Happily-ever-after monogamy has been reinforced so steadily in literature that we tend to feel like failures when we don’t achieve that in reality.
He hasn’t really seen you, not as you want to be seen, but he’s starting to, a little.
To him, she was one of the few girls who was nice to him, the stodgy son of a poor alcoholic shoemaker with such little status that he seemed unlikely to even get one wife, let alone the three or more that designated a man of standing.
She’d never spoken to anyone before of this business of being seen, loved for who she was; to have it voiced by this man she’d just met sent chills down her spine.
A room – full of detached feet – like hundreds of them. Maybe thousands! And I saw the king in there. He was having an orgy with them. It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen. Like a bunch of insects crawling all over his naked body. Except they weren’t insects.
The nobles had made reading unpopular, as it showed that one couldn’t afford to buy spells or magical devices, since one had to get knowledge to do things the ordinary way; even if this view held little logic, the king himself was known to insult readers as “bookfaces” or “unable to think for themselves, so they need to spout what others have said,” and these opinions became popular, as did most views expressed by the king or his son.
Vesper felt herself turning red with humiliation. Then she looked at Allegra – really looked at her. Maybe she’d had such a problem with people not seeing her because she wasn’t seeing them. Did Allegra’s mask of rage hide pain and doubt that anyone would ever truly love her? She thought that it just might. Vesper didn’t quite feel compassion, but she no longer took Allegra’s behavior personally.
Some of the pain released, and love filled the cleared space, uniting, magnetizing more self-love to it.
Somehow, it bothered her watching Garth’s charm directed so effectively at another. Could he convince her so easily of an untruth?
Part of her exulted that he’d asked her, out of everyone in the coach, this question; he must think her intelligent. The rest of her, though, wanted to slap herself for disproving his thought. Here was her opportunity to have her fantasy of a deep philosophical conversation come true with Garth, and all she could say was well, not really. Idiot!
Souls aren’t discrete units – or even units at all. They’re more like reflections of consciousness in a fractured mirror.
There is too much emphasis on being positive, to the detriment of being real.
She would have found it peaceful and relaxing here, but in every town they traveled through, people radiated anxiety under uneasy masks of optimism. Their dependency on magic had made them nearly helpless now that everything magical was corrupted.
Then you shouldn’t be worried about him being with me. You can have him back when I’m done with him.