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A devil who carried himself like a dancer.
Applause. Because sometime between last night’s hall and this night’s garden, she found her nerve. And I lost mine.
Others. That was also the problem, that we allowed ourselves to think of anyone as an other.
“I am a princess,” she clipped. “I cannot afford to be myself.”
For no explicable reason, I wanted his trust.
“He has your eyes.” “Nature knows what’s best.”
“The puppet who holds the strings,” I repeated. “You have power but no freedom.”
“You’ve told me what you believe a fool is,” I said. “But there’s more. A fool is a man who sees his worth in a mirror, and in the faces of a crowd, but is oblivious to it elsewhere—where it counts above all, in the eyes of those who matter the most to him. Don’t insult yourself that way.”
“Oh, fuck my permission,” Poet hissed, then rounded on me and whisked a finger against my lips. “We’re finished talking, sweeting. So very fucking finished.” Then he grabbed my face—and his mouth slammed against mine.
“My excuse is three feet tall and has my eyes. What’s yours?”
And in my weakness, I found a new type of power—the means to shut him up.
It wasn’t a suggestion as much as an insistence—cursive engraved into stone.
Do not let that subdue you. Have courage. You are tougher than you imagine.
Humor has its merits, after all.
“Stay,” I said, the word raw on my tongue. Briar shook her head and pleaded, “Why are you doing this?” “Because I lack the strength not to.”
“Show me those lovely secrets, and I promise, I’ll honor them.”
“No ruler can lead unless they’re willing to. That’s what he sees in you. There’s fight in your soul, Briar of Autumn. I approve.” I swallowed around the knot in my throat. “I’m honored.” “You’d damn well better be. Now go get my boys. Both of them.”
Broken hearts made faults and fools of us all.
In the half-light, we took a moment to endure one another. If something happens to me … If anything happens to you …
“The greatest courage a person can have is to love another, for there are only two outcomes. Either the love lasts, and our lives are compromised, or it doesn’t, and our lives are emptied. Either way, we suffer more than we celebrate. I’ve enjoyed suffering with you. We are a tale for campfires.”
“Briar, I won’t insult you by speaking as if you’re still a child. But giving yourself to a man—” “I do not give myself,” I told her gently but surely. “I share myself.”
“Laws don’t make us better. Our mistakes do, providing we rise above them,”
