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Kindle Notes & Highlights
If you have no self-respect, your ability to respect anything or anyone else is in peril.”
My knowledge is inexact, but my function is not. I keep the world…real.”
And I understand why Annarion is going crazy—if one of my foundlings was missing, I wouldn’t be able to sit still, practicing whatever it is he’s practicing. But Nightshade’s not anyone’s definition of helpless.
A closer analogy would be Severn. She knows he can fend for himself, but Ravellon is a very dangerous place so she would still worry about him.
You never wanted to attract too much attention, because some of that attention would be bad. “I think I say it now to protect myself. If I don’t acknowledge the things that are important out loud, where people can hear it, no one will take them away from me.”
The past, of course, is a different country; it is occupied, frequently, by regret, and it is ruled by tyrants.
But a home is defined entirely by the people who live in it.
“Annarion.” “Of Solanace,”
I'm guessing this name will be important in the future.
His competence is wed to your intent. Your intent, Private Neya, only a fool would distrust.”
“Understand that Bellusdeo has lost more to Shadow than you have ever owned.
That's not saying much. Did he forget who he's talking to?
“If you’re referring to Nightshade, he is not my Lord.”
Kaylin has a notable aversion to the use of "your" with people. I think she saw people basically enslaved when she was growing up - in brothels and other places she won't name. Barren probably treated her like property too. The only time she lets it slide without comment is her familiar and her work partner, Severn.
However, anyone who knows anything about what Nightshade's mark means knows it has something to do with ownership and would use the same phrase. In their specific circumstance though, it's more about her safety than anything. It's basically a big neon sign saying, "Touch her and die. Sincerely, Lord Nightshade".
“A lot of our actual experiences become stories. Things we tell other people. Things we don’t tell other people. It’s not just about the words. But…sometimes words are what we have. They’re not everything; they have to be enough.”
“It was not always safe to be exposed to the Ancients during periods of unhindered creation. Creation requires a malleability that can be…destabilizing. Buildings such as Helen were designed to withstand such instability.”
No wonder she can work with "the boys".
“The Keeper binds the wild elements that exist as an intrinsic part of the world. He stops them attempting to destroy each other, which keeps our world stable.
“And if it’s possible to break this unspoken rule, people like you come in and fix it.”
He repairs rips in the time-space continuum caused by time travel?
She had seen it in the Consort, in the West March.
The Consort's eyes turn sky blue in "Cast in Sorrow" after Kaylin turned the Nightmares of Alsanis into eagles/dreams.
But she's also seen sky blue in Nightshade's eyes twice. First in the past in "Cast in Silence" while in the Tower soon-to-be-of Tiamaris, on dragonback flying up to the aerie. Then in "Cast in Chaos" right after talking about what happened in the tower in the past and right before he kissed her.
“They are the foundation of my garden,” he replied. “They are…tent pegs, driven into the fundamental layer of reality in which we live. They are not cages,” he added, “but containers; the words at their base are words given willingly, and written by the elements.
the Shadow of which you speak exists in you, as well. It is not so large a component as exists in me, but it is unfettered.” He must have seen her expression with one of his floating eyes, because all she could see was his back and he didn’t have eyes in it. “The Shadow in you is slight and unrestrained. In me, it is contained, confined. It is a necessary component of my existence. It gives me…flexibility.”
Sanabalis said in "Cast in Fury", "living things—they are not one thing or another—they are shaped by forces that are outside of the words that the Old Ones spoke. There is, in them, some element of the darkness—some element of chaos.” He was explaining that Leontines started as animals, who had an element of chaos in them, and then the Old Ones spoke Words to them to awake them.
It seems to me that Shadow/chaos is what allows the mortal races to be sentient without True Names. It's also what allows them to age and die. Gilbert's is just contained differently, maybe as an earlier prototype.
Change is a fundament of your world. If you could not change, you could not exist. Time is the allowable axis around which that change revolves.”
“They are not precisely stone. But they are anchors, Kaylin. They are the heart of an ancient vow. While they stand, the Keeper stands. While they stand, the attachment to world and time and your kind also remain.”
So they are like signatures on a bindings legal document?
you exist in a world of constant possibility.
but it is my supposition that they sought to be free of all confines.”
They wanted phenomenal cosmic power free from the itty, bitty living space (this plane of reality).
It was a weight she had taken on in ignorance the first time; it was a weight she had required to save a life; a weight she had given, willingly; and a weight she had taken without permission.
Taken in ignorance - Nightshade
Taken to save a life - Lirienne
Given willingly - High Lord
Taken without permission - Ynpharion
“He feels that he owns you.” “He can’t own me. For one, it’s illegal. For two, he’s wrong. I’m not responsible for how he views me. I can’t change it. I’m responsible for how I view me, and I’m telling you it doesn’t matter.”
See my note in ch 13 at "He is not my Lord".
Besides, if Helen can't read him, how does she know?
“Kaylin—I hear you all the time. If I listen. If I don’t. I hear you when I’m sleeping. I hear your worries. I hear your anger. I hear your hope. I—hear you.”
This should be enough motivation to ask Nightshade for lessons on how to block her thoughts. He's obviously a master at it; even Helen can't hear him. Maybe this is part of why he reminds me of Severus Snape, he was a master of Ligilimens - which is the same thing. Of course Rhys in ACOTAR has the same skill and he is way hotter than Snape. Lol
“I will not say I’m waiting for you. I’m not waiting. You’re my partner. You’re my backup. My life is in your hands.”
Did he hear Nightshade say he would wait for her? He also said "and unlike your mortal (meaning Severn), I have forever." She had to have thought about it, I mean I have. It was pretty dramatic!
I wonder if what he's really saying is that he isn't waiting because he's actively in her life, not just sitting there hoping she'll make up her mind.
You have to know, Severn told her. You have to know that this is something you want, and not because I want it. Not because what I want overwhelms what you want.
