Fireborne (The Aurelian Cycle, #1)

by Rosaria Munda

Moments like this, it hits me like it did the first time: that the life I have begun to think of as routine is, in fact, extraordinary.

Like hell am I throwing this match.

And as she turned, it was revealed by her tread that she was fireborne.

“It’s suicide.” The reply I gave was one I wouldn’t think of making to anyone but Lee. “Not for me.”

It’s strange how you can fight your way to a door, even through it, without thinking about what lies on the other side.

“Maybe I want you to win. Because I think you’d do a better job than that self-satisfied ass. Because I think you’ve got the head and the guts for it and that you’d do a good job, period. That too hard to imagine, Annie? That somebody wants you to win?”

the anger of the people can be often cruel and ill-placed. Today you paid the price for wrongs you didn’t commit.”

I speak, I feel Annie’s fingers find mine again, roll them into hers

our knees beneath the table, and a feeling like dizziness comes over me. Hours left. And we’re still together, and she’s smiling. Smiling while she holds my hand.

would give anything to ease the hurt on this girl’s face. Anything.

You see, Annie, they watch us kneel, they see the back of our heads, and they think we’ve given in. They don’t realize you can think from your knees just as well as from your feet.

A head for strategy, skill in the air, and nerves of steel. I’d be good at it.

The fury gives me Aela; and when we’re together, like this, we’re powerful. At such a price, the memories of weakness finally serve a purpose, and once used, they never hurt with the same strength again.

Alas, flee, dragonborn, you and your family. Flee from the flames. The enemy has your walls, the City falls in ruin from its height.

You wrote me once that you hoped I would know the feeling of the might of the world at my feet. Today, I have known it. Your choices are your own. My conscience is not your keeper. Bring what fury you have and I will answer it with ours.

Antigone, Go show them what you’re made of. Miranda

Sometimes when the nightmares get really bad, I just don’t sleep. It’s okay, really. You just get a little tired during the day—

he touched her, and instead of recognizing her beauty he tore her apart.

Even when you don’t feel confident, you fake it.

“Annie,” he says, when it’s time for me to leave. “If I don’t . . . if I can’t . . .”

“Yes,” I tell him. “I’ll do it.”

When I rise to leave, he seizes me, pulls me close, and hesitates. For a moment, as he stares at me with lips parted, I see the longing in his face. Longing for me. So much longing that it looks like despair.

and with a tenderness that makes my eyes burn, he leans forward, tips my head down, and kisses me on the forehead.

You have given li...

An echo of how we sat in Albans, when he used to hold me. But this time, it’s I who am holding him.

am saying, Come back to us, over and over again. Until it becomes, at last, Come back to me.

I admire you. I admire how much shit you’re willing to take face-first to get what you want. But it pisses me off when you’re an idiot.”

We’ve reached the bounds of reason and have come to the threshold of belief. I would not do her the dishonor of imagining that her beliefs have been any less hard-won than mine.

Atreus doesn’t follow his heart. He works in spite of it.”

It is the sound of a dragon who has felt the bond with its rider break in the only way it can be broken.

His gray eyes soften at the sight of me, and the beginning of a line appears at the side of his mouth, like something just a little sadder than a smile, and I know the words without their needing to be said.