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He was there for me in every way that he could be, and I know that’s not always possible. So, if this pain is the price for having had and being loved by a father like him, then I’ll pay it gladly.
Wow i havent even started the book yet and I'm already crying
“The only way to get as far as you have, considering what they think of us, is to become undeniable.”
Bars!
“When the time comes, I promise you freedom or a quick death,” he said. “As soon as I’m able, either way I’ll release you.”
Man.....
“Oh, you wish me to be civil?” Tau asked the larger man. “You want me to play the part of a Noble when you’ll never give me the same consideration as one. Is that the game?” “What are you talking about?” “I can smile and talk as sweet as cane sugar. I can follow every rule you’ll ever make, and it will never be good enough for people like you, because people like you don’t see me as people,” Tau said, pulling a handspan of black dragon scale free from its scabbard.
SAY THAT SHIT
Uduak waved a hand at Tau’s thigh. “You’ve one good leg.” “Praise the Goddess, she also gave me two hands.”
CALLBACK TO BOOK ONE WE LOVE TO SEE IT
“I miss it,” said Themba. “What?” “On marches like this, he’d always be coughing.” “Chinedu?” “I miss it, you know? I miss him coughing. It’s stupid, neh?” Tau caught Themba’s eye and shook his head. “No, it’s not.”
STOP BEFORE I CRY
She staggered to a stop outside the reach of his blades, her chest heaving from the run and her eyes fixed on him. “Jai-ehd,” she said again, hefting her spear. Tau remained motionless, thinking about what was to come, and then, nodding more to himself than to anyone else, he spoke. “You’ve killed yourself,” he told her.
Queen's champion? More like champion of ONE-LINERS
“Say his name again!” Tau shouted, going after her with his swords spinning.
Oh my boy's MAD
“The illusions are reflections,” Tau told the dying man. “They have your burns on the wrong side.” Achak’s eyes went dim. “And earlier, I knocked free the hatchet in your left hand.”
Tau you fucking genius
“We could not sleep,” she said. “We tried, but… Champion, can you… will you come in?” his queen asked, stepping back into the room to make space for him as well.
SHE'S NOT SLICK LMFAOOOO
Uduak lifted his hand and arm out of Hadith’s. “Uduak…,” Hadith said. “What kind of life?” the big man said, looking around. Hadith reached for and took Uduak’s hand. “One we’ll make the best of.”
These bitches gay or smth? [crosses fingers]
“Goddess wept! Just help me,” Hadith said. “Stupid,” Uduak said. “It’s mostly worked for Tau,” Hadith said. “What did you say?” asked Tau. “You heard,” Hadith said, waving Tau over to help him.
SKMDMSMSJDJSKS PLEASE THEY'RE EVERYTHING TO ME
Just once, Tau thought, he’d like to know what it was like to be on the side that wasn’t being dragged to slaughter.
He's tireddddd y'all
“So long as you do not take any of the underworld’s energy into yourself, your body here cannot be harmed by the demons there,” Tau said. “Note well, he said body,” muttered Themba, tapping his head. “Themba, I’ve done this before.” Themba opened his hands in Tau’s direction, as if to say the point had been made for him.
THEMBA PLEASE SKSJSNDNSN
“I told you, you bastard,” she said. “I told you!” Tau ran over to them and saw that there was blood seeping from gashes in Kellan’s neck. The worst of it was the arterial red spurting between Thandi’s fingers. Kellan was awake, his eyes wide, and Thandi was telling him to be still. She hadn’t been cradling his head. She was squeezing her hands and fingers against his neck to slow down the bleeding. “No…,” Tau said, “he can’t be hurt. The demons, they can’t—”
I KNEW IT
It was then, staring into Azima’s lifeless eyes, that Duma finally understood the truth. He was already in Uhmlaba, but he wasn’t free. He was lost, and in the last beat of his broken heart, Duma Sibusiso went helpless, damned, and all alone into the dark.
