Queen of Myth and Monsters (Adrian X Isolde, #2)

by Scarlett St. Clair

It had been my home. This was the earth I had worked, the fields I had plowed, the roofs I had once repaired. It was the village that raised me, where the anger that fueled me had taken root. I had always been a monster. Yesenia’s death merely uncaged me.

My past gave me the strength to do what no one else had done—endure.

“But he is a monster. We all are, and we all have sides of us we must learn to control. You are no different. You never have been.”

“You have yet to actually live in the skin,” said Sorin. “All you have done is pout as if that can change what you have become.”

“I will not use caution with my words,” said Sorin. “You will never reach your full potential if you continue to deny who you are.”

“I do not wish to hold it against him. It’s just that I will never forget.” “How could you?” It was trauma, and it had happened when he had least expected, when he had likely been feeling emotions that far exceeded anything he’d ever felt in his life.

“What do you prefer? The dark or the light?” “Neither,” he said. “Evil basks in it all.”

There was no comfort for this—not even in revenge—because trauma was a nightmare that clung to its victims with an iron fist.

“There is no understanding it,” Adrian said. “Because it is hate, and hate can exist with no reason.”

But it hadn’t. It had just been suppressed. It was afraid, just as I was afraid now. That was the design of oppression.

We are powerful in the ways our world likes to undermine and silence us. Our intuition is often overlooked as only a feeling or being oversensitive. Our ability to give birth and control over our bodies are carelessly handled by men in government, who use religion as a weapon and reason when the Bible is only a myth constructed to oppress.

Magic comes in the form of intuition, that deep trust we have within ourselves to follow our instincts. Magic comes from the words we speak that can manifest a life beyond our wildest dreams. Magic comes from choosing to see meaning in symbols.