Trial of the Sun Queen

With a temper like mine, a girl is bound to get in trouble now and then… or often.

Her fingers felt small, yet substantial, when he wrapped his own around them. A jolt shot through him at the touch and she stopped, looking at him with a curious expression. Had she felt it, too?

That b**** took my soap.

Hunger is a language I know. A script I've written a thousand times.

I'm going to die, all because of a fucking bar of soap.

Nothing actually belongs to anyone here. Everything is on temporary loan, including our bodies and definitely our souls.

When he bonded to his queen, he would settle for nothing less than someone who set his blood on fire.

I want my revenge. I want the magic and the power I was denied.

One day, I’ll get out of here and pay back the Aurora King for everything he’s taken. For everything he’s done.

But his kindness is addictive.

They smell like a rose garden,

How can this woman have spent half her life in Nostraza and turn out like that? It should have broken her. It should have left her as a shell. But somehow, she survived both that and Atlas’s Trials and came out on the other end in a blazing ball of confident fire that threatens to burn me up every time she walks into the room. It’s as though her spirit has always understood her legacy and her purpose. She behaves exactly like a queen. A slightly wild one with a short fuse, but a queen nonetheless.

The setting sun paints the water in hues of pink and orange, and every time I think I’ve witnessed the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, I find yet another to surpass it. I wonder if I’ll ever get over this sensation of seeing everything as if for the very first time. I’ve barely lived. My entire life has been experienced on the edge of nothing.

Pain is a language I know. A script I’ve written a thousand times.

Just because there are no walls and no guards doesn’t mean it isn’t a prison,

He’s just a male and can’t be held responsible for his actions. It’s up to you to ensure your relationship remains appropriate.

That night, he’d let me think I was special, but I remind myself that I am nothing and it will always be that way.

The kindness in his words, the sympathy in his voice, makes tears flame behind my eyes.

He lowers his head and peers at me, meeting my eyes. “No. I can see the life you’ve lived in the depths of your eyes. You are no fool, and you are not ignorant. Perhaps you didn’t learn how to waltz or play the piano, but those are things the rich do merely to fill their time. They aren’t important and they mean nothing. You’ve lived, Lor. You must have experienced so many terrible things in that prison.

Every second. Every minute I’m focused on the day I finally get free. I live it in my dreams and see it when I’m awake. I feel it in the shivering marrow of my bones. One day, I’ll get out of here and pay back the Aurora King for everything he’s taken. For everything he’s done.

I might not know who the thirty-seventh king of Aphelion was, but at least I know how to throw a fucking punch.

but clearly there’s a reason he stole her. There’s a reason he wants to ascend her to Imperial Fae and then bond to her.

He held out a hand, and she placed hers in his. Her fingers felt small, yet substantial, when he wrapped his own around them. A jolt shot through him at the touch and she stopped, looking at him with a curious expression.

I mean, it’s the same situation. When you have nothing, you can’t build anything. When your days are spent wondering where your next meal is coming from or how you’re going to survive the night without having your throat slit, you don’t have the time or the energy or the motivation to make your life better. You’re too busy simply surviving.

He tells me of the forgotten realm of Heart and its fallen queen. Its lost Artefact—a crown with a blood-red stone.

Gabriel’s a captain?” “Of the king’s personal guard, yes.

I’m not supposed to be doing this…but I can’t seem to help myself around you.

My entire life has been experienced on the edge of nothing.

maintaining this farce as Atlas and his Mirror condemned some unsuspecting female to his eternal servitude. The only way Aphelion’s king could get anyone to bond with him was to trick her into thinking it was some great honor.