And I Darken

On our wedding night," she said, "I will cut out your tongue and swallow it. Then both tongues that spoke our marriage vows will belong to me, and I will be wed only to myself. You will most likely choke to death on your own blood, which will be unfortunate, but I will be both husband and wife and therefore not a widow to be pitied.

The last time she was up here, she had been... staring up at the sky and dreaming of stars. Now, she looked down and plotted flames.

So the question becomes, Daughter of the Dragon, what will you sacrifice? What will you let be taken away so that you, too, can have power?

Her spine was steel. Her heart was armor. Her eyes were fire.

As the baby latched on with surprising fierceness, the nurse offered her own prayer. Let her be strong. Let her be sly. And let her be ugly.

Some victories are merely defeat wearing the wrong clothing

I cannot afford to lose you, too" "You cannot lose something you do not own. Take me with you

They are less than the mud. You do not get angry at the mud for clinging to your shoe. You wipe it off and never look at it again.

If you are too weak to stand being hit and too stupid to avoid it, then you deserve more pain.

..If anyone is going to kill you, it will be me. Understand?" Radu nodded, snuggling into her shoulder. "Will you protect me? "Until the day I kill you." She jabbed a finger into his side, where he was most ticklish, and he squealed with pained laughter.

The price of living seems to always be death." Tohin stood, joints popping audibly. "And that is why you become a dealer of death. You feed death as many people as you can to keep it full and content so its eye stays off you.

She plucked a rose and held it to her face. She hated the way roses smelled, their sweetness too fragile. She wanted a garden of evergreens. A garden of stones. A garden of swords.

I think of you like a sister," he said. "Like a brilliant, violent, occasionally terrifying sister that I would follow to the ends of earth, in part because I respected her so much and in part because I feared what she would do to me of I refused. " She nodded. "I would do awful things.

We cannot always have what we want, no matter how much we want it,

And so she cut out her heart and offered it as a sacrifice. She would pay whatever price her mother Wallachia demanded. “Make me prince,” she said without feeling.

Well, are you ready, Lada Dragwlya, daughter of the dragon?" Fire burned in her heart, and her wounded soul spread out, casting a shadow like wings across her country. This was hers. Not because of her father. Not because of Mehmed. Because the land itself had claimed her as its own. "Not Dragwlya," she said. "Lada Dracul. I am no longer the daughter of the dragon." She lifted her chin, sights set on the horizon. "I am the dragon.

Fire burned in her heart, and her wounded soul spread out, casting a shadow like wings across her country.

But you always have a choice. You can choose to find comfort and solace in God. You can choose to be brave and compassionate. And you can choose to find beauty and happiness wherever they present themselves.

You are the only real thing in my life.

The sooner you stop fighting, the easier your life will be. That is what your purpose is." Lana stood so abruptly she nearly fell backward. "No.

I am no slave. This is my city! " Lada snorted. "And I am the queen of Byzantium." She turned on her heel, pulling Radu along. "I will see you again!" the boy called. It was not a question, but a command. "I will burn your city to the ground." Lada called back over her shoulder.

Where are you idiots taking me?" "Patience, Lada," Mehmed said. "I am going to start sleeping with a knife." "If you had had a knife, you would have killed me!" "Yes, exactly. And then I could have gone back to sleep." Radu snorted. "Nothing like cuddling a corpse to give you sweet dreams.

Lada had a sense for power--the fine threads that connected everyone around her, the way those threads could be pulled, tightened, wrapped around someone until they cut off the blood supply. Or snapped entirely.

Ugh," she muttered, tugging his hair. "Your are so pretty. Like delicate butterfly beneath my boot." "Ugh, " he replied, pulling one of her own curls, which were thick and coarse. "You are so mad. Like a rabid hound that needs to be put down.

We are that tree," he said, then rode ahead... It was twisted and small but green, growing sideways in defiance of gravity. It lived where nothing had any business thriving. Lana did not know whether her father meant the two of them or all of Wallachia. In her mind, the two had become indistinguishable. We are that tree, she thought..We defy death, to grow.

If Lada was the spiky green weed that sprouted in the midst of a drought-cracked riverbed, Radu was the delicate, sweet rose that wilted in anything less that the perfect conditions.

Lada looked up into her father's eyes, deep-set and etched with years of cunning and cruelty. She nodded, then held out her hand. "The daughter of Wallachia wants her knife back." Vlad smiled and gave it to her.

You look ridiculous. Armor suits you far more than silk." "Take me with you, and I will wear armor the whole time.