Marion

“What if is fear. Even if is faith. Choose the latter my boy.”
― Karina Halle, My Life in Shambles

“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

“Sometimes the scars you can't see are a lot worse than the ones you can, you know?”
― Jacquelyn Middleton, Until the Last Star Fades

“In the palace, during my imprisonment, I learned that Maven had been made by his mother, formed into the monster he became. There is nothing on earth that can change him or what she did. But Cal was made too. All of us were made by someone else, and all of us have some thread of steel that nothing and no one can cut.”
― Victoria Aveyard, King's Cage