Red Queen (Red Queen, #1)

by Victoria Aveyard

Our backs are bent by work and unanswered hope and the inevitable disappointment with our lot in life.

The gods rule us still. They have come down from the stars. And they are no longer kind.

I think life has simply decided to open the floodgates, trying to drown me in a whirlwind of twists and turns.

Their glasses reflect the light, each one a tiny star in the hand of a god.

In the fairy tales, the poor girl smiles when she becomes a princess. Right now, I don’t know if I’ll ever smile again.

“You better hide that heart of yours, Lady Titanos. It won’t lead you anywhere you want to go.”

He saved me, he brought me home, he broke the rules for me. And he’s a merciless soldier, the heir to a bloody throne. Cal’s blood might be silver, but his heart is black as burned skin.

This world is Silver, but it is also gray. There is no black-and-white.

Anyone can betray anyone.”

In this light he looks old and gray, a bitter man haunted by a dead sister, in love with a broken woman, doomed to teach a girl who can do nothing but lie.

“You are playing the game as someone’s pawn.”

It’s our nature, Julian would say. We destroy. It’s the constant of our kind. No matter the color of blood, man will always fall.

Cal is a cliff, and I throw myself over the edge, not bothering to think of what it could do to us both.

“The truth is what I make it. I could set this world on fire and call it rain.”

“I told you to hide your heart once. You should have listened.”

Many things led to this day, for all of us. A forgotten son, a vengeful mother, a brother with a long shadow, a strange mutation. Together, they’ve written a tragedy.

But she believes. She ignores the truth for something easier to understand.