The Stolen Heir

It is hard to explain the savagery of hope.

My greatest weakness has always been my desire for love. It is a yawning chasm within me, and the more that I reach for it, the more easily I am tricked. I am a walking bruise, an open sore. If Oak is masked, I am a face with all the skin ripped off. Over and over, I have told myself that I need to guard against my own yearnings, but that hasn’t worked.

She's going to want to wear your skull for a hat," Oak warns. There is an uncomfortable shifting among the ex-falcons. Perhaps they are recalling their own choice to denounce her, their own punishment. "And Cardan is going to laugh and laugh when she does.

Sometimes life gives us the terrible gift of our own wishes come true.

My sister thinks that she’s the only one who can take poison, but I am poison,' he whispers, eyes half-closed, talking to himself. 'Poison in my blood. I poison everything I touch.

That's what I've been for years. An unsister. An undaughter. An unperson. A girl with a hole for a life. How appropriate to have my tongue cut out, when silence has been my refuge and my cage.

he's the kind of beautiful that makes people want to smash things

The Folk adore Cardan, and they’re terrified of my sister, two excellent things. I hope they rule Elfhame for a years and then pass it down to one of a dozen offspring. No need for me to be involved.

Fear is not love, but it can appear much the same.

With him, I am forever a night-blooming flower, attracted and repelled by the heat of the sun.

Another girl might have frozen, but I am cold all the way through.

It can be brave to hate. Sometimes it’s like hope.

Whom have you fallen in love with?' I ask. 'Well, there was you,' the prince says. 'When we were children.' 'Me?' I ask incredulously. 'You didn't know?' He appears to be merry in the face of my astonishment. 'Oh yes. Though you were a year my senior, and it was hopeless, I absolutely mooned over you. When you were gone from Court, I refused any food but tea and toast for a month.' I cannot help snorting at the sheer absurdity of his statement. He puts a hand to my heart. 'Ah, and now you laugh. It is my curse to adore cruel women.

But I can't pretend that I don't like the sound of him screaming my name.

Perhaps it is Oak who is the fool, who caught a wolf and thought that by putting it in a gown and speaking to it as though it were a girl, it would become one.

It seemed, in the beginning, that fighting back would only bring me further pain. That’s the lesson they wanted me taught, but soon I realized I would be hurt anyway. Better to hurt someone else when I had a chance. Better to make them hesitate, to know it would cost them something.

And for a moment, I am viciously glad. It doesn't feel good exactly, to be in danger, but it does feel good to be the cause of events rather than being swept along into them.

This is the problem with living by instinct. I don’t think.

All of Faerie is beautiful like this, with carnage hidden just beneath.

When his eyes meet mine, desire, as keen as any blade, bends the air between us. The moment slows. I want to bite his lip. To feel the heat of his skin. To slide my hands beneath his armor and trace the map of his scars.

How appropriate to have my tongue cut out, when silence has been my refuge and my cage.

Everything died in the Ice Citadel, but hope died first.

A small smile turns up a corner of my mouth. I feel the sharpness of my teeth and roll my tongue over them. For the first time, I like the feeling.

And that is why you ought not dramatically vow to obey someone. They seldom ask for what you hope they will.

I picture the High Queen as she was in that final battle, blood flecked across her face. Chopping off the head of the serpent who’d been her beloved, even if it doomed her side to failure, all to save a land that despised her. Now, that was hate that was somehow also hope.

Because I don’t like being the fool who’d been tricked. I like games, but I hate to lose.

When we return from the north,” he promises, hand to his heart in an exaggerated way that lets me know he considers this a silly vow rather than a solemn one, “they will wake to find their shoes filled with fine, fat rubies. They can use them to buy new leggings and another roast chicken.” “How will they sell rubies?” I ask him. “Why not leave them something more practical?” He rolls his eyes. “As a prince of Faerie, I flatly refuse to leave cash. It’s inelegant.” Tiernan shakes his head at both of us, then pokes at the foodstuffs, selecting a handful of nuts. “Gift cards are worse,” Oak says when I do not respond. “I would bring shame on the entire Greenbriar line if I left a gift card.” At that, I can’t help smiling a little, despite my heavy heart. “You’re ridiculous.

I feel a little pummelled by Oak's beauty. If I look at him too long, I want to take a bite out of him.