Prisoners Throne Quotes

Power said to the world, "You are mine." The world kept it prisoner on her throne. Love said to the world, "I am thine." The world gave it the freedom of her house.

Using the chair is not a punishment. It is not a prison,' he said softly. 'It never was. And I am as much of a man in that chair, or with that cane, as I am standing on my feet.' He brushed away the tear that slipped down her cheek. 'I wanted to heal you,' she breathed. 'You did,' he said, smiling. 'Yrene, in every way that truly matters . . . You did.' Chaol wiped away the other tears that fell, brushing a kiss to her hot cheek.

I adore you. I want to play games with you. I want to tell you all the truths I have to give. And if you really think you’re a monster, then let’s be monsters together.

Cardan is lying on the bed, bandaged and sulking, in a magnificent dressing gown. “I hate being unwell,” he says. “You’re not sick,” Jude tells him. “You are recovering from being stabbed—or rather, throwing yourself on a knife.” “You would have done the same for me,” he says airily. “I would not,” Jude snaps. “Liar,” Cardan says fondly.

Why does anyone want anyone else? [...] We do not love because people deserve it - nor would I want to be loved because I was the most deserving of some list of candidates. I want to be loved for my worst self as well as my best. I want to be forgiven my flaws.

Those men want to take Laurence from me, and put him in prison, and execute him, and I will not let them, ever, and I do not care if Laurence tells me not to squash you," he added, fiercely, to Lord Barham. — Temeraire

I was not so comfortable with my new authority that I could say 'We eat the chicken now!' but the magus had seen that I was considering it... "My purse is full enough," said the magus, "to keep you supplied with roast chickens." "So, so, so," I said. "We know who the power behind the throne is," and the magus laughed. "You eat more than Gen did after prison," he said. "I have more sympathy with him all the time. Are you going to finish that drumstick?" I asked. "I am. Stop staring at it.

I am a chasm that will never be full. I am hunger. I am need. I cannot be sated. If you try, I will swallow you up. I will take all of you and want more. I will use you. I will drain you until you are nothing more than a husk.

Some broken things stay broken

Who can love someone who is empty inside? Someone who steals love instead of earning it?

Have I ever told you how much you sound like Madoc when you talk about murder?” Cardan said, opening one eye. “Because you do.” Oak expected his sister to be angry, but she only laughed. “That must be what you like about me.” “That you’re terrifying?” he asked, his drawl becoming exaggeratedly languorous, almost a purr. “I adore it.” She leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder, and closed her eyes. The king’s arms came around her, and she shivered once, as though letting something fall away.

Oak desperately wants to stop Cardan from talking, but short of kicking him or throwing something at his head, he has no idea how.

Not everyone needs to love you.

I would speak with Oak for a moment,” Cardan says. “Alone.” Jude looks surprised but then shrugs. “I’ll be outside, yelling at people.” “Try not to enjoy it too greatly,” says Cardan as she goes out.

Pain is better than being dead.

Love,' Cardan goes on. 'That force that compels us to be sometimes better and often worse. That power by which we can all be bound. That which we ought to fear and yet most desire...

If they let you out,” Kaltain said, both of them staring into the blackness of their prisons, “make sure that they're punished someday. Every last one of them.” Celaena listened to her own breathing, felt Chaol's blood under her nails, and the blood of all those men she'd hacked down, and the coldness of Nehemia's room, where all that gore had soaked the bed. “They will be,” Celaena swore to the darkness. She had nothing left to give, except that.

If anyone wants to torture you, all they need to do is make you talk about your feelings.

In all fairness to his soldiers, until the moment I spit on their king, I had probably looked pretty humble.

There comes a time, thief, when the jewels cease to sparkle, when the gold loses its luster, when the throne room becomes a prison, and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

What if I am too much? If I need too much?” she asks, her voice very low. He takes a deep breath, his smile gone. “I’m not good. I’m not kind. Maybe I am not even safe. But whatever you want from me, I will give you.

Inside, the horror he felt when she spoke those words— have you ever wondered if anyone truly loved you— hasn’t faded, but he can hide that. Easily. For the first time, he hates how easily. He hates that he can fold himself up so tightly in his own skin that there’s nothing real about him on the outside.

He loves that she knows he's not peaceful. Loves that she doesn't think him kind. He doesn't know how, but from the first she seemed to recognize something in him that no one else does - that inner kernel of hardness, of coldness.

So let me get this straight,” Oak says. “You understand the part where I might have had to kill a lot of people, but you think I chose the wrong girl to kiss?

How had she gone from the most feared prisoner in Endovier to this sappy mess?

We do not love because people deserve it—nor would I want to be loved because I was the most deserving of some list of candidates. I want to be loved for my worst self as well as my best. I want to be forgiven my flaws.

I thought love was a fascination, or a desire to be around someone, or wanting to make them happy. I believed it just happened, like a slap to the face, and left the way the sting from such a blow fades. That’s why it was easy for me to believe it could be false or manipulated or influenced by magic. Until I met you, I didn’t understand to feel loved, one has to feel known. And that, outside of my family, I had never really loved because I hadn’t bothered to know the other person. But I know you. And you have to come back to me, Wren, because no one gets us but us. You know why you’re not a monster, but I might be. I know why throwing me in your dungeon meant there was still something between us. We are messes and we are messed up and I don’t want to go through this world without the one person I can’t hide from and who can’t hide from me.

