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The two sisters didn’t come wailing. They came quietly, holding on to each other. As if they needed no one’s comfort but the other’s. As if, as long as they were together, there was nothing to be afraid of.
She was not like his other girls. She would not be lured in by his charming smile, by that silver tongue, only to be cast aside when he’d had his fill of her.
If she and her sister were two books in their father’s study, Essie would be the one lying open on the desk, enticing you to read it. Roa would be the one stuffed between a dozen others, high up on the shelf.
Roa didn’t know how to live in a world where Essie didn’t exist.
“What are souls,” she whispers, “but stars waiting to be born?”
“To me, she is beloved.” His voice softened. “And the ones who keep me from her come to unfortunate ends.”
“The moment I realize what your favorite piece is, she becomes your weakness.”
The king and queen watched each other for a stretched-out moment as the sun sank lower in the sky. Like two opponents across a gods and monsters board, both awaiting the other’s move.
“Real love is the strongest kind of steel. It’s a blade that can be melted down, its form changed with every bang of the hammer, but to break it is a task no one is capable of. Not even Death.”
“It was in those times—when I felt the most lost, when I felt like giving up and letting the dream of a better world die—that I thought of you, all the way across the sand sea.
“Like a sailor who needs the heavens to find his way home, you were my own star, burning in the night. Helping me find my way.”
Roa looked up. Shining directly above them was a star she’d never seen before. One that burned a little more brightly than the rest.
