Godslayers (Gearbreakers #2)

by Zoe Hana Mikuta

Others stand completely still but attentions hovering, fixed—and perhaps this is all that worship is. Worship is merely attention; it can be hatred and fear as much as it can be love.

Eris looks at me, and I realize, with a strange, perfectly calm clarity, that she loves me. She cannot look at me as the gunfire starts with so, so much fear for me and think I won’t know what it means. You cannot love someone and think they won’t feel it.

“It was worth it,” I whisper, words murmured into her skin. “Everything that happened to me. Everything I am going to carry with me, and hurt for—it was all worth it, because it dropped me right next to you. I love you. I love you while the world is ending, and I love you when it goes still.”

How do I live with this? And Eris says quietly, temple pressed to my jaw, “Slowly, love.”