Power said to the world, “You are mine.” The world kept it prisoner on her throne. Love said to the world, “I am thine.” The world gave it the freedom of her house. —Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds22

Would you consider actually marrying me?” She looks up at him, obviously surprised and a little suspicious. “Really?” He presses a kiss to her hair. “If you did, I would be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to prove the sincerity of my feelings.” “What’s that?” she asks, peering up at him. “Become a king of some place instead of running away from all royal responsibility.” She laughs. “You wouldn’t rather sit by my throne on a leash?” “That does seem easier,” he admits. “I would make an excellent consort.” “Then I’ll have to marry you, Prince Oak of the Greenbriar line,” Wren says, with a sharp-toothed smile. “Just to make you suffer.

You can't help what you are. You can't help being charming. But look into too many hearts, and you may lose your way back to your own.

Maybe he doesn’t understand how she feels exactly, but he understands that familial love isn’t guaranteed, and even when you have it, it doesn’t always keep you safe.

The Shah stayed on the throne until 1979, when he fled Iran to escape the Islamic revolution. Since then, this old and great civilization has been discussed mostly in connection with fundamentalism, fanaticism, and terrorism. As an Iranian who has lived more than half of my life in Iran, I know that this image is far from the truth. This is why writing "Persepolis" was so important to me. I believe that an entire nation should not be judged by the wrongdoings of a few extremists. I also don't want those Iranians who lost their lives in prisons defending freedom, who died in the war against Iraq, who suffered under various repressive regimes, or who were forced to leave their families and flee their homeland to be forgotten. One can forgive but one should never forget.

Reality is approximately as dependable as a politician’s promise... the result is the same: Reality, of the capital “R” variety, has become as relative a thing as the dryness of our respective Martinis. Yet the struggle goes on, the fight continues. Against what? Ultimately, Powers, Principalities, Thrones, and Dominations, often contained in hosts who are themselves victims, prisoners, manipulated men and women.

...it can be dangerous to become everything a person wants. The embodiment of all their desires. And more dangerous for you to twist yourself into shapes others chose for you.

Have you no feelings to drown?' Wren looks down. 'No,' she says. 'Nothing I have would I ever want to give away.

Seemed like the only way into the city these days was by being dragged through the gates as a prisoner with a hand around your neck. Lucky me.

You want me to stay the heir while you two go off somewhere? And then I can step down, be de-princed, whatever?” “Exactly that,” says Cardan. “Like on a vacation?” Cardan snorts. “I don’t understand,” Oak says. “Where are you going?” “A diplomatic mission,” says Cardan, leaning back on the cushions. “After that last little rescue, Nicasia has demanded we honor our treaty, meet her suitors, and witness the contest for her hand and crown. And so Jude and I are headed to the Undersea, where we will go to a lot of parties and try very hard not to die.

The history of man is simply the history of slavery, of injustice and brutality, together with the means by which he has, through the dead and desolate years, slowly and painfully advanced. He has been the sport and prey of priest and king, the food of superstition and cruel might. Crowned force has governed ignorance through fear. Hypocrisy and tyranny—two vultures—have fed upon the liberties of man. From all these there has been, and is, but one means of escape—intellectual development. Upon the back of industry has been the whip. Upon the brain have been the fetters of superstition. Nothing has been left undone by the enemies of freedom. Every art and artifice, every cruelty and outrage has been practiced and perpetrated to destroy the rights of man. In this great struggle every crime has been rewarded and every virtue has been punished. Reading, writing, thinking and investigating have all been crimes. Every science has been an outcast. All the altars and all the thrones united to arrest the forward march of the human race. The king said that mankind must not work for themselves. The priest said that mankind must not think for themselves. One forged chains for the hands, the other for the soul. Under this infamous regime the eagle of the human intellect was for ages a slimy serpent of hypocrisy. The human race was imprisoned. Through some of the prison bars came a few struggling rays of light. Against these bars Science pressed its pale and thoughtful face, wooed by the holy dawn of human advancement. Bar after bar was broken away. A few grand men escaped and devoted their lives to the liberation of their fellows.

What do you want?” he asks, voice soft. “Everything. Charm me. Rip me open. Ruin me. Go too far.” He shudders at her words, shaking his head against them. She goes on, whispering against his skin. “You cannot understand. I am a chasm that will never be full. I am hunger. I am need. I cannot be sated. If you try, I will swallow you up. I will take all of you and want more. I will use you. I will drain you until you are nothing more than a husk.” “Use me, then,” he whispers, mouth on her throat.

Have I ever told you how much you sound like Madoc when you talk about murder?' Cardan said, opening one eye. 'Because you do.' Oak expected his sister to be angry, but she only laughed. 'That must be what you like about me.' 'That you're terrifying?' he asked, his drawl becoming exaggeratedly languorous, almost a purr. 'I adore it.

