The Jasmine Throne (The Burning Kingdoms, #1)

by Tasha Suri

“Power can be looking after people. Keeping them safe, instead of putting them into danger.”

“And what will you do if I’m not well, in the end?” Priya asked. “Nothing,” Sima said. “I could do nothing. But I’d still want to know.

That’s what friends want.”

“We should not do what powerful people tell us, simply because they tell us,”

But some men dream of times long dead, and times that never existed, and they’re willing to tear the present apart entirely to get them.

“If I had wanted a wise and clever wife, I would have married a woman of Parijat.”

WTF

A child should not be a chain, used to yoke a woman like cattle to a role, a purpose, a life she would not have chosen for herself. And yet she felt then, with an aching resentment, how Vikram would use their child to reduce and erase her. She hated him for that, for stealing the quiet and strange intimacy of her and her own flesh and blood and making it a weapon.

“I’ve avoided marriage. I’ll never willingly beget children with a man. And what is more monstrous than that? To be inherently, by your nature, unable to serve your purpose? To want, simply because you want, to love simply for the sake of love?”

Malini wanted to explain that being monstrous wasn’t inherent, as Priya seemed to believe it to be. It was something placed upon you: a chain or a poison, bled into you by unkind hands.

The moment I saw you, I felt a tug. You are the feeling of falling, the tidal waters, the way a living thing will always turn, seeking light. It isn’t that I think you are good or kind, or even that I love you. It is only that, the moment I saw you, I knew I would seek you out. Just as I sought the deathless waters. Just as I sought my brother. Just as I seek all things—without thought, with nothing but want.

“When she is crowned in jasmine, in needle-flower, in smoke and in fire, he will kneel before her and name her,” repeated Rao, in common Zaban. And suddenly Malini was shivering, every inch of her afire with a mad elation that rose up, up in her blood. “He will give the princess of Parijat her fate: He will say…” He swallowed. Raised his eyes, which were fierce and wet. “Name who shall sit upon the throne, princess. Name the flower of empire. Name the head that shall reign beneath a crown of poison. Name the hand that lit the pyre.”

How did i feel this would happen