I coudn’t be kind to him after what he’d done, couldn’t be cruel after what I had done

His kindness was only meant to make later torments crueler.

Where you go, I shall go; where you die, I shall die, and there will I be buried.

She dared to cry? On this day of all days? I was the one who would be married at sunset, and I hadn’t let myself cry in five years. There was ice in my lungs...

They said that love was terrifying and tender, wild and sweet, and none of it made any sense.But now I knew that every mad word was true.

Almost immediately, I found the red door into the library. I opened it idly- and the breath stopped in my throat. It was the same room I remembered: the shelves, the lion-footed table, the white...

You deserve all that and more. It made me happy to see you suffer. I would do it all over again if I could.’ I realized I was shaking as the words tumbled out of...

But I can’t . . . I can’t leave anyone to the darkness.

Knowing the truth is not always a kindness.

Lirralei was a girl of storm–winds and thorns, the musk of the wild rose and the flight of the falcon.

Why is he scared of the dark?”I meant the words for a joke, but Shade nodded seriously. “Like all monsters. Because it reminds him of what he truly is”.

I hope you aren’t planning to order me back to bed.””No, you have far too much crockery at your disposal.

I remember the hours I had spent in Father’s library, drugging myself with books so I could forget my doom for an hour..

And you would know so much about women, locked up in your castle.””Locked up with eight wives. And sometimes I make house calls for my bargainers. There’s many a lovely woman desperate enough to bargain...

I never thought that freedom would feel so much like grief.

It is our prison and the symbol of our captor.

But my family I had always had a duty to love, no matter how they had wronged me.

I remembered Ignifex’s smirk and his confident words: I can wait all I want and still have you. And I thought, Here is one thing he isn’t getting. Standing on my toes, I kissed Shade...

There are a lot of things I want,” I say quietly and deliberately. “But I think I will keep what I have.