I hate being unwell,' he says. 'You're not sick,' Jude tells him. 'You are recovering from being stabbed- or rather, throwing yourself on a knife.' 'You would have done the same for me,' he says airily. 'I would not,' Jude snaps. 'Liar,' Cardan says fondly.

Felicitations on the murder of your mother.

Killing is my thing,' he tells her. 'You should get your own thing.

Oak feels the delirious abandon of breaking the rules. In a family of deceivers, telling the truth - out loud, where anyone could hear it - was a massive transgression.

Your HIghness,' Tiernan hisses at Oak. HIs sword is drawn and his jaw set. 'Get below.' 'And how will that help, exactly?' Oak demands. 'Will waiting to drown make the experience better?

What if I am too much? If I need too much?' she asks, her voice very low. He takes a deep breath, his smile gone. 'I'm not good. I'm not kind. Maybe I am not even safe. But whatever you want from me, I will give you.

What I feel is not like the ballads.' 'No an affliction, then?' Oak raises an eyebrow. 'No fever?' Tiernan gives him an exasperated look- one with which the prince is very familiar. 'It is more feeling that there is a part of me I have left somewhere and I am always looking for.' 'So he's liking a missing phone?' 'Someone ought to pitch you into the sea,' ...

Do you want-?' he starts, but she is already pushing up her dress. 'I want,' she says. 'That's my problem. I want and I want and I want.' 'What do you want?' he asks, voice soft. 'Everything. Charm me. Rip me open. Ruin me. Go too far.' He shudders at her words, shaking his head against them. She goes on, whispering against his skin. 'You cannot understand. I am a chasm that will never be full. I am hunger. I am need. I cannot be sated. IF you try, I will swallow you up. I will take all of you and want more. I will use you. I will drain you until you are nothing more than a husk.' 'Use me, then,' he whispers, mouth on her throat. Then her lips are against his, and there is no more talking for a long time.

Jude frowned. “If she steps from that Citadel, I will cut her throat from ear to ear.” Cardan drew a dramatic line across his throat and then slumped exaggeratedly over, eyes closed, mouth open. Playing dead. Jude scowled. “You need not make fun.” “Have I ever told you how much you sound like Madoc when you talk about murder?” Cardan said, opening one eye. “Because you do.” Oak expected his sister to be angry, but she only laughed. “That must be what you like about me.” “That you’re terrifying?” he asked, his drawl becoming exaggeratedly languorous, almost a purr. “I adore it.” She leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder, and closed her eyes. The king’s arm came around her, and she shivered once, as though letting something fall away.

I didn't enjoy being a snake, and yet I appear to be doomed to be reminded of it for all eternity,' Cardan was saying, black curls falling across his face. He held a three-pronged fork aloft, as though to emphasise his point. 'The excess of songs hasn't helped, nor has their longevity. It's been what? Eight years? Nine? Truly, the celebratory air about the whole business has been excessive. You'd think I never did a more popular thing than sit in the dark on a throne and bite people who annoyed me. I could have always done that. I could do that now.' 'Bite people?' echoed Jude from the other end of the table. Cardan grinned at her. 'Yes, if that's what they like.' He snapped his teeth at the air as though to demonstrate. 'No one is interested in that,' Jude said, shaking her head.

You’ve got to determine your own fate. Make your own choices. And I have to let you.” “Thank you,” he forces out. It’s not a polite thing to say among the Folk, but Jude ought to hear it. Those words absolve him of no debt. He’s let her down and possibly made her proud of him, too. His family cares about him in ways that are far too complex and layered for it to come from enchantment, and that is a profound relief. “For listening to you? Don’t worry. I won’t make it a habit.” Walking up to him, she puts her arms around him, bumping her chin against his chest. “You’re so annoyingly tall. I used to be able to carry you on my shoulders.” “I could carry you,” Oak offers. “You used to kick me with your hooves,” she tells him. “I wouldn’t mind a chance for revenge.” “I bet.” He laughs.

Wren once described what she was afraid of, if she revealed herself to her family. How she imagined their rejecting her once they saw her true face. Oak sympathized, but until this moment he didn’t understand the horror of having all the people who loved you best in the world look at you as though you were a stranger,

You didn’t trust me.” “Having spent a great deal of time playing the fool myself,” Cardan says, “I recognized your game. Not at first, but long before Jude. She didn’t want to believe me, and I am never going to tire of crowing about being right.” “So you didn’t think I was really allied with Randalin?” Cardan smiles. “No,” he says. “But I wasn’t certain which of your allies were actually on your side. And I was rather hoping you’d let us lock you up and protect you.” “You could have given me some sort of hint!” Oak says. Cardan raises a single eyebrow. Oak shakes his head. “Yes, well, fine. I could have done the same. And fine, you were losing blood.” Cardan makes a gesture as though tossing off Oak’s words. “I have little experience of dispensing brotherly wisdom, but I know a great deal about mistakes. And about hiding behind a mask.” He saluted with his wineglass. “Some might say that I still do, but they would be wrong. To those I love, I am myself. Too much myself, sometimes.” Oak laughs. “Jude wouldn’t say that.” Cardan takes a deep swallow of plum-dark wine, looking pleased with himself. “She would but she’d be lying. But, most important”—he raises a single finger— “I knew what you were up to before she did.” The a second. “And if you decide you want to risk your life, perhaps you could also risk a little personal discomfort and let your family in on your plans.” Oak lets out a long sigh. “I will take that under advisement.

