelion to offer Sol flames of thanksgiving. But bad news was always the hospital’s fault. How nice it must be, to be a god.
i love the commentary on religion
“You are not expendable. You don’t get to push everyone away so that they’ll feel comfortable using you and letting you die.”
“You are not replaceable,” he said, his hands trembling against her shoulders. “You are not required to make your death convenient. You are allowed to be important to people. The reason I’m here—the reason I’m doing any of this—is to keep you alive. To keep you safe. That was the deal.” He searched her face. “They didn’t tell you.”
He touched her cheek, tilting her face up and kissing her. “Use the ring, call me, if you ever need anything.”
Like a star, he was glittering and ice-cold from afar, but when the space was bridged, the heat of him was endless.
“You get to have this. You’re allowed to feel good things. Don’t be alone. Have this with me.”
“I should have known—the moment I looked into your eyes, I should have known I would never win against you.”
“You’re a far better person than I am. This world doesn’t deserve you at all.”
“Don’t worry. I’m always going to come back to you.”
You and I are not separate from it. No one is. It matters to me, everyone who’s died and everyone who will, and everyone who suffers. As long as I exist, I will always care. And that means that part of the universe does.”
“If one person’s actions are enough to damn everyone, then the gods are terrible, and Sol is the worst of all.”
“Being alive is not the same as living. I hope someday you’ll have a chance to realise the difference.”
“But it wouldn’t be the first unforgivable thing I’ve done. What’s one more line for the history books?”
“Just live, Helena.” His voice was shaking. “That’s all I’m asking you to do for me.”
“He’s a god. You’ll notice that making humans die for them is the gods’ primary mode of operation.
“What if it’s not that simple, though?” she said. “Everyone who wins says they were good, but they’re the ones who tell the story. They get to choose how we all remember it. What if it’s never that simple?”
someday I am going to love him in a moment that isn’t stolen.
“You didn’t save me,” he said when he was finally capable of speech. “You just put us in hell for two years.”
He’d loved her, even though he never expected them to be anything but doomed. He’d loved her all the same.
“I’ve never gotten to tell anyone about you. I’d want someone to know what you were like.”
