Bloody Rose (The Band, #2)

by Nicholas Eames

You know I love him, Lil, but your brother would eat yellow snow if you told him it tasted like whiskey.”

But lies, as her uncle Bran was fond of saying, were like a cup of Kaskar whiskey: If you’re in for one, you’re in for a dozen.

but her father, naturally, had yet another rule when it came to his daughter going for drinks with strange boys. Which suited Tam just fine, since she was into girls, anyway.

You didn’t get to be the villain of one story, she supposed, unless you were the hero of another.

“Agree to disagree?” “Or we could just agree that it’s manticore.”

“No,” she said. “I’m not very pious at all.” The druin put a hand on her shoulder. “Good. Because the gods are a lie.”

“My teeth!” Brune shouted, still trying to pinpoint something white. “No.” “Your teeth?” “How the fuck could I spy my own teeth?” Cura snapped. “Tam’s hair!” “Damnit.”

Gabe looked as though he might be sick. “I just…” He rubbed despairingly at his face. “Why do I even bother rescuing you? Seriously? You fought the bloody Dragoneater? On purpose?” He glared at her from between splayed fingers. “You know I refused that gig, right?”

In the forest, a woman screamed. Not in fright, but in fury – a rage so powerful and painfully violent Tam wondered that the trees themselves didn’t splinter at the sound of it.

This absolutely breaks my heart, what a feeling :(

Rose dragged herself from the wagon and stood waiting for Clay as he approached. “My father wanted —” was as far as she got before the giant embraced her, pulling the freezing plates of her armour against him, cradling her head in the palm of one massive hand. Neither spoke for a long while,

Such sentiments, Tam imagined, were most often born of envy, but since the dead didn’t warrant envy, what happened next was no great surprise.

Her smiles were shorter. Her laugh was louder. She became distracted at times, and would stare at nothing with a look of shattered sorrow that passed like a cloud the moment someone spoke her name. She loved less quickly, but more fiercely, and made certain that those she cared for knew it well. Sometimes she wept when it snowed.

He loved his bandmates. He lived for them. He would have died for them if they asked him to, without question. Instead, he died for me.” A breath. “So I guess he must have loved me, after all.”

Cura found a smirk and slapped it on. “You know what else droops when it gets old?” “What?” Wren chirped. “Yes, please,” said Freecloud dryly. “Tell my five-year-old daughter what else droops when it gets old.” “Oh… um…” Cura wilted under the druin’s glare.

“There are worse things in the world than monsters,”

During its final verse, the city-wide chorus faded as well, shedding voice after voice as an oak sheds its leaves at the onset of winter, until the only one singing was the girl who’d started it all.

Rose, however, was smiling. “You were a terrible bard,” she said. “I know.” “You’re fired.” “Fair enough.”

wishing each second could last an eternity. But it doesn’t. It can’t, of course. The sun always rises.

The old man’s eyes floated a moment before landing on her. “Why wouldn’t I be?” “There’s a sword in you.” “Ah, well… there’s a sword in all of us,” he said, then winked as though he’d said something profound. Which, to be fair, he kind of had.

She’d been aiming the arrow already. All that remained was to let it go. She drew a breath. She let it go.

A grave for Gabriel, I realized. I asked him what it said. He replied, “We were giants, once.”

The world is big, the young are restless, and girls just want to have fun.

evil thrives on division. It stokes the embers of pride and prejudice until they become an inferno that might one day devour us all.