Oak got mixed up with the wrong people, that’s all,” Jude said wearily. Cardan smiled, a curl of black hair falling in front of his face. “He’s more like you than you want to see. Clever. Ambitious.” “If what’s happening is anyone’s fault, it’s mine,” Jude said with another sigh. “For not ordering Lady Nore’s execution when I had the chance.” “All the obscene snake songs must have been greatly distracting,” Cardan said lightly, moving on from the discussion of Oak. “Generosity of spirit is so uncharacteristic in you.

Not now, imp. We have many dull adult things to do.

...familial love isn't guaranteed, and even when you have it, it doesn't always keep you safe.

It's easy to make someone look foolish if you're willing to play the fool.

You should probably stop staring at her like you never saw a naked girl with wings before.

He hates that he can fold himself up so tightly in his own skin that there's nothing real about him on the outside.

After all, how can anyone love him when no one really knows him?

If they let you out," Kaltain said, both of them staring into the blackness of their prisons, "make sure that they're punished someday. Every last one of them.

Until I met you, I didn't understand to feel loved, one has to feel known.

He could still speak with dignity and command whether he stood on his feet or was laid flat on his back. The chair was no prison, nothing that made him lesser.

As his calves strike the frozen floor, he understands, in a way that he never has before, Wren’s horror of the bridle. Jude’s need for control. He has never known this kind of helplessness.

You keep telling me others will do to me what you have already done. I know what it is to want something so much that you would rather have the shadow of it than nothing, even if that means you will never have the real thing. And love is not that.

Endovier must have been terrible,” Chaol said. Nothing malicious or mocking lay beneath his words. Did she dare call it sympathy? “Yes,” she said slowly. “It was.” He gave her a look that asked for more. Well, what did she care if she told him? “When I arrived, they cut my hair, gave me rags, and put a pickax in my hand as if I knew what to do with it. They chained me to the others, and I endured my whippings with the rest of them. But the overseers had been instructed to treat me with extra care, and took the liberty of rubbing salt into my wounds—salt I mined—and whipped me often enough so that some of the gashes never really closed. It was through the kindness of a few prisoners from Eyllwe that my wounds didn’t become infected. Every night, one of them stayed up the hours it took to clean my back.

You need not love me" she tells him. "What if I did? I do?" Oak has proclaimed his love to people before, but this felt like play and this feels like pain. Maybe it's because she sees him, and no one else has. The illusion he wears is much easier to love than what's underneath.

Merik swiveled his wrists slowly. At night, the temple was too dark to see the blood dripping from his arms, pooling on the granite flagstones. He felt it falling, though. Just as he felt the new, burned flesh on his hands stretching beneath torn gloves. Yet even as pain shivered through his body, he couldn’t help but think: Only a fool ignores Noden’s gifts. For if Merik looked at this case of mistaken identity from the just the right angle, it could in fact all be seen as boon. The assassin in the night. The fire on the Jana. The attack of a Waterwitch in Pin’s Keep. Each event had led Merik here, to Noden’s temple. To a fresco of the god’s left hand. To the Fury. Twice now, he’d been mistaken for that monstrous demigod, and twice now, it had worked in Merik’s favor. So why not continue using the fear invoked from that name? Was Merik not doing the Fury’s work by bringing justice to the wronged and punishment to the wicked? It was clear that Nubrevnans needed Merik’s help, and his sister Vivia…Well, she was stil out there. Alive. Wretched. So was it not Merik’s moral duty to keep her off the throne? And he could do that if he could just prove she had indeed tried to kill him—that it was she who’d purchased that prisoner from Vizer Linday, and she who’d sent the prisoner to kill Merik. Yes. This was right. This was Noden’s will. It throbbed in Merik’s wounds. It shivered across his scalp and down his raw back. Take the god’s gift. Become the Fury. Merik rose, stiff but strong, from the temple floor, and with a new purpose in his movements, he tugged his hood, his sleeves, his gloves into place. Then he turned away from the Fury’s gruesome fresco and set out to bring justice to the wronged. Punishment to the wicked.

Well, come on,' said Hyacinthe. 'Unless you want me to carry you.'' 'Carry me? What a delightful offer. You can bear me in your arms like a maiden in a fairy tale.' Hyacinthe rolls his eyes. 'I can throw you over my shoulder like a sack of grain.' 'Then I suppose I shall walk,' Oak says, hoping he can.

