The Liar's Key (The Red Queen's War, #2)

by Mark Lawrence

The night can last twenty hours and even when the day finally breaks it never gets above a level of cold I call “fuck that”—as in you open the door, your face freezes instantly to the point where it hurts to speak, but manfully you manage to say “fuck that,” before turning round, and going back to bed.

tumblr

A man casts a million shadows, and yet you trap him within such a singular opinion. You travelled here seeking wisdom, girl, but all that I have here on these scrolls is information. The wise come into their majority out in the world, amid the muck and pain of living.

tumblr

Kara pressed her lips together in a thin line and studied my face. Her eyes, very blue, moved as if I were a book she could read. I saw her pupils dilate. Somehow she was falling for my puppy dog routine. I felt slightly disappointed. I had wanted her to be more . . . magic. Stronger. I’ve found over the years that women want to save me. No matter how bad I am. No matter how bad they see me being—perhaps I’ve cast aside their friends when I’ve had my fun, or cheated with a handful of court wives, a new one each day—if I but show them some small hope that I might be redeemed, many, even some of the cleverest of them, the most moral, the most wise, step into my trap. It seems that the prospect of taming a dangerous reprobate who is unlikely to truly care for them is sweeter honey to some than, say, a strong and moral man like Snorri. Don’t ask me why. It makes no sense to me—I just thank God for making the world this way.

Tumblr

The two of them seemed at ease in each other’s company. I watched them with a strange mixture of jealousy and satisfaction. Part of me half wanted Snorri and the völva to find the furs together. A good woman was the only hope for him. He needed something other than his grief. I found it rather worrying that I might be considering sacrificing the pleasure I hoped to take in Kara. That didn’t sound like me at all.

tumblr

Great emotion, it turns out, is a fire, and like a fire it needs fuel. Unfed it dies down to a hot and banked glow, ready to ignite again but leaving space for other matters.

tumblr

Throw away too much of your past and you abandon the person who walked those days. When you pare away at yourself you can reinvent, that’s true enough, but such whittling always seems to reveal a lesser man, and promises to leave you with nothing at the end.

tumblt

In the midst of such institutionalized theft on so grand a scale individual thievery could not be tolerated in any degree. Only by strict adherence to the rules of the theft could the illusion of it being lawful and civilized be maintained.

tumblr

I think it’s a disease. Being treated like a brave and honourable man becomes an addiction. Like the poppy, you want more of it, and more.

tumblr