The Hundredth Queen (The Hundredth Queen, #1)

by Emily R. King

I would rather stay in Samiya and serve the gods than leave and serve a man.

She simply does not know what to do with herself if she is not complaining.

I do not fear the night. When I close my eyes, tiny lights glow behind my eyelids. Jaya says that they are residual daylight, but I think of them as inner guiding stars.

Every mortal man and woman was created in the likeness of the gods—sky in their lungs, land beneath their feet, fire in their soul, and water in their blood.

I do not understand why the gods have made it so that every woman’s lot in life is to owe her security to a man. Maybe if it were otherwise, we would not put up with them. But is silent obedience our divine role? Or has Tarek undermined the very strength the Sisterhood was built upon? I cannot discern the gods’ will from men’s; the layers of truth are too muddled together.

My loneliness and my fears peel from me.

“We are all half-demon, half-god,” says Brother Shaan. “The demon half being the mortal side that continually errs, and the godly half being the side that strives to improve. In each life, we endeavor to raise our standing and become closer to everlasting perfection.”

The rats revisit me, circling my meal tray. They chatter to each other, plotting how they will sneak up to my food without my noticing.

That is the only promise that I am required to make. I will break it by day’s end.