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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Milla Vane
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July 18 - July 23, 2022
The only others who will be forgiven are the ones who didn’t live to return home. For that is the way of people. They will claim their loved ones are an exception and deserve forgiveness. But anyone else will be cursed as a villain—and a villain’s only redemption is death.”
because you cannot execute someone who does not exist.”
“But he is a cat. So he’ll still do exactly as he pleases.”
“But that injury was done long before she arrived here,” the woman continued. “And was not delivered by a bandit, but by a snow-haired prince she called a villain.”
“You said mine when no one else would. Never will I not say yours.”
“Then little has my admiration for you changed. Always you would stop to listen to those who were alone, for you knew that is what they often needed the most—for someone to see them, to listen to them. And I have always loved that about you.”
Because she was alone. Because she needed someone to hear her.
“So mad I am for you, Lizzan.
I was hurt, so I used words as weapons to aim at your soft heart.”
“That is you, being exactly like your cat.”
This is all easier if I am angry.”
“So perfect you are, Lizzan.”
Easy it would have been to rebel against cold tyranny. It was much more painful for her to push back against warm affection and good intentions.
“Aerax.” Her voice was a ragged whisper in his ear. “To the end of my days, I will love you. I promise you that.”
Every night, we could be strangers.
But the path was never easy.
“What are these thoughts that are hurting you? I will chase them away.”
“If I have to become a monster to save you, that is what I will do.”
“All I have known of you is softhearted, generous, and strong. But to ask for this quest and name your death as a reward means you are also cruel and selfish and weak.” Her expression shattered. “Aerax—” “And cowardly, too,” he said, and she sucked in a sharp breath, fist flying to her stomach and pressing there, as if to stanch a wound. “You would take the easy path. But I will not let you.”
What he’d thought was selfishness was Lizzan’s pain, and he’d raged at her for suffering.
“Always I would have come for you—”
I want nothing more than to be with you until that day comes. After all the time we have waited and wasted, Aerax—if we only have until the first snowfall, I will take it, and be glad of every moment.”
“It matters not how quick or slow the days are. No matter what happens in the battle ahead, and even if every day afterward is spent with you, never will there be enough of them.”
“Would you wait for me?” Sudden uncertainty filled the girl’s reply. “Even if it is years?” “I will wait forever for you.”
His unyielding, unceasing need for her was the most incredible, wonderful thing she’d ever known . . . and always he put hers first.
There will be time spent in the bed, but we would also have that without marriage. There will be helping each other, as you helped me when all seemed so lost. But we would have that without marriage, too. And always I will love you, with or without marriage.
In that moment, he would have done anything for her. And so he still would. Anything but let her go.
“Why would you? For you to stop and help someone is as unremarkable as the sun rising every morning.”
Lizzan had not become a soldier so she could choose whom to save. She would simply save all that she could.
“Wherever you go, I will find you, and we will be together again.