This is Pyrrhia, where there are seven dragon tribes. There were seven queens. Then came a great war, a prophecy, a volcano … and after the War of SandWing Succession was over, a shift in the balance of power. Not everyone approves of the new SandWing queen. In fact, the only topic more controversial is the new queen of the NightWings. Can they hold on to their thrones? Should they? In the dungeon of the SandWing stronghold, two prisoners await … what? A trial? Imminent execution? They’re not exactly sure. They are NightWings, but they cannot go back to their tribe. They are in exile; they are too dangerous to be allowed to return. And yet: too complicated to be killed. (They hope.) So they wait, and scheme (well, one of them schemes. The other one is catching up on sleeping and eating). And they wonder what will happen to them. All they want is access to the most dangerous weapon of all: a chance to tell their own story. They are prisoners. But perhaps that is about to change.

You can’t help what you are. You can’t help being charming. But look into too many hearts, and you may lose your way back to your own.” “I don’t understand,” he said again. “You can become the embodiment of someone’s—oh, you’re so young. I don’t know how to say this—you can make people see you the way they want to see you. This seems harmless, but it can be dangerous to become everything a person wants. The embodiment of all their desires. And more dangerous for you to twist yourself into shapes others choose for you.” He looked up at her, still confused. “Oh, my darling, my sweet child. Not everyone needs to love you.” She sighed. But Oak liked everyone loving him. Oak liked it so much that he didn’t understand why he would want it to be otherwise.

I know what you think,” Oak says. “That you’re not whom I should want.” She ducks her head, a faint flush on her cheeks. “It’s true you inspire no safe daydream of love,” he tells her. “A nightmare, then?” she asks with a small, self-deprecating laugh. “The kind of love that comes when two people see each other clearly,” he says, walking to her. “Even if they’re scared to believe that’s possible. I adore you. I want to play games with you. I want to tell you all the truths I have to give. And if you really think you’re a monster, then let’s be monsters together.” Wren stares at him. “And if I send you away even after this speech? If I don’t want you?” He hesitates. “Then I’ll go,” he says. “And adore you from afar. And compose ballads about you or something.” “You could make me love you,” she says. “You?” Oak snorts. “I doubt it. You’re not interested in my telling you what you want to hear. I think you might actually prefer me at my least charming.” “What if I am too much? If I need too much?” she asks, her voice very low. He takes a deep breath, his smile gone. “I’m not good. I’m not kind. Maybe I am not even safe. But whatever you want from me, I will give you.” For a moment, they stare at each other. He can see the tension in her body. But her eyes are clear and bright and open. She nods, a smile growing on her lips. “I want you to stay.” “Good,” he says, sitting on the couch beside her. “Because it’s very cold out there, and it was a long walk.” She lets her head fall against his shoulders with a sigh, let’s him put his arm around her and pull her into an embrace.

If he could just speak to her, even for a moment… Oak knows it’s ridiculous, and yet he can’t help feeling as though they have an understanding of each other, one that transcends this admittedly not-great moment. She will be angry when he talks with her, of course. He deserves her anger. He has to tell her that he regrets what he did. He’s not sure what happens after that. Nor is he sure what it means about him that he finds hope in the fact that Wren has kept him. Fine, not everyone would see being thrown into a dungeon as a romantic gesture, but he’s choosing to consider the possibility that she put him there because she wants something more from him. Something beyond, say, skinning him and leaving his rotting corpse for the ravens to pick over. On that thought, he splashes his way out of the tub.

Elide said quietly, “Marion was my mother’s name. She died defending Aelin Galathynius from her assassin. My mother bought Aelin time to run—to get away so she could one day return to save us all. My uncle, Vernon, watched and smiled as my father, the Lord of Perranth, was executed outside our castle. Then he took my father’s title and lands and home. And for the next ten years, my uncle locked me in the highest tower of Perranth Castle, with only my nursemaid for company. When I broke my foot and ankle, he did not trust healers enough to let them treat it. He kept bars on the tower windows to keep me from killing myself, and shackled my ankles to keep me from running. I left for the first time in a decade when he shoved me into a prison wagon and dragged me down to Morath. There, he made me work as a servant—for the humiliation and terror he delights in. I planned and dreamed of escaping every day. And when the time came … I took my chance. I did not know about the ilken, had only heard rumors of fell things being bred in the mountains beyond the Keep. I have no lands, no money, no army to offer Aelin Galathynius. But I will find her—and help her in whatever way I can. If only to keep just one girl, just one, from ever enduring what I did.

Why would you want me after all I have done?' Hyacinthe asks, anguished. 'Why does anyone want anyone else?' Tiernan answers. 'We do not love because people deserve it- nor would I want to be loved because I was the most deserving of some list of candidates. I want to be loved for my worst self as well as my best. I want to be forgiven my flaws.' 'I find it harder to forgive your virtues,' Hyacinthe tells him, a smile in his voice.