God WHYYYYYYY EVAN I'M SENDING YOU MY THERAPY BILLS
Themba let his eyebrow drop back in place and raised his hands, palms out. “Don’t take me the wrong way. I’ve no problem with it,” he said. “It’s just that they got a lot more serious after Uduak was injured in the melee.”
I KNEW IT I KNEW THEY WERE HOMO <3
The doors to the infirmary opened, and lacking even a hint of their prior servility, in stalked Auset and Ramia, the queen’s handmaidens.
LET'S GOOOOOO
“Look,” the umbusi said, raising the pitch of her voice to sound as if she spoke to a child, “the false queen dresses her Drudge in the armor of champions.”
Oh she just signed her own death warrant
“Who I am, who we are, it began with an umqondisi. It began with Jayyed Ayim,” he said. “His philosophies, his teachings, they brought us here. We are from him.” “You honor him, Tau Solarin,” the queen said. “You honor him with this. Now speak it into existence. Speak it to the Goddess and the world. Tell them who you are.” “We are the Ayim,” Tau said.
Oh and I'm crying!!!!!
If the Nobles living in Citadel City decided they were better off bowing to Queen Esi instead of Queen Tsiora, the city’s Lessers, alongside the army stationed there, could make that decision a fatal one.
GOOD.
Hanging from her hair, which had been tangled and knotted around Makena’s dead hand, was Jelani’s severed head.
Holy FUCK
Kana killed Jelani and eviscerated Makena in front of Tau’s mother. He made her watch it all and then he put out her eyes with fire-heated bronze, so that her daughter’s murder and her husband’s butchery would be the last things she ever saw. Blinded and bound to the bottom of the pole on which they strung up Makena, Tau’s mother had listened to her husband dying for a day and night.
This is inhumane
“Demons?” she said. “When?” “Now.” “Here? In this tent?” “Yes.” “Where?” Tau pointed behind her and Tsiora turned. “Champion,” she said. “Yes?” “We see it too.”
OH FUCK
The dragons were intelligent; they had to be to hold the Gifted in Isihogo. They must have some sense that the calls they answered were a trap, and they came anyway. Without regard for themselves, they answered every cry, holding hope that one day it would be their missing child they found instead of bondage.
This is so sad
“Are you ready?” Tau asked the Ayim. Themba spoke before the others. “Does it matter?” “Not even in the slightest,” Tau said, clapping his sword brother on the back. “Then,” Themba said, “we’re ready.”
Ily themba
“Goddess wept,” said Tau, watching as the beastling’s body caved in on itself, collapsing like an unstable cliff that turned to ash and then vanished.
Just like the demons.....
She’s right to be afraid, Tau thought. She’d lost her shroud first, marking her as the weakest among the Gifted in the queen’s Hex. When it came time to leave the underworld, the other Gifted would force their power into her. They’d make her burn bright enough to become the focus of the dragon’s ire, and it would latch on to her soul, trapping her in Isihogo with the demons. The young Gifted was moments from her own death. Knowing that, she still did her duty, and bearing witness to such courage made Tau feel like he’d taken a spear to the heart.
God i can't even imagine being in her shoes
Then Nyah’s screams, her voice filled with agony and fear, broke the fugue of Tau’s ending, and her cries damned him. They damned his failures, his weakness, and as he listened to her die a true death, Tau Solarin learned that he had not been anywhere near the limits at which he could be hurt.
GODDDDDD JUST KILL ME NOW
“What happened to Mama? Why is her face covered? What happened to her?” Tsiora tried to speak to her, tried to find the right words. She managed one. “Gone,” she said, and the child, too small a thing to withstand the crushing weight of its meaning, collapsed into the queen.
KMS KMS KMS
“Champion, you… you must come back to us,” Tsiora said, and it muddled him to see her like that, so totally unmasked. She wiped tears from her face. “Above all else, Tau, we wish for you to come back.” So many had been lost to bring him here. “There is nothing in Uhmlaba that could stop me,” he told her as he left.
