All the Hidden Paths (The Tithenai Chronicles Book 2)

by Foz Meadows

Avai mattered to him: was that why it mattered to me?

Vel is so oblivious sometimes

For as long as I’d known of my preference for men, I’d understood myself as a kind of slowly unfolding tragedy. I might fuck and dally and even love in secret, but there could be no true future in any of it, not really.

💔

Inhaling sharply, I swayed upright, head bowed under the spray, and quietly resolved to be more than a tragedy.

“You pull away, draw close, step back. You make me hope. You dizzy me,” he rasped, and dropped his hands, setting space between us. “But I can’t make your mind up for you.

That’s the funny thing about blood: I can cope just fine with seeing my own—sun knows, I’ve had enough practice—but other people’s is a different story.

Asrien is such a perfect morally grey character

“He was lonely,” Markel signed again, “but he would’ve rather been lonely forever than have me stay out of obligation. Even at fifteen.”

Vel and Markel’s friendship is so pure 🥺

“I can feel the pair of you mother-henning me from here,” Vel called from the bathroom door. “It smacks of conspiracy.” “You’ll be cared about and you’ll like it!” Cae called back.

“Life is a river of chaos we all must cross, my friend,” drawled Qiqa. “It’s not my fault you’re afraid to get your feet wet.”

I want a Qiqa spinoff, they are awesome

I realised, in a bright and sudden unfurling of truth, that I loved him. Oh, I thought stupidly.

🙃

I had yearned for love, had hoped for, cherished and feared it in nearly equal measure, but all of that paled before my sudden certainty that, if my heart was a ship, Caethari had become its harbour.

“I know you think little of me,” I said, voice tight, “but understand this. If anything happens to Caethari while he’s in your charge—if he ends up harmed in any way—I will eat your heart.”

I stan bloodthirsty protective Velasin

“You’re plenty sharp, Markel,” I said, smiling at him. “Like an oddly maternal knife.”

“I’m surprised to see you,” he said at last. He cocked his head onside, thoughtful. “I’d assumed you’d have fled by now.” “Fled?” I asked, hating that my voice cracked. “I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

This is literally that scene from the meme, where you go to your archenemy for help because you had no one else

Vel smiled, the expression both hard and tremulous. “You think I don’t love Caethari,” he said. “But I do. I love him so much I hardly know what to do with it.” Vel laughed, the sound so fragile and perfect that Cae’s heart clenched in his chest. “I think I’ve been falling in love with him since the day I first rode into Qi-Katai. And if you hurt him—if you put so much as a scratch on him—so help me, I will burn your clan to ash.”

👏🏻❤️

But you … I realised, wherever you are, whenever it’s us, that’s home. You’re home.”

🥹