Rai (is hard to please)’s Reviews > Poison's Cage > Status Update

“For years I lived with that regret. But I was just a child. And so was she. And if she had lived, I think she would have forgiven me. So eventually, I had to learn to forgive myself.”

“I don’t have a home,” I tell her.
“Your life is your own now,” she says. “You’ll find one.”

“If I die making sure you are able to hold someone you love in your arms again, it will be a worthy sacrifice.” Vara smiles sadly. “I’ve given you so little,” she says. “Let me give you this.”

“I wouldn’t know I was Balavan’s daughter.”

Kadruuuuuuu

“Redemption,” she says. “Hope. Trust that you can make a better future than we did. Our followers wanted to turn us into gods.” A single tear tumbles from her lashes and crawls down her cheek. “And when we agreed to let them, we turned ourselves into monsters.”

“He doesn’t answer. He just stands up and starts walking. I scramble to follow him and wonder if I’m so broken that I can’t tell the difference between the people who care about me and the people who want to kill me. Because right now everyone feels like an enemy.”

“I wonder if my life will ever be about anything except survival. If I will ever have a chance to live for happiness instead.”

“If she were dead, wouldn’t I know it? Wouldn’t there be a piece of my heart that vanished along with her soul? Wouldn’t I feel the space it made?”

“The Raja governs them,” I say. “But Bagharani made them feel like they belonged. Your father would do well to remember that.”

“For the first time it strikes me how lonely it must be to be that deadly. To be that feared. At this thought Kadru’s gaze finds mine. And she smiles.”