More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Without me, she would not eat. Without her, I would not live.
“The Golds dance in pairs, Obsidians in threes, Grays in dozens,” he told me. “We dance alone, because only alone do Helldivers drill. Only alone can a boy become a man.”
In her eyes, I see my heart. In her breath, I hear my soul. She is my land. She is my kin. My love.
In five minutes, the ovens and citadel are ours. We shut their gates, howl, and eat some bloodydamn bread.
“You do not follow me because I am the strongest. Pax is. You do not follow me because I am the brightest. Mustang is. You follow me because you do not know where you are going. I do.”
“Why, if it isn’t my belly buddy!” Tactus drawls. “Why the limp, my friend?” “Your mother rode me ragged,” Sevro grunts. “Bah, you’d have to stand on your tiptoes to even kiss her chin.” “Wasn’t her chin I was trying to kiss.”
They chant and chant the name of the Reaper at the Proctors, because they know whom we now fight.
This is but a game, and they love me this much. When the rebellion comes, these boys and girls will be my enemies, and I will replace them with Reds. How fanatical then will those Reds be? And will that fanaticism matter a lick if they have to stand against creatures like Sevro, like Tactus, like Pax and Mustang?
“Hell, the trap’s already set for you. You’re walking right into it.” “I’m ready for the Jackal’s traps, Fitchner. Or Apollo’s. It makes no difference. They won’t be able to stop what’s coming for them.” “No,” Fitchner says, hesitating for a moment. “Not their traps. The girl’s.”
I miss the small cot I used to share with Eo. She’s been dead now longer than we were married. I’m surprised how much it hurts to realize that.
“Promises are just chains,” she rasps. “Both meant for breaking.”
I remember how Mustang looked at him. She knew who he was. She knew and she wanted to talk to me in private. Whatever their connection, her loyalty was mine. But how does she know him?
They knew I was something dangerous, something different. Sooner or later, they had to know I would snap and come to cut them down. Or perhaps they think I’m still a child. The fools. Alexander was a child when he ruined his first nation.
Funny thing, watching gods realize they’ve been mortal all along.
the spy.” “The spy?” “Messing with you. Ha!
👀👀👀
“Good,” Fitchner says. “You trust them all. Splendid, then there is no third complication. My mistake.”
“This is a blood feud,” he hisses in highLingo. “If ever again we meet, you are mine or I am yours. If ever again we draw breath in the same room, one breath shall cease. Hear me now, you wretched worm. We are devils to one another till one rots in hell.”
This is what I'm going to recite the next time someone cuts me off on the highway.
I leave the castle through the spire. I am a Red Helldiver of Lykos. I am Gold Primus of House Mars. And I am going to my last battle in this bloodydamn valley. After that the real war begins.
There is goodness in Golds, because in many ways, they are the best humanity can offer. But they’re also the worst. What does that do to her dream? Only time will tell.
I’ve stood where you stand. I won my year, but loyalty isn’t found in these halls. It is the way things are.” “It is the way things were,” I say harshly, surprising him. But I believe what I say. “I am something different. I freed the enslaved and let the broken mend themselves. I gave them something you older generations can’t understand.”
I am the spark that will set the worlds afire. I am the hammer that cracks the chains.
Words are a weapon stronger than he knows. And songs are even greater. The words wake the mind. The melody wakes the heart.