Idk WHAT is going on between them but I'm digging it
Tau told the Noble that if he harmed the boy, he’d suffer for it. Odili’s men, many more of them than there were Ayim, broke into the house, hoping to make short work of Tau and the six with him. The old Noble, thinking the battle won, laughed in Tau’s face and slit the boy’s throat. Tau saved that Noble for last. He and the Ayim killed everyone else. And when Tau had gone to put the old man to death, he’d gibbered, pleaded, and pissed himself. His screams came after that.
GOOD.
He reached for her other hand, and lifting them both to his lips, he kissed her fingers. “She won’t harm either of you, and that truth is worth so much more than hope.” The quiet voice scoffed. Esi placed a hand to her stomach. “She will hurt me, Bas. She’ll hurt me by taking away the man I love.” He lowered his head, shamed by her concerns. “I’ve failed you, my queen.”
WORM????? THIS IS GROSSSSSSS
The crowd erupted at the mention of the Lesser’s name and Esi felt sick to see so many faces caught in the ecstasy of the moment, mouths gaping, hands raised, and feet stamping in approval of such a base and vile creature.
Get fucked esi
So, Esi Omehia, the giftless, went to Isihogo and took from a “mother” too weak to do what must be done to protect Her children. She stole as much power from the Goddess as she could hold, and glowing like a new sun, Esi braved the demons one last time so that her unborn child would never have to.
Jesus CHRIST
He’d balanced the scales, and that had to count for something, but his father and Zuri were still gone, and it didn’t hurt less because the man responsible was dead. Instead of relief or a sense that justice had been done, Tau felt tired, hollow, and he kept picturing the things he’d done to Odili in the circle. It made him feel sick, and Tsiora had borne witness to it all.
[pretends to be shocked]
Thandi lowered her head, looked up at the queen through her lashes, and smiled. The way she looked, Tau thought she might hug the queen, but Thandi settled for looking around the room at the others, her eyes stopping and holding on Kellan Okar, who returned her smile.
Kellan x Thandi endgame? I NEED IT
More tears came, and she leaned into him. He placed his arms around her, holding Tsiora as close as he could, and she cried into his chest, her pain cutting at him until he could take no more, and with the whole of his heart, Tau Solarin made his queen a promise. “For as long as you’ll have me, I’ll be here for you,” he told her. “For as long as you want me to, I’ll fight for you.”
THEMMMMM
It got quiet, and not wanting to do it, Tau admitted to himself that being near Tsiora gave him peace.
AND THAT'S WHAT MY BOY NEEDS
He froze, hands on his belt buckle. “Champion…” “Thand—KaEid Tariro,” he said. “I was just leaving.” “Yes, so I see.” “No, no,” he said raising his hands and having to scramble to catch his sword belt before it fell to the ground. “I’m not leaving like that.”
SKDMSNDJJXNSJDJS
“No wonder we have so few animals in the peninsula,” Themba muttered. “They had to kill half of them to get enough leather for that one’s armor.”
SCREAMMMMMM
“No… I just don’t know if I can…” He tried to work through the knot inside him, hoping to unravel even a little of it. “I can’t survive losing you, and there’s not much left in the world that scares me like the thought of that does.”
GODDDDDD
“Goddess,” Tau said, “I swear to the Goddess…” “Yes?” she asked, lifting her hands to his face. “What if I lose you?” “We’re here,” she said, stepping into him. “But, what if—” She kissed him, and he wrapped her up in his arms, lifting her from the ground and kissing her back, his whole being alive with the feel of her. “We’re right here,” she said. “So are we,” said Auset. Tau and Tsiora moved apart. “Don’t be shy now,” Auset said. “Not after all that.”
AHHHHHHHH I LOVE THEM