THERE IS THEREFORE NOW NO CONDEMNATION. — ROMANS 8:1 Come, my soul, think about this. Believing in Jesus, you are actually and effectually cleared from guilt; you are led out of prison. You are no longer in chains as a slave; you are delivered now from the bondage of the law; you are freed from sin and can walk around as a free man—the Savior’s blood has procured your full acquittal. You now have a right to approach your Father’s throne

Wren lifts her hand. As she does, the skin of the Sablecoil peels back from the muscle, the tentacle going limp and shriveled. A horrible shuddering goes through the ship as all the tentacles detach at once. The boards creak. The last of the merrows disappears beneath the waves, whatever last taunt he may have spoken dying on his lips. The storm hag, in vulture form, makes a guttural sound as she flies. The wind rises higher, blowing all around them, as though she is conjuring a shield of rain and wind. Wren stumbles, reaching for Oak’s arm. He puts it around her waist, holding her upright. “I killed it.” Already, her skin has a waxy appearance. He thinks about Bogdana’s story. About how if Wren’s power really works like matches, she keeps taking handfuls of them and setting them alight. “Killing is my thing,” he tells her. “You should get your own thing.” Her lip quirks. Her gaze seems a little unfocused.

I thought love was a fascination, or a desire to be around someone, or wanting to make them happy. I believed it just happened, like a slap to the face, and left the way the sting from such a blow fades. That's why it was easy for me to believe it could be false or manipulated or influenced by magic. 'Until I met you, I didn't understand to feel loved, one has to feel known. And that, outside of my family, I had never really loved because I hadn't bothered to know the other person. But I know you. And you have to come back to me, Wren, because no one gets us but us. You know why you're not a monster, but I might be. I know why throwing me in your dungeon meant there was still something between us. We are messes and we are messed up and I don't want to go through this world without the one person I can't hide from and who can't hide from me. 'Come back,' he says again, tears burning the back of his throat. 'You want and you want and you want, remember? Well, wake up and take what you want.

He feels sick. And sicker still when his mouth curves unconsciously into a smile. It has become such an automatic reaction to pain, for him to mask it with a grin. Oak, laughing all the time. Pretending nothing hurts. A false face hiding a false heart. He can’t blame her for saying what she did. Probably something should have said it to him much sooner. And how could he have ever supposed she would come to care for him? Who can love someone who is empty inside? Someone who steals love instead of earning it?

But I will ask whether to flatter [men's] pride by making them conquerors of the enemies of their nation instead of their own evils, is not a serving of Satan; -- in a word, whether, to desert the mission of God, who knew that men could not be set free in that way, and sent him to be a man, a true man, the one man, among them, that his life might become their life, and that so they might be as free in prison or on the cross, as upon a hill-side or on a throne -- whether, to give men over thus, would not have been to fall down and worship the devil.

How long, exactly, have you been involved in the slave trade?” It couldn’t have been long. Adarlan had only started capturing and selling slaves two years ago—most of them prisoners of war from whatever territories dared rebel against their conquest. Many of them were from Eyllwe, but there were still prisoners from Melisande and Fenharrow, or the isolated tribe in the White Fang Mountains. The majority of slaves went to Calaculla or Endovier, the continent’s largest and most notorious labor camps, to mine for salt and precious metals. But more and more slaves were making their way into the households of Adarlan’s nobility.

I never pretended to feelings that weren’t real,” he manages. She watches him, her body tense, her eyes haunted. “Never? In the Court of Moths, would you really have endured my kiss if you didn’t think you needed me on your quest?” He snorts in surprise. “I would have endured it, yes. I would endure it again right now.” A slight rosiness comes into her cheeks. “That’s not fair.” “This is nonsensical. Surely you could tell I liked it,” he says. “I even liked it when you bit me. On the shoulder, remember? I might have a few tiny scars yet from the points of your teeth.” “Don’t be ridiculous,” she tells him, annoyed. “Unfair,” he says. “When I so love being ridiculous.

Years ago, I happened upon a television program of a “prosperity gospel” preacher, with perfectly coiffed mauve hair, perched on a rhinestone-spackled golden throne, talking about how wonderful it is to be a Christian. Even if Christianity proved to be untrue, she said, she would still want to be a Christian, because it’s the best way to live. It occurred to me that that is an easy perspective to have, on television, from a golden throne. It’s a much more difficult perspective to have if one is being crucified by one’s neighbors in Sudan for refusing to repudiate the name of Christ. Then, if it turns out not to be true, it seems to be a crazy way to live. In reality, this woman’s gospel—and those like it—are more akin to a Canaanite fertility religion than to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the kingdom she announces is more like that of Pharaoh than like that of Christ. David’s throne needs no rhinestone. But the prosperity gospel proclaimed in full gaudiness in the example above is on full display in more tasteful and culturally appropriate forms. The idea of the respectability of Christian witness in a Christian America that is defined by morality and success, not by the gospel of crucifixion and resurrection, is just another example of importing Jesus to maintain one’s best life now. Jesus could have remained beloved in Nazareth, by healing some people and levitating some chairs, and keeping quiet about how different his kingdom is. But Jesus persistently has to wreck everything, and the illusions of Christian America are no more immune than the illusions of Israelite Galilee. If we see the universe as the Bible sees it, we will not try to “reclaim” some lost golden age. We will see an invisible conflict of the kingdoms, a satanic horror show being invaded by the reign of Christ. This will drive us to see who our real enemies are, and they are not the cultural and sexual prisoners-of-war all around us. If we seek the kingdom, we will see the devil. And this makes us much less sophisticated, much less at home in modern America.

