The Prisoner’s Throne (The Stolen Heir Duology, #2)

by Holly Black

Despite being the High Queen of Elfhame, with an army at her disposal and dozens of Courts at her command, she still acted as though she’d have to handle every problem herself—and that each one would best be solved through murder.

He winked at Oak, and Oak smiled in return despite his intention to remain serious.

If one of them asked for the sun, he’d better figure out how to pluck it from the sky without getting burned.

“I didn’t enjoy being a snake, and yet I appear to be doomed to be reminded of it for all eternity,” Cardan was saying, black curls falling across his face. He held a three-pronged fork aloft, as though to emphasize his point. “The excess of songs hasn’t helped, nor has their longevity. It’s been what? Eight years? Nine? Truly, the celebratory air about the whole business has been excessive. You’d think I never did a more popular thing than sit in the dark on a throne and bite people who annoyed me. I could have always done that. I could do that now.”

Cardan was spectacle incarnate and wouldn’t care if Oriana scolded him.

Oak turned his attention to Cardan again, and this time the High King met his eyes. Cardan’s eyebrows rose. There was a challenge in his gaze and the promise of lazy cruelty. Game on.

“That must be what you like about me.” “That you’re terrifying?” he asked, his drawl becoming exaggeratedly languorous, almost a purr. “I adore it.”

Then he sees Wren, and longing shoots through him like a kick to the gut. He forgets about risk. Forgets about schemes.

“I am already bridled,” he says, feeling a little frantic. “You don’t need to lock me away. I can’t harm you unless you let me. I am entirely in your power. And when I did escape, I came directly to your side. Let me kneel at your feet in the throne room and gaze up adoringly at you.”

“She’s bitten me before, you know,” he says with a grin. “It wasn’t so bad.”

“We do not love because people deserve it—nor would I want to be loved because I was the most deserving of some list of candidates. I want to be loved for my worst self as well as my best. I want to be forgiven my flaws.”

And it turned out his instructor’s pronunciations were waaaaay off.

“Do you remember Bogdana being your mother?” “I do,” she says, so softly he can barely hear it. “I remember believing she loved me. And I remember her giving me away.” “And the murder?” he asks. “I was so happy to see her,” she says, fingers going almost unconsciously to her throat. “I almost didn’t notice the knife.”

MY SHAYLAAAAAA

Cardan is lying on the bed, bandaged and sulking, in a magnificent dressing gown. “I hate being unwell,” he says. “You’re not sick,” Jude tells him. “You are recovering from being stabbed—or rather, throwing yourself on a knife.” “You would have done the same for me,” he says airily. “I would not,” Jude snaps. “Liar,” Cardan says fondly.