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The queen stopped screaming just after midnight.
It was not easy, this power, but it was right, and it was his.
April 29,
My birthday :D
To Rielle’s right, a man with a metal guard over his teeth yanked on a spiked glove and knocked another racer off his mount with the thrust of one meaty arm. The other racers trampled him, cutting off his screams, and his horse left the course with its reins trailing.
Despite the danger of the race, she couldn’t help but wish they could stay out here—away from court, away from everyone else—forever.
The apartment was a tomb, and Eliana dared not enter it for fear of breathing ghosts into her body.
white-capped mountains, lush green valleys, a world of ice and snow and night skies filled with twisting strands of colored light.
Her fingertips were ten points of fire.
“Dread,” he murmured, his breath caressing her cheek, “is only a feeling, easily squashed. But wolves, my dear, have teeth.”
Ewwww
“They call him the Wolf. He’s the Prophet’s favorite, our informants tell us. They say he cannot be captured, but rest assured, my lord: we will find this Wolf, carve every secret from his body, and leave him to bleed dry.”
With every moment he crouched there staring at her, his eyes wandering over each plane and curve of her body,
Ewww
little Dread?”
Noooooo why is it awful nickname time
He curled two fingers under her chin, made her look at him.
Ew
little Dread,”
Stop
“The seven saints combined their powers and opened a doorway into the Deep with wind and water, with metal and fire, with shadow and earth. And when Saint Katell, last of all, let fly her blazing, sunlit sword, the angels fell screaming into eternal darkness.”
Her right arm held up her sword—her casting—which was now hidden somewhere in Celdaria. Katell’s other hand clutched a fistful of ragged stone feathers. Angels, miniature and pathetic, their faces contorted in agony, crawled up the legs of her white mare, pleading to no avail. Around her head shone a halo of light, plated in gold, kept burnished and flawless. Saint Katell the Magnificent—a sunspinner and, after the Angelic Wars, a queen. The unifier of Celdaria. Loved by an angel but strong enough to resist the temptation of the enemy. And, in the thousand years since, the children of her line
...more
I kinda lost the plot with the worldbuilding dump here
How did you see your own hand moving and know it was attached to your arm and your shoulder and your blood and your bones? Like that.
You know you could do it, the voice murmured. You could flood the world. That kind of power hums beneath your skin. Doesn’t it?
“When darkest is the night When lost is the fight When blood is all in sight Look to the rising dawn”
little Dread.”
Stop
“Of Aryava’s prophecy, there are many interpretations. Some dismiss his dying words as the nonsense ramblings of a great angelic mind gone to ruin. But all scholars do agree on this: despite the war dividing their people, the blood of both humans and angels that stained their hands, the angel Aryava loved Saint Katell the sunspinner—and that love saved us all.”
“You will hear things about the Emperor’s assassins, things designed to terrify you. That their loyalty to him gives them extraordinary strength. That, like him, they cannot be killed. But I tell you, the butchers of Invictus are as flesh and blood as you are. It is a battle of beliefs. Can your faith outlast theirs?”
Her wounds sparked equal parts pain and triumphant pleasure.
dearest Dread,”
I dont hate this nickname as much
A hot wave of anger rose up her throat—that the woman had dared to touch her, that Eliana had wanted to slap her, that Eliana hadn’t slapped her.
You are awful
By the moon, by the moon That’s where you’ll find me By the moon, by the moon We’ll hold hands, just you and me We’ll pray to the stars And ask them to set us free By the moon, by the moon That’s where you’ll find me
“O seas and rivers! O rain and snow! Quench us our thirst, cleanse us our evil Grow us the fruit of our fields Drown us the cries of our enemies!”
The empirium is in all living things. Think of it like tiny crystals, forming the basis of everything that is. The goal, then, is to reach with your power beyond the visible, beyond the surface of things. To take hold of the empirium itself—the grains of life, finer than sand—and change it.
“There are people back there,” she said. “Refugees. Prisoners. Children. We have to free them.”
Now you care??
Eliana stared at him in horror. “What?”
You are quite dumb
Eliana stepped away, detaching herself from Remy. The refugees. Patrik. Hob and his notebook. And tiny Linnet… Three hundred and sixty-seven, give or take, if no one else had made it out. Plus the ninety-three she’d reached before the guns stopped. Four hundred and sixty bodies’ worth of blood coating her hands a bright, blazing red.
Well yeah??? What did you think was going to happen
didn’t… I wasn’t thinking…”
As per usual
Between them was a series of shifting corridors made of crashing metal blocks the size of Rielle’s body, spears that thrust out at random, stairs that twisted and transformed without pause, paths that twirled on their axes like roasting spits over a fire—too many moving parts to keep track of. Watching them, she felt utterly dwarfed; the thought of saying her prayers, steadying her breathing, felt ludicrous, inadequate.
“Three cakes are, generally speaking, much more effective than one, my lady.”
“Will anyone introduce us, or will we all just stand here and let her ramble on?”
You are so annoying
Even to Eliana, the smug smile she shot at Camille felt insufferable.
You ARE insufferable
“I don’t know what either of you were thinking, and God knows I don’t want you to explain it to me. But, if you need a place to hide or flee, know you can always come to me. Not even His Holiness knows of all the secret places in this city and how many of them belong to me.”
“The mountain falls under my fists The sea dries at my touch The flame dies on my tongue The night howls with my anger The light darkens in my shadow The earth fades beneath my feet I do not break or bend I cannot be silenced I am everywhere”
“I will start pounding on this door and ruin our supposed escape if you don’t open it this instant.”
You are so annoying
“No one can be sure of Audric the Lightbringer’s last words, but in the days before the Fall, whispers traveled fast across the world. His last words, the whispers said, were for his murderer: ‘I love you, Rielle.’”