Whatever comes,” she said, “cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it. There was Marie Antoinette when she was in prison and her throne was gone and she had only a black gown on, and her hair was white, and they insulted her and called her Widow Capet. She was a great deal more like a queen then than when she was so gay and everything was so grand. I like her best then. Those howling mobs of people did not frighten her. She was stronger than they were, even when they cut her head off.

have no interest in prisoners or battling today,” Manon said. The Queen of Terrasen gave her a grin. “Good.” Manon turned away, barking at her Thirteen to get to their mounts. “I suppose,” the queen went on, “that makes you smarter than Baba Yellowlegs.” Manon stopped, staring straight ahead and seeing nothing of the grass or sky or trees. Asterin whirled. “What do you know of Baba Yellowlegs?” The queen gave a low chuckle, despite the warning growl from the Fae warrior. Slowly, Manon looked over her shoulder. The queen tugged apart the lapels of her tunic, revealing a necklace of thin scars as the wind shifted. The scent—iron and stone and pure hatred—hit Manon like a rock to the face. Every Ironteeth witch knew the scent that forever lingered on those scars: Witch Killer.

On 28 June 1914 the heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated in Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia, a heartland of the South Slavs. Philosophers refer to ‘the inevitable accident’, and this was a very accidental one. Some young Serb terrorists had planned to murder him as he paid a state visit. They had bungled the job, throwing a bomb that missed, and one of them had repaired to a café in a side street to sort himself out. The Archduke drove to the headquarters of the governor-general, Potiorek (where he was met by little girls performing folklore), and berated him (the two men were old enemies, as the Archduke had prevented the neurasthenic Potiorek from succeeding an elderly admirer as Chief of the General Staff). The Archduke went off in a rage, to visit in hospital an officer wounded by the earlier bomb. His automobile moved off again, a Count Harrach standing on the running board. Its driver turned left after crossing a bridge over Sarajevo’s river. It was the wrong street, and the driver was told to stop and reverse. In reverse gear such automobiles sometimes stalled, and this one did so - Count Harrach on the wrong side, away from the café where one of the assassination team was calming his nerves. Now, slowly, his target drove up and stopped. The murderer, Gavrilo Princip, fired. He was seventeen, a romantic schooled in nationalism and terrorism, and part of a team that stretches from the Russian Nihilists of the middle of the nineteenth century, exemplified especially in Dostoyevsky’s prophetic The Possessed and Joseph Conrad’s Under Western Eyes. Austria did not execute adolescents and Princip was young enough to survive. He was imprisoned and died in April 1918. Before he died, a prison psychiatrist asked him if he had any regrets that his deed had caused a world war and the death of millions. He answered: if I had not done it, the Germans would have found another excuse.

In The Tombs of Atuan, the Old Powers, the Nameless Ones, appear as mysterious, ominous, and yet inactive. Arha/Tenar is their priestess, the greatest of all priestesses, whom the Godking himself is supposed to obey: But what is her realm? A prison in the desert. Women guarded by eunuchs. Ancient tombstones, a half-ruined temple, an empty throne. A fearful underground labyrinth where prisoners are left to die of starvation and thirst, where only she can walk the maze, where light must never come. She rules a dark, empty, useless realm. Her power imprisons her. This isn’t the rosy reassurance many novels at the time offered adolescents. It’s a very bleak picture of what a girl may expect. Arha’s life is dreary, unchanging, with almost no experience of kindness except from Manan the eunuch. The third chapter may be the cruelest, most hopeless passage in all the Earthsea books. By consenting to the death of “her” prisoners, Arha locks the prison door upon herself. Her whole life will be lived in a trap.

I believed I was doomed to lose you,” Hyacinthe says, in a voice so soft Oak can barely hear it. For a long moment, they are quiet. It seems unlikely they are going to break into violence. Oak should go up the rest of the stairs. He doesn’t want to invade their privacy more than he already has. He needs to go slowly, though, so they don’t hear his hooves. “Joy is never guaranteed,” Tiernan says, his voice gentle. “But you can wed yourself to pain. I suppose, at least in that, there is no chance of surprise.” Oak winces at those words. Wed yourself to pain. “Why would you want me after all I have done?” Hyacinthe asks, anguished. “Why does anyone want anyone else?” Tiernan answers. “We do not love because people deserve it—nor would I want to be loved because I was the most deserving of some list of candidates. I want to be loved for my worst self as well as my best. I want to be forgiven my flaws.” “I find it harder to forgive your virtues,” Hyacinthe tells him, a smile in his voice. And then Oak is up the stairs far enough to be unable to hear the rest. Which is good, because he hopes it involves a lot of kissing.

