“Someday we will be more than words in the dark.”
“Even the strongest blizzards start with a single snowflake.”
“No matter what happens, no matter who turns on me, no matter what pompous swine thinks he has power over me, I am still me. I will always be me.”
“Fear is a seed that, once planted, never stops growing.”
“That's why literature is so fascinating. It's always up for interpretation, and could be a hundred different things to a hundred different people. It's never the same thing twice.”
“They make decisions; they mold your future. The trick is to find a way to still be you through it all.”
“Holding on to some part of your past even if it means also holding on to the pain of never again having it. That pain is less horrible than the pain of forgetting.”
“Sometimes placing our belief in something bigger than ourselves helps us get to a point where we can be enough on our own, magic or no magic.”
“So,” I start as we pull to the left in the hall, “you’re the king of Cordell’s son. How’s that?”
Theron chuckles. “Beneficial sometime, horrible others. You’re beautiful – how’s that?”
“I need a book that says 'Here's how to defeat Spring and restore power to your king, and while you're at it, here's how to prove you matter when no one else thinks you do—”
I stop. I'm staring at the bookshelves and not at Theron, and I don't think I'll ever be able to look at him again without shriveling up from embarrassment. I can still hear what I said hanging around me, my weak, weak admission, and I can't bring myself to breathe, let alone face him.
Theron doesn't give me a choice. He crawls up onto his knees and moves into my line of sight, his forehead wrinkled and his eyes darting over mine like he's trying to figure me out the same way he figured out that passage. After a moment of silence, he grimaces.
“You matter,” is all he says.”
“You may have me trapped in this.” I tug him off me. “But you aren’t the first man to underestimate me, so may I advise you to start treating me with a little more respect…”
“When you're a teenager, being different- if it's not by choice - seems like the worst thing imaginable. But is it really?”
“I don’t need made-up strength. I’m strong enough on my own—me, Meira, no magic or conduit or anything.”
“I know there are things you aren’t telling me. Big things…Sir, I will find out. I only hope your reasoning is good enough for me to forgive you.”
“Congratulations, everyone," I announce as I open the door to Noam's study. "You've finally broken Meira, the crazy, orphaned soldier-girl. She's snapped, all thanks to the mention of floral arrangements.”
“I’m Hannah’s daughter. I’m Winter’s conduit. I’m a warrior, a soldier, a lady, a queen, and most of all, as I plunge across the snowfield toward Jannuari’s silent ruin, I’m Meira.”
“I wanted a life of my own, a life where I could feel myself being a part of Winter. And that, to me, came though fighting for it.”
“One flake falls, twisting down through the empty sky. One frozen speck of snow. Then another, and another, and before I know it the roads will be covered in dozens of distinct flakes. All these little pieces combining to create one giant, volatile snowstorm, something beautiful and dangerous and epic”
“No matter our dire circumstances, no matter our shared upbringing, no matter the chill his smile sends over my body, he’s still him, and I’m still me, and yes, he needs to have a female heir someday, but with a proper lady, a duchess or a princess—not the girl who spars with him.”
“You may be able to look beyond the reality of our situation and imagine some other outcome, but all I ever saw, all I ever see, is a reminder that our lives aren't our own.”
“Don’t let fear take hold of you—fear is a seed that, once planted, never stops growing.”
“I’m at the center of this, a weird possessive feud between the Winter king and the Cordellan prince.”
“Books in towering stacks lean against the fireplace and on small end tables, and crowd the bookshelves so tightly I fear the entire structure will burst in an explosion of paper and dust. They're the large books too, great archaic things that look so old, so fragile, that I worry I might disintegrate them just by breathing too hard.”
“That, I think, i a truer mark of belonging somewhere - being willing to do anything, everything, that needs to be done, regardless of what I want.”
“I wanted to be a soldier. Someone who would earn standing in Winter. Someone Sir would look at with pride. Someone Mather would look at and —”
“Soon he’ll know the blizzard started with me.”
“It’s so cold that foreigners have to wrap in layers of fur to walk from building to building, while our natural Winterian blood keeps us warm even in the worst conditions. And snow is everywhere, always, so much that the grass beneath it is white from lack of sun. An entire kingdom wrapped in an orb of eternal winter.”
“So tired of Noam and Herod and Sir and Angra and all these arrogant, puppet-master men who hold all the strings and refuse to give them up.”
“He stares into the sky, his eyes absent and empty, an expression that branded its horrible meaning into my mind long, long ago. A candle without a spark, a sky without a sun, the look people get when they cease to be people, start being bodies.”
“More than anything, I wanted to help her write new words, on perfectly crisp, untouched paper, and to come up with a flawless title, for the perfect story.”
“Cyanide pills had been distributed among the SS officers, giving them the option of suicide, rather than a trial, if they were captured. The idea of suicide terrified Manfred. He cringed when he thought of death, and what judgment might await him if there by some chance was a God. Although he tried to put the fear of his demise out of his mind, it continually haunted him.”
“Start every day with a clear conscience,” he said. “You should be able to wake up, go to the mirror in your bathroom, look yourself right in the eye, and say, ‘I didn’t lie to anyone I encountered yesterday,’ ‘I didn’t skirt an issue yesterday.’ If you lead an honest life, there are no regrets.”
“So you don't like fish?”
“Not especially,” he replied in an equally soft voice. Then a wicked glint lit his eyes. “Unless it has long, slimy tentacles and suckers, with tiny black eyes that have been boiled in soup...”
“Oh, hush!” Sora laughed. “Are you describing yourself? I think I've seen a few tentacles under that cloak...”
The assassin grimaced. “You're very clever.”
“I learned it from you,” she grinned.
“We'll have to put a stop to that.”
Sora's grin widened. “You could always throw me to the sea.”
Crash laughed. “That wouldn't work. As I recall, you're a very good swimmer.” The compliment was unexpected. He had adopted a deep tone that Sora had never heard before. It sent shivers across her skin and she shifted in her seat, strangely excited.
“I could teach you,” she said.
“Why don't we have our first lesson in the bath?”
“Life id far more abrasive experiencing it's individual components than the sum itself”
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