Cursed (Gilded, #2)

by Marissa Meyer

They tried to find small ways to annoy the Erlking and his court whenever they could. Small acts of rebellion, but rebellion all the same.

All memories of the former royal family had been eradicated when the Erlking cursed the prince and his name, erasing the royal family from history.

It was torture to be around Gild while she harbored these secrets, but it was far worse to be without him.

But there is no fate, no fortune. There are only the secrets we share and those we conceal. Our own choices, or the fear of making a choice.”

“Please,” he said, “remove the knife from my back. I would hate to ask Manfred to do it. Again.”

“I vow that every moment of your company shall be held as dear to me as god-spun gold, as precious as fleeting mortal lives. I vow that even with an eternity to have you by my side, I shall never tire of seeing your eyes cast in moonlight and your lips kissed by the sun. With you at my side, I can never feel lost, never feel loneliness, never feel the endless agony of a life without purpose. With you at my side, I am complete, and I dedicate all my life to loving and completing you.”

Whose countenance might inspire poetry, but it would be poetry filled with words like melancholia and sepulchral and bereft.

“Being the god of labor sounds like a lot of work.”

“I can’t kill him,” said Gild. “I can’t defeat him. I can’t keep him from marrying you. Let me have this, Serilda.”

Embracing Leyna was a bit like being wrapped in a soft-worn quilt on a winter’s night.

“Best not to take any children. Or any mothers, for that matter. It’s terribly traumatic for a child.”

Wyrdith gave up their golden quill. Velos gave a tooth. Eostrig a horn and Hulda a serpent’s scale. Tyrr gave a gem, Solvilde an egg, and Freydon a claw.

Forever after, on the nights of an Endless Moon, like the one beneath which the veil had been created, the gods would no longer have dominion over themselves. Rather, they would be forced to take the forms of seven terrible beasts. After that, it became possible to catch a god on that long, dark night. Possible to hunt them, to capture them … and to claim that elusive wish. Ever since, whenever the full moon rises on the longest night of the year, the hellhounds can be heard sniffing and searching for their prey. Seven gods made into seven extraordinary beasts.

Love grew out of shared memories, shared stories, shared laughter. Love was a result of knowing the many things a person did that annoyed you to the ends of the earth, and yet, somehow, still wanting to hold them at the end of every day and be held by them at sunrise every morning. Love was the comfort of knowing someone would stand by you, accept you, despite all your eccentricities, all your faults. Maybe loving you, in part, because of them.

All children deserve to be loved. All children deserve a mother or a father who will care for them and protect them, unconditionally. Not someone to dote on them for a time, only to lose interest when parenthood no longer suits them. Those are not the actions of someone who wishes to be a mother. That is the opposite of a mother. That is someone who cares only for themselves.”

The Erlking grinned smugly. “Nonsense with sauce,” he muttered.

“We are the old gods, Wyrdith. The world has gone on without us. Mortals have gone on without us. They may invoke our names and leave their offerings and whisper their prayers, but it is up to them, ultimately, to devise their destiny.”

anything that would leave them both with upset stomachs, because that was better than upset hearts.

“I am a vicious thing,” she said. “The graveyard should fear me.”