The Queen's Resistance (The Queen's Rising, #2)

by Rebecca Ross

“The swift are born for the longest night,” Seamus began, his voice resounding in the hall. These words were sacred, the motto of our House, and I watched as he turned to me, set a silver chalice of ale into my hands. “For they shall be the first to meet the light.”

It gave me some relief to break the mirror, as if it was merely the beginning of things I needed to break in order to see. Because I saw myself without it, not as a girl who had been chained and shorn and scarred, but as a woman who had survived.

“I love the heart that is within you,” Cartier said, smiling as his tears fell. “I love the spirit you are forged from, Brienna MacQuinn. If you were a storm, I would lie down and rest in your rain. If you were a river, I would drink from your currents. If you were a poem, I would never cease to read you. I adore the girl you once were, and I love the woman you have become. Marry me. Lead my lands and my people, and take me as yours.”