“So I might have to marry Alec when I'm grown," Illia was prattling across to Seregil. "I hope that won't hurt your feelings too much."
Seregil slapped a hand over his heart like a troubadour in a mural. "Ah, fair maiden, I shall slay a thousand evil dragons for you, and lay their steaming black livers at your dainty feet, if only you will restore me to your favor."
"Livers!" Illia buried her face against Alec's shoulder with an outraged giggle.
"You wouldn't bring me livers, would you, Alec?"
"Of course not," Alec scoffed. "What a disgusting present. I'd bring you the eyeballs for a necklace, and all their scaly pointed tongues to tie your braids with.”
“You always have a choice. Don't ever imagine you don't. Whatever you do, it's a decision and you have to accept responsibility for it. That's when honor becomes more than empty words.”
“It was Alec who brought their lips together.
Seregil's first reaction was disbelief. But Alec was insistent, clumsy but determined. It lasted an instant, an eternity, that one awkward kiss, and it spoke silent volumes of bewildered honesty.
The moment that followed was too fragile for words.”
“First shall be the Guardian, a vessel of light in the darkness. Then the Shaft and the Vanguard, who shall fail and yet not fail if the Guide, the Unseen One, goes forth. And at the last shall be again the Guardian, whose portion is bitter, as bitter as gall.”
“Anything we do, talí, we do with honor.”
“I was chosen, too, you fatherless son of a whore. [...] But it's my people at the Cockerel that I'll kill you for, and for what you did to Alec. For the runners and keeks you used and betrayed, the innocents who've died at your order. Hell, I'll kill you for the sheer fun of it. Come on, Lord Eater of Shit. Let's get this over with.”
“Everything we do, talí, we do with honor.”
“No way," he said, shaking his head, shaking the image of Lise, bare-legged, her skirt hitched high, from his thoughts. "Lise, she’s a sister to me."
"Oh," she said, fingertips making circles just above the waist of her skirt. Wider and wider circles.
"A sister," he repeated. He looked at her. There was something scratching again, in the corner above his eye, like those metal probes at the dentist clawing at your teeth.”
“Nuh-uh.” Blake shook his head. “Nothing gets trapped in my brain.” No one argued.”
“It is impossible to say why we love something or someone. We can come up with reasons if we have to, but the important part happens in the dark, beyond our control. We just know when it is there. And when it goes away.”
“So, the fire giant. Fifty feet tall. On fire. Completely on fire, from head to foot. Carrying two swords. Flaming, of course. Matt barely had time to think before the Jotunn turned his way. He would say it looked at him, but for that, he'd need to see actual eyes. It had a mouth apparently, though, which opened and breathed ... yep, fire.”
“All the people who try to torment me, and who have now occupied the entire space around me, will quite gradually be thrust back by the beneficent passage of these days, without my having to help them even in the very least. And, as it will come about quite naturally, I can be weak and quiet and let everything happen to me, and yet everything must turn out well, through the sheer fact of the passing of days.”
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