More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
The queen, inspired. She didn’t seem to grasp that she inspired most of the continent. She inspired me. She made me see myself differently. She saw me as someone worth saving, in spite of my rags and past. She inspired me to be more than what others expected of me. I dared to believe I could make a difference because the queen had believed it first.
Only now did I understand the unbearable weight of secrets. You can never know their true burden until they’ve been lifted from you.
It helped me to see myself better—the impossible choices of a fleeting moment—the regrets we bury deep within us, the things we would do differently if only we could have one more chance, if only we could rewind a moment like a card of yarn and weave it into something else.
Family was a risk that you might never recover from, and we led dangerous lives by choice. Justice burned in us, like a brand seared into our skin the day our families were taken from us. The unsaid words between us were our safety net.
“But trouble is what we do best together.”
I felt myself falling deeper into the world that was Jase Ballenger.
“Never. Not through a thousand tomorrows could I ever be sorry. Trouble with you makes me glad for it. I love you with every breath I will ever breathe. I love you, Jase.”
“We will, Kazi. You and I. We’ll write our own story. And it will take a thousand volumes. We have a lifetime ahead of us.”
We. Everything was we now. We wove our dreams together like armor. Nothing could stop us now.
Sometimes you need to own one whole day. Maybe that’s what makes you brave enough to face another.”
“Brave? You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.”
You asked me why an open world frightens me, Jase? Because it gives me nowhere to hide.
Lest we repeat history, Let the stories be passed, From father to son, from mother to daughter, For with but one generation, History and truth are lost forever.
My arm tightened around her. “I’m thinking how much I love you.” “Then I’m glad you’re awake. Tell me again, Jase. Tell me the riddle…” She mumbled a few more incoherent words and drifted back to sleep, her cheek nestling into my shoulder. I kissed the top of her head. My breath, my blood, my calm.
We kissed again, banter still playing between our lips as he pulled me to the ground. I knew the lightness, the play, the laughter were his gifts to me, a promise that no matter how close we were to Tor’s Watch and whatever challenges it held or objections his family voiced, we would not lose the perfect beauty of these last weeks. It would not change anything between us. He didn’t need to say the words again. I felt them in every kiss. This was just the beginning.
When you are on the lowest rung of society, you are a comforting reminder to those just a bit above you that life could always be worse, that they are not you.
“I have to find her.”
Sometimes you have to remind yourself that you’re not powerless. That you have some measure of control. Maybe that’s what makes you brave enough to face another day.
Hold on to to each other because that is what will save you. Out of many you are one now. You are family. I look at our put-together family. None want to be here any more than I do. We are all different. We argue. We wave our fists. But we hold each other too. We grow together, strong like the circle of trees in the valley.
Our wants were rarely all wrapped up in one neat package. Even mine weren’t.
When you have no strength left, you have to choice but to reach deep and find more, and then share it. It is the Patrei’s job to lead.
Know your enemies as well as you know your allies. Know them better. Make their business yours.
Do not pass a rose without stopping to smell it. It is a gift that may not always be there.
“Or what, Jase? What are you going to do? I am your brother!” My chest heaved. “And Kazi is my wife!”
Kazi of Brightmist … you are the love I didn’t know I needed.
Bound by earth, bound by the heavens,
“She laid her life on the line to save Lydia and Nash! She never showed any fear, but you know what she was afraid of? You! All of you! Do you have any idea how much courage it took for her to return here with me? She heard all those things you said to her. What you were going to do to her. I told her that you would understand. You would listen. That you would love her again. Because that’s what families do.”
any one of us can only pray that someday someone will love us as much as Kazi loved Jase to sacrifice everything, including her life.
What’s wrong with getting married again? I would marry you a hundred times over. She kissed me, berry juice still on her lips. Only a hundred? she asked. A thousand times.
“A thousand times over, Kazi,” I whispered. “I would marry you more than a thousand times.”
“Maybe we will all die,” I answered. “But if we die, we die fighting.”
Maybe I finally understood that history wasn’t just written on walls and in books but made in a thousand daily decisions,
Waiting for someone else to write your history was no way to live. Sometimes it was only a certain way to die.
Maybe sometimes life and fantasies and family did all go completely wrong. But I had loved and been loved deeply and completely, not once but twice in my life. I would not trade that for all the riches that Montegue had to offer.
They’re here with me, Kazi. They’re here for you. We’re all here for you. Stay with us.” I pressed my lips to her temple. “Stay.”
Synové’s brows pulled down defensively. “When opportunity knocks, you don’t go punching it in the face.”
“I suppose nothing’s gone quite the way we planned.” I lifted his hand to my lips and kissed his knuckles. I smiled against them. “But I guess that’s how good thieves keep all their fingers. They slip into the cracks. They find shadows. They make a new plan when the last one utterly fails.”
“The truth is some of us don’t know what to say. Thank you is not enough. Apologies are not enough.
but you stayed. Because of Lydia and Nash. Because you had made a vow to Jase to protect his family. Saving them was more important to you than the momentary satisfaction of revenge.
“When you discovered your mistake, you risked everything to right it,” I replied. “I suppose that’s all any of us can ever do. Try to make it right.”
It was what I needed, a moment to gather myself, to breathe, to remember who I was, and what I still needed to do.
Right now the only job I wanted was to be Kazi’s husband. A good one. A husband who only made the right decisions.
“Kisav ve, ra tazerem.” Kiss me, my husband.
“I want to know that this isn’t a dream. I want to know that this is real.”
“You’re here in the vault, with me, in my arms. We’re together, and we will stay together, no matter what.”
“Kiss me, Jase. Hold me. Whisper to me. Touch me.”
We held on to each other like it was the first time.
I pulled her close, my breath shuddering in my chest, the scent of her skin reaching deep inside me, her breaths beating at my temple, and then, when my lips trembled against hers, she pulled me impossibly closer and whispered against them, “I love you, Jase Ballenger, and I will for all of my days.”
“That doesn’t erase who we are individually, or how you fit in. A family’s not a puzzle with a set number of pieces. It’s more like a well—the fuller, the better.”
“Not to mention,” Kazi continued, “I’m the ambassador around these parts, and ambassadors trump Patreis.” She put her hands on her hips. “There! I guess everyone knows everything now.”
