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"Max, you are alone." And that strange response, delivered in a deep, gentle tone, confuses me even more.
with horror that maybe there’s no purpose at all. Maybe I’m going to die here on deck, gang-raped by strangers.
I’ve gotten her brother killed. My one true friend in this world, and this happened.
Everything here wants to kill me.
No matter how thorny he seems, how selfish his words, I have to remind myself of his deeds.
guess because to me, it’s hard to see you as the god of death. My people don’t have a god of death. We just have one god of everything.
Again this is a very weird take for Dixon to use. Many religions on earth have more than one god, something ever have a god of death or afterlife.
It’s one of the worst nights of sleep ever. Bugs—or crabs—crawl all over us. It gets far too cold and my sunburn hurts. My stomach growls and growls so much that it wakes me up. I can’t get comfortable,
“Your god is powerless right now, little one. And if he wants to save his hide, he’ll come with us.” He slaps my ass. “We can just as easily fuck a dead body as a live one.” I go still, horrified. “Ew!”
Vor is the god of the seas. In all the legends, he was a temperamental one, too, which fills me with terror. This must be the actions of one of his Aspects.
To my surprise, one of the pirates pulls his cloak off and immediately heads to my side. He touches the net and whispers a word, and it falls away like water. Is that…magic? The man says nothing to me, simply wraps his cloak around my body, hiding my nudity and helping me stand. He brushes sand off of the cloak as I get to my feet, and glares at his compatriots. “She is in the service of the gods, just as we are. She deserves respect, too.” They just laugh at him. “Then you can watch over her, Zakros.”
Zakros just shakes his head. “They do not understand what it means to truly serve. My mother served all her life in one of Vor’s temples. And my brother…” He pauses for a moment. “My brother serves Lord Vor.”
This isn’t like when he was sending the other dead sailors to their deaths. This is just him mowing through the enemy and cheating the system, and the system’s taking its price out on me. I hiss with pain as another sharp, scraping agony racks through my mind. “Rhagos,” I cry out. “Fucking stop!”
Rhagos arches a brow. I can practically hear his hand tighten to a fist. “Zakros?” Oh god, is he jealous that I’m on a first-name basis with one of the captors?
Luckily, this port is made up almost entirely of pirates and drunks, so it just seems like a cult to them.”
They all dress very similarly, too. We pass by rooms full of cots, and a large area that seems like a mess hall. This place reminds me a bit more of a barracks than a pirate hideout. Or, yanno, a cult. I can’t get that image out of my head now that it’s there.
there’s something about Vor that doesn’t look trustworthy. He’s got too many smiles, and far too many teeth showing. He reminds me of a used-car salesman,
“Which is that you exist solely to please Lord Rhagos.” “I thought I existed solely so I could be his target.”
Rhagos and I haven’t quite gotten in sync yet. We constantly seem to be clashing or fumbling in some way.
and then I’m irritated that someone else showed up and stripped him naked. And then I’m irritated that I’m irritated.
It doesn’t sound like “fun” to me. It sounds a bit like Hitler Junior…or not even very Junior.
don’t want to exterminate people. I don’t want kingdoms to bow to us.
Instead, I cry. I’ve always cried when I was angry, ever since I was a little girl. It’s the most frustrating response, but it’s the only one I’ve got.
so apparently I have a danger fetish, or an exhibitionist fetish. It’s the only logical reason as to why I’m getting turned on when I want to do nothing more than take a brick to Rhagos’s lying head.
He looks at me…like I’m the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Like I’m the only thing in the world that matters.
“You two sound like an old married couple. You want some married couple advice?” She smiles. “It’s on the house. Okay. So…you guys should compromise.”
“I’m just saying,” Belara shrugs. “Women are complicated. Men can usually be fixed with a quick suck.”
He never wanted to be Lies. What kind of hell is it when you’re forced to deceive everyone even though you don’t want to?
“I don’t like you.” He lifts his fingers and crosses them. “I’m not haunted by you every moment that I’m here.” Words die in my throat. I—
He’s so, so confusing to my heart.
was in his quarters, dazzled by his beauty and his too-much-ness, and I’d sunk to my knees in front of him. You’re terrible at that. I’d been so furious that I’d bitten him. But now, as I stare at his face, I realize…he’d let a lie slip out. I think. Because maybe I wasn’t terrible at it at all. Maybe he’d liked it after all.
“Kuuvahl the Soul-Eater acquired many strange objects in his lifetime, and kept them in his hoard, deep in the belly of the Frozen Star Mountain. Greatest of all was a treasure he stole from the Spidae themselves, the Shears of Fate. With those shears, a thread of life can be moved, cut short…” Her eyes narrow as she looks at me. “Or sever the connection to an Aspect.”
These people are into string concepts when it comes to fate and destiny,
I love this description.
Sister Tilari might be kind of unlikeable,
Interesting. She doesn’t seem unlikable from a reader standpoint.
know nothing about this world, I have no magic or skills with weapons, I can’t read the language, I’m a virgin, and I wear glasses. I’m not even particularly athletic.
Maybe the tattoo on his back is just another lie. Maybe I’m saving him as much as he’s saving me.
assume when you say monsters, we’re not talking about pedophiles or people that talk on speakerphone in a public restroom.
We get along like oil and vinegar.
I think that’s supposed to be oil and water, because a good olive oil and nice vinegar go well and are quite tasty.
More than anything, I want him to take my virginity. I’ve…never felt like that before.
She disapproves of something he’s doing. I’m not entirely sure what, but to me, that means we can’t trust her.
Disapproval makes someone untrustworthy?
fluffy bale of hay is
Bales of hay aren’t fluffy,they’re packed hard and dense.
he’s handsome when he smiles. He doesn’t look like a dark, forbidding god of death when he does.
He’s not the god of death, or an Aspect of the gods—he’s Rhagos, and he’s my lover.
It’s obvious he likes the sound of my name on his lips.
Whoops! Someone in proofreading and editing missed that.
He likes the sound of HIS name in HER lips.
At first I think it’s a little odd that he’s being so forceful, but then I realize…he doesn’t want to lie to me right now. He’s phrasing everything as commands so
Just be a jungle girl with a death lord, eat sushi by the pound, and work on my tan.
He’s looking at me as if he’s truly in love with me. As if this wedding is real. As if he’s never wanted anything more than to take me as a bride.
“Yours,” I whisper, and I worry that I’m giving everything to him…and I’m going to get nothing in return.
Unfortunately for me, I also got my period this morning, which means the fun’s at an end for a few days.
“Oh, I knew. Of course I did. You’re not the only one abusing your powers in exile.”
Peacekeeper. What a joke. This arrogant craphead who’s surrounded herself with armored guards is a peacekeeper?
