Send Me Their Souls

I love you. Did you know that? Even if you did, I wanted to say it one last time. But no one is ever really gone. I wish you the happiest of lives. A long life, too. But not too long. You know how I feel about eternity. Wherever you go, I will be.

That’s what a soul is: a root. It’s memories and love and feelings. And that can’t be destroyed. I promised you then and I promise you now—no one is ever really gone.

It’s hard to know when you’ve been holding on to something until you finally let it go, or it leaves of its own accord.

I can’t let the emotion of fear submerge me. Drown me. The ocean is so big, so full of life, but I won’t drown in it. I can swim. I’ve learned to swim now.

Maybe guilt isn't about mourning people but about making them a part of you as you go forward.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned to admire about humans, it’s that when there’s nothing left, they become strongest.

Two hungers are in me, and they drive me forward. I was born to starve.

Don't," she says. "Don't come back. You have no friends here." "Except you." Her steady gaze quavers, hazel on my blue, sadness on my sadness. "I am not a friend," she corrects. "I am a home." Her words are arrows, the warm sort, and I let them pierce me, one after the wonderful other. Her grip intensifies. "You will always have a home with me, Zera.

I’m here, at the end of the world. And the beginning of a new one.

Everyone in my life taught me to swim in the ocean of myself.

Somewhere between the days and nights that passed of his crying beneath the boughs of the white tree, Malachite found the jewels--her necklace and her bracelet. But not the ring. And that gave him the only hope he could cling to. Her ring--she still had it, maybe. She had said to wait for her. So he would. He would, until the end of the world again.

I breathe deep, for maybe my last breath, and say, "Please, trust me. Wait for me." It's a promise, and a cry, and a prayer. It's unfair to ask him. Selfish. But maybe I've earned a little of that, at the end of all things.

Love doesn't take. It gives. She's given the wolf her trust. And the wolf will give her Varia in return.

Lucien ignores her and pulls me flush to him, my waist against his, my forehead against his. Malachite makes a discontented noise and struggles to face his chair away in the small room,

In vetrisian court customs, one does not embrace. Unless one is family. I run, unthinkingly--scrabbling over the pile, bricks and wood flying, my arms reaching for her through the swirling dust. And she catches me, hands and all. Scarred neck and all. Smile and all.

It’s a promise, and a cry, and a prayer. It’s unfair to ask him. Selfish. But maybe I’ve earned a little of that, at the end of all things.

Belief is sometimes the only thing you can hold onto.

The pain was worth it this time, and it’s nice because that’s never a guarantee; pain isn’t often wrapped up in a neat bow of purpose.

Sometimes, Lucien’s presence doesn’t work. Going to him bandages the wound but doesn’t heal it. I think that’s the nature of love, really—no one can heal you but yourself. Your love for yourself is what is most important, above all others.

We can’t just carve the world into a shape we want. That’s not how things change. One person can’t hold the chisel. There’s no point in holding the chisel at all if what you’re trying to carve is the bare tip of the iceberg. The whole iceberg has to break for the river to flow again.

Thinking that one person alone could decide justly and without bias the correct thing for millions of people…that is what being king means. It’s an impossibility. But it’s a convenient one, isn’t it? If the king is bad, if the people are suffering, it’s the king’s fault, not his ministers’. Not the systems in place that make the nobles richer and the people poorer. The king’s. An arbiter of impossible decisions and a scapegoat to place blame on all in one.

Something to hold on to—a taste of hope. A taste is all you need to keep moving forward sometimes. To do what needs to be done, no matter how afraid or exhausted you are.

It’s all right to say I had it hard. It’s all right to say I suffered and not put someone else before that. My pain is my pain, and it feels good—more than good—to have someone recognize it.

It was…it was dark,” I start. “And lonely. But not always. Isn’t that how everything is, though? How life is?

But nothing’s lost forever, is it? That’s not the nature of nature—absolutes aren’t true or real. Absolutes are human inventions, because the tide isn’t always high. The moons aren’t always full. The grass isn’t always green, and the sky isn’t always blue. Even the sun isn’t always in the sky.

They will scar—of course they will. But they’ve stopped bleeding.

Loyalty,” Lucien grits out, black eyes searing, “is not a requirement to protect someone.

What is gratitude, but a promise made whole?

The little room has a slot for a window, the bright sunlight squaring through no bigger than a peg. I stand on my tiptoes to see out of it, and feel a support beneath me as Lucien picks me up by the waist with his broad hands and lifts. He smirks up at me, "Is that any better?" "A little." I feign disinterest, peering through the window.

It's still hard, to accept his love at the drop of a hat, without doublethinking or flinching away. Maybe it'll always be hard. But at the very least, I'm trying. I'm trying to make it work, this time, instead of running away.