More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Constancia was his equal. His partner and his wife. But in the Moon Goddess he found his opposite, and he was intoxicated by her.
Because in Medio, safety required power, and to get power you had to move closer to the sun.
it was as a reminder that Dani did as she was told. When she didn’t, disaster struck.
No one in Polvo would ever understand if she returned. It wouldn’t be the same as it was before. That version of her was dead. This was the only way forward.
In school, they had learned that a Primera would be her husband’s equal, standing beside him, learning what he knew and sharing his power, but this handbook had her relegated to little more than an assistant.
She cataloged it for safekeeping, this pride. Too much of anything could be a weakness.
If she could prove herself intelligent and useful, perhaps she would earn a role with a little more gravity.
This was no eager young husband on his first morning with a new bride. This was a politician.
Dani felt as if she were being constantly evaluated, but had no idea why, or what for.
It’s a viper’s nest, child, I’ll not deny it. See that you have the strongest venom.
To conceal a particularly strong emotion, you sometimes needed to layer another on top of it.
“I just want you to know that. I don’t have a choice here. You don’t get to pretend you’re freeing me. You’re a bully and a monster. Just like them.”
“It doesn’t matter if I like them or I don’t. If I want this life or I don’t. This is what I have. This is how I survive.”
It spoke of the fine grit of the dirt near the border. The kind that stained more things than it grew.
Dani had never been so close to a boy before—not even her husband. It was against the rules, and more than that, she’d never wanted to. Never even been curious.
But there was a dark power to closeness, and it was here, between them.
He knew he was acting strangely, leaving her out of the loop, and his defensiveness proved it.
He was actively preventing her from doing the job his family had chosen her for.
She gestured helplessly at the scene they’d painted. Scandal scented the air for a mile around them.
We protest because our children are hungry, and you, with all this excess, would rather kill them than feed them.”
Maybe the Sun and Salt Gods had walked with mortals all those years ago. Maybe one had betrayed the other. But there was nothing left of that story here today.
But I’ve let their dreams for me become me. I’ve done everything they ever wanted, and it didn’t make me safe. It only made me selfish.”
“The past may comfort us,” she said to the fire. “But it cannot feed us.”
This was the way a family was supposed to function—Primera and husband working together, respecting each other. Dani had never seen it in action.
It would be so much easier that way. But Dani wasn’t a lone wolf anymore. She had faith. In the girl next to her. In the power they had claimed together.
People who want easy and pretty stay in their cages.”
