Along the Razor's Edge (The War Eternal, #1)

by Rob J. Hayes

Friend and enemy alike have long referred to me as the Corpse Queen. It is a name I bloody well earned.

LOVE THAT!

The sure, unwavering knowledge that nothing we did or said meant a damned thing. A punishment worse than death. Irrelevance.

More than once I have considered how much simpler it would be to not be.

same

These days, I couldn't buy that sort of anonymity. My name is known far beyond the limits of this continent. It's known far beyond the reach of the terran language. These days even gods know my name, and that's not the sort of attention you want. Trust me. But back then, I was no one, and no one knew who I was.

ooohh

How much easier life might have been if I had trusted the brothers? If I had told them who and what I was. Maybe if I had, we would all still be alive.

Omg all this foreshadowing is scaring me

second-guessing the past is no different to predicting the future; it is a fool's game with no winners.

In a room full of murderers, the second person to die is usually the first person to start the killing.

The past shapes how we react to things in the future, and the future shapes how we view events of the past. As the past only exists in memories, it is entirely shaped by the lens through which we view it.

If there's one thing you remember from my story, one lesson you take from it, let it be this: Gods are fucking arseholes. All of them.

Josef and I were the last of Orran's Sourcerers able to hold five Sources at once.

Some people flee from danger while others court it. Me? I stare danger right in the face and tell it to take its best fucking shot.

love her

It was petty, but I am petty,

She's just like me fr

"You," I said, pointing at a big man with a scarred lip and scarred knuckles. "I'll give you half the bread if you beat him unconscious." "What..." That was about all my opponent managed to say before a scarred knuckle hit him in the side of the head.

NO SHOT LOL

Another lesson to learn, if a job's worth doing, it's worth hiring someone to do it properly.

Try as I might to keep my distance, I had become attached to the two brothers. My attraction to Isen aside, I liked them both, respected them both. I was even starting to trust them. The idea of life in the Pit without one or both of them was something I wasn't even willing to entertain.

One of them is for sure dying

I have forged a throne out of my determination. I have matched wits and strength with creatures arrogant enough to think themselves gods. I have crushed empires, and watched my own fall to ruin, yet I still bear the scars that pitiful bully gave me underground.

This is making me excited for the rest of the series

I have since met the queen of Polasia. I have seduced her son and sunk her favourite Demonship.

her adventure bouta be wild

"I am the weapon," the words hissed from my mouth. I reached for the shard of mirror hidden in my bandages, tore it free, and stabbed it into Prig's fat fucking neck.

Damn just like that?!

I don't just burn bridges, I scorch their foundations and set the water on fire as well.

honetly love that for her

The friends I've lost would still be alive. My children would never have come to be. I'm certain the world would be a better placed without Sirileth, yet I love her despite all she has done.

Bruh

There are two types of Source that no Sourcerer is advised to sleep with inside their stomachs.

Its giving Mistborn

I have worn it only the once, and only then to save my daughter.

In its polished shine I saw many things. I saw myself die at the hands of ruthless killers, beaten to death for the insult I had given. I saw myself leading a great army of monsters and men against a foe that could not be killed. I saw myself standing in a desert, staring up at a great portal, through which a God stared back. The glimpses it gave me of my future saved my life at least once, and may yet do so again, one day.

There are two options when confronted with overwhelming odds. The first is to meet those odds head-on with blade, magic, or guile. The second is to show the odds your arse and hope you can run faster and for longer than them.

There is nothing quite so liberating as laughter. So, when the axe is falling, you might as well giggle at the executioner.

But I am who I am, and fuck trying to pretend otherwise.

a true role model

I have always found it strange that people equate having testicles with courage. Threatening a man's balls is often the fastest way to make him cower.

While others might let a thing go, I hold on tight. My grudges are mine, they are a part of me, and I don't let anything that is mine go. Not without a fight.

Josef never returned to our cavern, and I never looked for him. I left him there. I left my best friend, someone closer to me than my own blood had ever been, the other half of me, to live and die in a miserable existence deep underground.

damn thats fucked

It wasn't until later in my life I discovered why, that the other races shunned Terrelan. I changed that. For the better or worse.

I tried to forget that I had traded away hundreds of lives for a chance at freedom. I can't forget. Nor can I justify it. I did what I did, and I would be lying if I said I wouldn't do it again. I know that makes me a monster, yet it is far from the most monstrous thing I have done.

"It's not a gemstone," I said slowly, almost reverently. My stomach rumbling and I ached to snatch it from Tamura's hand. "It's a Source."

Ahhhhh shit

Yurthammers are on the banned list of summons for a good reason. I eventually used them to great effect in my crusade against the Terrelan Empire. But that story is for another day.

I have a habit of turning people into monsters and Hardt is probably my greatest creation. Well, after my own daughter.

I need to meet this daughter

It was many years later before anyone heard of Lesray Alderson again. Many years until she crowned herself the Queen of Fire and Ice.

Oop

We were close to the surface, close to freedom. It called to me through the rock above. I had no proof, but I knew it all the same. I itched to move on. More than once I glanced at Isen as he slept and part of me, a horrible insidious part of me, hoped he'd die.

I've always thought war more of a mutual effort. If one side didn't want to fight, they would have used more words and fewer swords.

I look back at the moment Josef and I parted down in the ruined Djinn city and think I made a mistake. I still had my knife at my belt. We were close enough. I could have stabbed him there and then, saved us all the pain and trouble. The consequences of that mistake shaped so much of my life and of everyone around me. But at the time I didn't see it as a mistake. At the time, I refused to see what Josef had become.

Wtff Im so scared to see whats gonna happen between them

While Josef was watching Hardt, I snatched the pouch from my belt, took the Source from inside, popped it into my mouth, and swallowed hard. It took only moments for me to discover I had just killed myself.

FUUUCK

When the odds are stacked against you, when you stare down at your cards and realise you have been dealt a shitty hand and have no way to win, you have two options. You can give up. But if you've learned one thing from my story so far it should be that I never fucking give up! Your other option is to damn the cards, damn the odds. Damn the game. Play the player. Beat the player. Do that, and it doesn't matter what the rules of the game are, nor how unlikely you are to win.

I hope it had no lasting effect on the little life that was growing inside of me. Time will tell.

EXCUSE ME?!!!

They were all still alive, and I had sworn vengeance on them all. My escape was only the beginning of my legacy. Now it was time to set the world ablaze and watch my enemies burn.

Get their asses