The Queen of Attolia (The Queen's Thief #2)

by Megan Whalen Turner

He tried to think, but his thoughts teetered on the edge of a black pit filled with memories that threatened to drown him.

“It’s worse than despair I am hiding,” he said, sounding suddenly very bleak.

His voice, broken and stumbling, had filled her dreams until she had wept in her sleep, crying tears for him that she’d never been able to cry for her father or for herself.

My God, he thought, I am so frightened. O my God, if you will not save me, make me less afraid. He fell on the steep trail.

Eugenides looked up at her, and Attolia felt transparent, as if her mask were gone, as if he could see her heart and know that a moment before it had been stopped by grief.

And when I thought I was losing you a second time, I realized I would give up anything to keep you—my lip service to other gods, but my pride, too, and my rage at all gods, everything for you. Then I see you here, and see what I have done to you.”

If the longing inside her for kindness, for warmth, for compassion, was the last seed of hope for her, she didn’t know how to nurture it or if it could live.