The Wicker King (The Wicker King, #1)

by K. Ancrum

I know I’m not particularly nice. But niceness and kindness are two different things, and I am nothing if not kind—regardless of the methods I use to achieve such a thing.”

All virtues not granted at birth are taught to you by life, one way or another.

“Is anything ‘just’ anything? After all these months? Even dressed in my colors? Even with your favor at my feet? Even as the sky falls and the only thing I can hear besides your voice is the screams of the dying and the thundering of horses? You remembered to keep it when you couldn’t even remember to eat. It’s a lighter, yeah. But it’s also everything…” Jack grinned. “We’ve had our conduit all along.”

The morning sun rose pink and gold above the field and, oh glorious Ives, how his armor shimmered in the light. How the feathers on his helmet framed his face. This is what had been missing all along. And as the champion stood, boots firm on the ground, howling to the sky, I knew at once that he’d never been mine at all. He was a thing of the earth. He belonged to the streams and the deserts and the darkness. To the sound of thunder and the whispers of the ocean as it clawed the shore. To the rain that fell when the sun was still blazing, to the grime clenched between my fingers. I stood at his side. Nothing but the king of a kingdom of mud. But I threw my head back anyway and joined his cry. They send word on the wing of a bird but faces are my currency, and till i’m paid in full, they may as well send nothing. 11:23 2:45

He wanted Jack’s clawlike fingers back on the nape of his neck. He wanted it to hurt so he could still feel it later. He wanted it so bad he could hardly breathe. He reached out again. The guards tackled him to the floor.

Jack pulled him so hard, so close, that his bones protested, but his heart? It sang, keening at the feeling.

“It’s just true,” he said. “It always has been. In this world and the next. They could take everything away and leave us with nothing, and I would still love you.”

August’s heart seized. He didn’t … know he could have this. Jack kissed him so carefully that August thought he would fall to pieces. Kissed him with the weight of knowing the price of risk. Then he gazed back at August like his heart was already breaking.