More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
March 17 - June 15, 2018
It was a careful dance of shadows and unsubstance, but under it all, there was a marriage of two people. Today she had yielded the sovereignty of her country to Eugenides, who had given up everything he had ever hoped for, to be her king.
Ornon had the greatest respect for the Thief of Eddis, much the way he respected the business edge of a sword.
Phresine, the queen’s senior attendant, watched them from behind the throne as her queen danced like a flame in the wind, and the mercurial king like the weight at the center of the earth. Faster and faster they moved, never faltering, until the music shrilled at an impossible tempo and the pattern gave way to a long spin, each dancer reaching in with one hand and out with the other, holding tight lest they fall away from each other, until the music stopped abruptly and the dance ended.
He could almost hear what Aris called his ideals crashing to the ground like a pile of sticks.
The silence around her was a gift, and she took refuge in it. For this brief time she did not need to move or speak, did not need to tease apart the truth from the lies of Relius’s betrayal, did not need to justify her action or her inaction. Her king found no such refuge in stillness. He preferred to pace. She had seen it often enough already, back and forth as silent as a cat in a cage. But he could be still as well, as skillful in stifling movement as in moving, as silent as sunlight on stone. He knew that the stillness was as near as she could come to peace, and he offered it to her.
He knew that the stillness was as near as she could come to peace, and he offered it to her.
“Do you think the Thief wanted to be king?” “Of course,” said Aris. Costis, taking this as a straight answer, was unprepared when Aris added, “Who wouldn’t want to be married to the woman who cut off his right hand?” Costis looked up, startled. “Everyone talks as if it’s a brilliant revenge,” said Aris, “but I’d rather cut my own throat than marry her, and she hasn’t chopped any pieces off me.” “I thought—” “I was her loyal guard? I am. I would march into the mouth of hell for her. I will never forget that I would be bending over a tannin vat now and for the rest of my life if not for her. I
...more
Costis’s heart sank—for king and for queen, and for himself, who was uncomfortably loyal to two people at the same time.
The king lifted a hand to her cheek and kissed her. It was not a kiss between strangers, not even a kiss between a bride and a groom. It was a kiss between a man and his wife, and when it was over, the king closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the hollow of the queen’s shoulder, like a man seeking respite, like a man reaching home at the end of the day.
the love of kings and queens is beyond the compass of us lesser mortals.”
The queen was settling on the edge of the bed, ungainly with hesitation and at the same time exquisite in her grace, like a heron landing in a treetop.
Forgetting Costis standing nearby, forgetting possibly that anyone or anything else in the world existed, the king said shakily, “Tell me you won’t cut out my lying tongue, tell me you won’t blind me, you won’t drive red-hot wires into my ears.” After one moment of gripped immobility, the queen bent to kiss the king lightly on one closed eyelid, then on the other. She said, “I love your eyes.” She kissed him on either cheek, near the small lobe of his ear. “I love your ears, and I love”—she paused as she kissed him gently on the lips—“every single one of your ridiculous lies.”
the queen bent to kiss the king lightly on one closed eyelid, then on the other. She said, “I love your eyes.” She kissed him on either cheek, near the small lobe of his ear. “I love your ears, and I love”—she paused as she kissed him gently on the lips—“every single one of your ridiculous lies.”
The king opened his eyes and smiled at the queen in a companionship that was as unassailable as it ...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
appraisingly. If the king could make a throne seem like a stool fit for a printer’s apprentice, the queen could make a rumpled bedspread into a throne.
If Attolia could look like a queen, Eugenides was like a god revealed, transformed into something wholly unfamiliar, surrounded by the cloth-of-gold bedcover like a deity on an altar, passionless and calculating.
“I wouldn’t destroy an entire house to destroy one man. But I would destroy a man to destroy a house.
The king’s attendants remained, digesting the fact that their helpless, inept king had promised his wife to destroy the house of Erondites in six months and had done it in ninety-eight days.
“So, Relius,” he said finally, “are you ready to discuss the resources of your queen?” It was a curious question, like an echo without a source. As if Relius had once asked the king the same question and the king was casting it back to him.
“For the love she bears you, Relius.” “It’s paper,” said Relius, blinking back tears. “Put it over the bedside lamp and it will be ash.”
“What he tolerates, he does so for your sake, Your Majesty.” “What you are saying, Ambassador, is that he can be led, not driven.” The queen’s voice was chilly. “Your Majesty, what I am saying is that I have never seen him driven, and rarely led either. However, if you were to twist him around your finger and could conceivably grind him under your heel in the process, you have to know that I would be eternally grateful. I would die a happy man.”
“I have seen him jump across atriums four stories above the ground, a distance that would make your blood freeze, and I heard him once confess that he sometimes thinks the distance is beyond him. He always jumps, Your Majesty. The Thieves are not trained in self-preservation. I beg you would take my advice.”
Ever since the gods created the world, mortals have been forgetting from where their blessings come.
She is so strong, and you assume that strength has no end, no breaking point. You and Teleus are among the few she still trusts enough to love, and you say yes, she should have you tortured and killed. What were you thinking?”
“If she pardons people because she loves them, someday someone that she loves will betray her and all of Attolia with her. A queen must make sacrifices for the common good,” Relius said. “And if what she sacrifices is her heart? Giving it up a piece at a time until there is nothing left? What do you have then, Relius, but a heartless ruler? And what becomes of the common good then?”
He didn’t know up from down anymore. He didn’t know right from wrong and couldn’t make sense of the simplest events. He’d been nothing but blindsided by every tortuous twist in his life since the Thief of Eddis became king.
“He didn’t marry you to become king. He became king because he wanted to marry you.”
But there are other words for privacy and independence. They are isolation and loneliness. Drive him out. Whether he wants to or not, he belongs in the open. The world needs to see what a king he is.”
“That is over now, my friend. You have been elevated to a new rank, where you are trusted unconditionally. Don’t look so uncomfortable. I have learned that there is a flaw in your philosophy. If we truly trust no one, we cannot survive.”
Instead he had silently waved his attendants out of the bedchamber and closed the door behind them with a benevolent smile, and then, as far as they could tell from the noise, he’d broken every breakable thing in the room.
“Safety is an illusion, Costis. A Thief might fall at any time, and eventually the day must come when the god will let him. Whether I am on a rafter three stories up or on a staircase three steps up, I am in my god’s hands. He will keep me safe, or he will not, here or on the stairs.”
That’s the public perception of your honor. It has nothing to do with anything important, except perhaps for manipulating fools who mistake honor for its bright, shiny trappings. You can always change the perceptions of fools.”
Costis moved carefully, moaning. With the excitement of the sparring over, he was realizing that some of the blows hadn’t been light. “Serves you right,” said the king. “You haven’t even apologized.” “I’m very s-sorry, Your Majesty,” Costis said immediately. “For what exactly?” the king prompted. “Anything,” said Costis. “Everything. Being born.” The king chuckled. “Will you serve me and my god?” “I will, Your Majesty.” “Then come out,” said the king, helping him, “knowing that you’ll never die of a fall unless the god himself drops you.”
“Sometimes, if you want to change a man’s mind, you change the mind of the man next to him first.”
