Linor

“Through it all, I stare at the boy on the throne. He maintains his mask. Jaw clenched, lips pressed into a thin, unforgiving line. Still fingers, straight back. But his gaze wavers. Something in his eyes has gone far away. And at his collar, the slightest gray flush rises, painting his neck and the tips of his ears.

He's terrified.

For a second, it makes me happy. Then I remember―monsters are most dangerous when they're afraid.”
― Victoria Aveyard, King's Cage

“Mare,” he whispers. “Choose me.”

Choose a crown. Choose another king’s cage. Choose a betrayal to everything you’ve bled for.

I find my thread of steel too. Thin but unbreakable.

“I am in love with you, and I want you more than anything else in the world.” His words sound hollow coming from me. “Anything else in this world.”

Slowly, my eyelids flutter open. He finds the spine to match my gaze.

“Think what we could do together,” he murmurs, trying to pull me closer. My feet hold firm. “You know what you are to me. Without you, I have no one. I am alone. I have nothing left. Don’t leave me alone.”

My breathing turns ragged.

I kiss him for what could be, what might be, what will be—the last time. His lips feel strangely cold as we both turn to ice.

“You aren’t alone.” The hope in his eyes cuts deeply. “You have your crown.”
― Victoria Aveyard, King's Cage

“You are only a shadow, and who looks at shadows when they have flame?”
― Victoria Aveyard, King's Cage

“There are pieces of me, small pieces, still in love with a fiction. A ghost living inside a living boy I cannot begin to fathom. The ghost who sat by my bed while I dreamed in pain. The ghost who kept Samson from my mind as long as he could, I know, delaying an inevitable torture.

The ghost who loves me, in what poisoned way he can.

And I feel that poison working in me.”
― Victoria Aveyard, King's Cage