More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
‘Making her husband see sense is the lot of every bride, it seems.’ “Chloe’s eyes widened. ‘You’re … married?’ “I lifted my hand to show the silver troth ring on my finger. ‘Eleven years.’ “‘Oh, Gabriel,’ she whispered. ‘… Children?’ “I nodded, eyes shining. ‘A daughter.’
Your daughter,’ Chloe urged. ‘What’s her name?’ “I breathed deep, running my thumb over my knuckles. “‘Patience.’”
Gabriel reached into his battered britches, fished about under the monster’s stare. Finally, he retrieved a tarnished royale from his pocket. “Here.” “What is that for?” Jean-François demanded. “I want you to take this coin to market, and buy me a fuck to give.”
The Kiss, they called it—these monsters who wore the skins of men. A pleasure darker than any sin of the flesh, more honeyed than any drug.
Those eight letters etched across his fingers. P A T I E N C E.
Daughter’s name
“See, I never understood that. Why pride is looked on as an evil. You work hard at something you’re not born good at? Damn right you should be fucking proud. There’s nothing comes of quitting besides the knowledge you didn’t finish.” Gabriel shook his head. “It’s only in faerie tales that everything works out for the best with a magik spell or a prince’s kiss. It’s only in storybooks some little bastard picks up a sword and wields it like he was born to it. The rest of us? We have to work our arses off. And we might not ever taste triumph, but at least we dared to fail. We stand apart from
...more
“‘Law the First,’ Aaron panted. ‘The dead cannot kill the Dead.’ “‘Good. What does it mean?’ “‘We can’t kill coldbloods if we’re killed ourselves, Master.’
‘Dead tongues heeded are Dead tongues tasted, Master.’ “‘And what does that mean?’ “‘Listen to nothing they say.’
Law the Third?’
‘The Dead run quick,
‘Our enemy runs quick.’ The lordling twirled his blade in triumph. ‘Quicker than we do.’
Law the Fourth,’ Greyhand said, turning to me. ‘The Dead feel as beasts, look as men, die as devils.
You forgot Law the F-fifth, Master,’
‘Even the Dead have laws.’ “‘Even the Dead have laws,’
They can cross no rivers save at bridges, nor enter a dwelling without invitation. They cannot set foot upon sanctified ground, nor bear the sight of sacred icons wielded by a person of pure faith. They have weaknesses, is the point. Weaknesses you will learn to exploit.’
Folk are drawn to the dark within us, Little Lion, just as they are drawn to the coldbloods who made us.’
Some shall hate you for it. Others adore you. None will ignore you. A wolf cannot long hide among sheep.
Drinking the blood of ancien can slow mortal aging, and undo wounds that would send any man to his grave. But moreover, the act itself is addictive. Drink from the same vampire on three separate nights, and you will be enthralled. Helpless to resist its commands. In every sense, a slave.’
‘The strength a father must conjure to put his only son in the ground?’
‘But the name Luncóit means raven child in old Elidaeni.’ “‘The sigil of the Blood Voss is a white raven,’ I murmured.
“I AM THE DOOR ALL SHALL OPEN. THE PROMISE NONE SHALL BREAK.
“Are you truly saying warriors of the Ordo Argent stripped half-naked to fight?” Gabriel nodded. “Being silverclad, we called it. Modesty is of little use to a corpse. And armor is of even less use when your opponent can crush steel with its fists.”
The first highblooded vampires I’d ever laid eyes on.
mind racing with the thought that I’d somehow boiled that vampire’s blood just by touching him.
This is sanguimancy.’
‘De León failed every testing in the Trial of the Blood, but we never tested him for this.
“Were they talking about a fifth bloodline? “And was I … one of them?
There are three ways men view the women of the world, Gabriel. Enemies to be overcome. Prizes to be won. Or as people. My advice is choose the latter, my love. Lest they begin considering you the former.
She was a curious one, this girl. One second turning on her charm easy as breathing. The next, spitting venom like a greensnake.
I’m no princess. I’m a fucking queen.’”
‘My mother is Antoinette Rennier, former courtesan in the court of Emperor Philippe IV, and favored mistress of his son Prince Alexandre.’ “‘You mean Emperor Alexandre.’
You’re … daughter of the ruler of all Elidaen,’
Hearts only bruise. They never break.’
And damn right I want to be fucking great. Don’t you? Don’t you want your life to count for something? To matter?’
‘I’d tear the wings off an angel to fly this cage. I’d claw down the sky to carve my name into this earth.’
‘One day as a lion is worth ten thousand as a lamb.’
Please, Majesty.’ “‘Majesty?’ she scoffed. “I shrugged. ‘You’re a fucking queen, remember?’
But more, and truer still, there’s just no one with more to prove than the boy at the bottom of the pile. You feed a man your table scraps, he grows hungry long before he grows thin. And hunger can turn pups into wolves, and kittens into fucking lions.
“‘It’s as Mama always said, ma chérie,’ Astrid smiled. ‘When in a storm, the wise woman prays to God. But she also rows for shore.’
Why do you want to learn the sword, Sisternovice?’ “‘Not knowing how to use one is a good way to get killed by one, Initiate.’
What? She is an old bitch. Trust me. Takes a young bitch to spot one.’
Lol
Through all my years in San Michon, all the blood and sweat and darkling roads I walked, I learned one of my greatest lessons sitting in that Library with those girls in the still of the night. “A life without books is a life not lived.
“‘Which sister, Master?’ “‘Aoife.’
A letter unanswered is like a kiss ignored.
A weak and foolish girl would wish you fortune on your Hunt, Gabriel de León. A weak and foolish girl would pray God bring you blessings and guard you from all harm.’ “‘But you’re not a weak and foolish girl.’ “‘No. I’m a fucking queen.’
“Tell me, when your dark mother and pale mistress, Margot Chastain, First and Last of Her Name, set you this task, did you think she was locking me in here with you, or you in here with me?”
“Poets are wankers,” Gabriel sighed. “And minstrels are just poets who’re allowed to strum themselves in public. It’s a self-important prat who believes his thoughts are worth putting to parchment, let alone writing a fucking ballad about.”
“Music is a truth beyond telling. A bridge between strangest souls. Two men who speak not a word of each other’s tongues may yet feel their hearts soar likewise at the same refrain. Gift a man the most important of lessons, he may forget it amorrow. Gift him a beautiful song, and he shall hum it ’til the day the crows make a castle of his bones.”
You know what most men don’t do enough of?” “Tell me, Silversaint.” “They don’t shut the fuck up. They don’t just sit and listen. It’s in silence we know ourselves, vampire. It’s in stillness we hear the questions that truly matter, scratching like baby birds on the eggshells of our eyes. Who am I? What do I want? What have I become? Truth is, the questions you hear in the quiet are always the most terrifying, because most people never take the time to listen to the answers. They dance. And they sing. And they fight. And they fuck. And they drown, filling their gullets with piss and their
...more
Put a man in a room for a hundred years with a thousand books, and he’ll know a million truths. Put him in a room for a year with silence, and he’ll know himself.”
