Jennifer

“Today was the day a thousand dreams would die and a single dream would be born.
The wind knew. It was the first of June, but cold gusts bit at the hilltop citadelle as fiercely as deepest winter, shaking the windows with curses and winding through drafty halls with warning whispers. There was no escaping what was to come.”
― Mary E. Pearson, The Kiss of Deception

“Cress?"
"It's beautiful out there."
A hesitation, before, "Could you be more specific?"
"The sky is gorgeous, intense blue color." She pressed her fingers to the glass and traced the wavy hills on the horizon.
"Oh, good. You've really narrowed it down for me."
"I'm sorry, it's just..." She tried to stamp down the rush of emotion. "I think we're in a desert."
"Cactuses and tumbleweeds?"
"No just a lot of sand. It's kind of orangish-gold, with hints of pink, and I can see tiny clouds of it floating above the ground, like...like smoke."
"Piles up in lots of hills?"
"Yes, exactly! And it's beautiful."
Thorne snorted. "If this is how you feel about a desert, I can't wait until you see your first real tree. Your mind will explode.”
― Marissa Meyer , Cress

“She’d felt it before, she felt it now: the pull to fall in with him, to fall into him, to lose her sense of self.”
― Marie Rutkoski, The Winner's Crime

“My time in camp with Kaden had become awkward several times, or perhaps I was just more self-conscious now.

I had known he cared about me. It was hardly a secret. It was the reason I was still alive, but I hadn’t quite grasped how much he cared. And in spite of myself, I knew in my own way, I cared about him too. Not Kaden the assassin, but the Kaden I had known back in Terravin, the one who had caught my attention the minute he walked through the tavern door. The one who was calm and had mysterious, but kind, eyes.

I remembered dancing with him at the festival, his arms pulling me closer, and the way he struggled with his thoughts, holding them back. He didn’t hold back the night he was drunk. The fireshine had loosened his lips and he laid it all out quite blatantly. Slurred and sloshy but clear. He loved me. This from a barbarian who was sent to kill me.

I lay back, staring into the cloudless sky, a shade bluer and brighter than yesterday.

Did he even know what love was? For that matter, did I? Even my parents didn’t seem to know. I crossed my arms behind my head as a pillow. Maybe there was no one way to define it. Maybe there were as many shades of love as the blues of the sky.

I wondered if his interest had begun when I tended his shoulder. I remembered his odd look of surprise when I touched him, as if no one had ever shown him a kindness before. If Griz, Finch, and Malich were any indication of his past, maybe no one had. They showed a certain steely devotion to one another, but it in no way resembled kindness. And then there were those scars on his chest and back. Only cruel savage could have delivered those. Yet somewhere along the way, Kaden had learned kindness. Tenderness, even. It surfaced in small actions. He seemed like he was two separate people, the intensely loyal Vendan assassin and someone else far different, someone he had locked away, a prisoner just like me.”
― Mary E. Pearson, The Kiss of Deception