What if I tell you what the rock and darkness and sea and beyond whispered to me, Lord of Bloodshed? How they shuddered in fear, on that island across the sea. How they trembled when she emerged. She took something – something precious. She ripped it out with her teeth. What came out was not what went in.
His shadows were different. Born in a lightless, airless prison meant to break him. Instead, he had learned its language.
He knew a wounded animal when he saw one. Knew the teeth they could bare, the viciousness they displayed.
Say what I’ve guessed from the moment we met,” he breathed. “What I knew from the first time I kissed you.
There were no hateful voices in her head. Only the knowledge that her friends lay behind her, behind the line she’d drawn in the earth, and she would not cede that line to these males. She would not fail her friends. She had no room for fear in her heart. Only calm. Determination. And love.
They trembled when she emerged.
My mother always had gifts for Azriel and Cassian. For the latter, the initial Solstice we’d shared here had been the first time he’d received any sort of gift, Solstice or not. I could still see the tears Cassian had tried to hide as he’d opened his presents, and the tears in my mother’s eyes as she watched him.
Never again. Never again would she be weak. Never again would she be at someone’s mercy. Never again would she failed.
She had been born wrong. Had been born with claws and fangs and had never been able to keep from using them, never been able to quell the part of her that raged at betrayal, that could hate and love more violently than anyone ever understood.
The world was beautiful, and she was so grateful to be in it. To be alive, to be here, to see this.
I love you. And from today onward, I want to never be separated from you. Wherever you go, I go. Even if that means going to Hell itself, wherever you are, that’s where I want to be. Forever.
Nesta laughed again, a rusty, hoarse sound. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed. A true, belly-deep laugh.
Beautiful. Deadly. Destined for greatness.
And then she moved, and it was like watching a river, like watching the wind cut through a mountain.
And so they did what their people had always done before Death’s beautiful face. They bowed.
Time was of no consequence. Time had always stood still around him, around them.
The world will be saved and remade by dreamers.
She had failed in every aspect of her life. Utterly and spectacularly failed, and keeping others from realizing it had become her main purpose. She had shut them out, shut herself out, because the weight of it all threatened to shatter her into a thousand pieces.
I hope you find joy, and wonder, and luck along the way. I hope you are guided by courage and compassion and curiosity. I hope you keep your eyes and your heart open, and that you always take the road less traveled. But mostly, I hope you know that no matter the road, no matter how far it carries you, I love you. To whatever end.
He told me to stop crying. Said it would only satisfy those who had wronged me. That I shouldn’t give them the gift of my sorrow.