I,” he said, a faint note of derision in his voice, “am the least favored scion of our ruling house, House Mara Sant.” He was from Brontes, then. Which might explain the eyes…she thought again of certain differences, and suppressed a shudder. “I am a Prince of the Blood,” he continued, sounding both embittered and proud, “third in line for the Dragon Throne, and grand nephew to the Emperor. Owing to a…political dispute, I am now also an exile. Presented with a choice between resigning my commission in the na-vy and leaving to become governor of a mining planet and staying to face my uncle’s as-sassins….” He shrugged slightly, as if the choice were of no consequence. “A…political dispute?” “I gambled,” he said bluntly. “I lost.” “You seem…sanguine,” she remarked, surprise blunting the instinct to guard her tongue. “He shouldn’t have let me live.” That anyone could discuss their own murder with such cold calculation horrified her. He horrified her. She chewed her lip, digesting all that he’d told her: not merely a naval officer, but a prince—and a maverick one at that. She wondered what he could have done. “So you see,” he finished, “I’m no more free than you.” He laughed, then, but without humor. “We can be prisoners together. I am en route to a wretched planet called Tarsonis to assume governorship and as you have no other, more pressing engagement, you are coming with me.

In ballads, love is a disease, an affliction. You contract it as a mortal might contract one of their viruses. Perhaps a touch of hands or a brush of lips, and then it is as though your whole body is fevered and fighting it. But there’s no way to prevent it from running its course.” “That’s a remarkably poetic and profoundly awful view of love,” Oak says. Tiernan looks back at the sea. “I was never in love before, so all I had were ballads to go by.” Oak is silent, thinking of all the times he thought himself to be in love. “Never?” Tiernan gives a soft huff of breath. “I had lovers, but that’s not the same thing.” Oak thinks about how to name what he feels about Wren. He does not wish to write her ridiculous poems as he did for so many of the people with whom he thought he was in love, except that he does wish to make her laugh. He does not want to give her enormous speeches or to make grand, empty gestures; he does not want to give her the pantomime of love. He is starting to suspect, however, that pantomime is all he knows. “But…” Tiernan says, and hesitates again, running hand through his short blackberry hair. “What I feel is not like the ballads.” “Not an affliction, then?” Oak raises an eyebrow. “No fever?” Tiernan gives him an exasperated look—one with which the prince is very familiar. “It is more the feeling that there is a part of me I have left somewhere and am always looking for.” “So he’s like a missing phone?” “Someone ought to pitch you into the sea,” Tiernan says, but he has a small smile in the corner of his mouth.

A moment later, her hand comes up, running over his cheek. Her fingers push into his hair, then slip over his nape to his shoulder. He goes very still, afraid that if he moves it will startle her into pulling back. She has never touched him this way, as though things could be easy between them. “You must stop,” she says, he voice little more than a whisper. Her expression is fond. He frowns in puzzlement. Her hand has dipped down to his chest, and even a she speaks, she opens her palm over his heart. He has barely moved. “Stop what?” “Being kind to me. I can’t bear it.” He tenses. She withdraws her hand, letting it fall to the coverlet. The blue stone in the ring he gave her glints up at him. “I’m not…I am not good at pretending. Not like you.” If she is speaking of her coldness toward him, she is fae better than she believes. “We can stop. We can call a truce.” “For now,” she says. “Then today, my lady, speak freely,” he tells her with what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “You can deny me tomorrow.” She looks up at him, he lashes falling low. She seems to be half in a dream. “Is it exhausting to be charming all the time? Or is it just the way you’re made?” His grin fades. He thinks of the magic leaching out of him. He can control his charm, sort of. More or less. And he can resist using it. He will. “Have you ever wondered if anyone truly loved you?” she asks in that same fond, unfocused voice. Her words are a kick to the stomach, the more because he can tell she doesn’t mean to be cruel. And because he hadn’t thought of it. He sometimes wondered if gancanagh blood meant Folk liked him a little better than they might have otherwise, but he was too vain to think of it affecting Oriana or his sisters.

Whatever comes,” she said, “cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it. There was Marie Antoinette when she was in prison and her throne was gone and she had only a black gown on, and her hair was white, and they insulted her and called her Widow Capet. She was a great deal more like a queen then than when she was so gay and everything was so grand. I like her best then. Those howling mobs of people did not frighten her. She was stronger than they were, even when they cut her head off.” This was not a new thought, but quite an old one, by this time. It had consoled her through many a bitter day, and she had gone about the house with an expression in her face which Miss Minchin could not understand and which was a source of great annoyance to her, as it seemed as if the child were mentally living a life which held her above the rest of the world. It was as if she scarcely heard the rude and acid things said to her; or, if she heard them, did not care for them at all. Sometimes, when she was in the midst of some harsh, domineering speech, Miss Minchin would find the still, unchildish eyes fixed upon her with something like a proud smile in them. At such times she did not know that Sara was saying to herself: “You don’t know that you are saying these things to a princess, and that if I chose I could wave my hand and order you to execution. I only spare you because I am a princess, and you are a poor, stupid, unkind, vulgar old thing, and don’t know any better.” This used to interest and amuse her more than anything else; and queer and fanciful as it was, she found comfort in it and it was a good thing for her. While the thought held possession of her, she could not be made rude and malicious by the rudeness and malice of those about her. “A princess must be polite,” she said to herself. And so when the servants, taking their tone from their mistress, were insolent and ordered her about, she would hold her head erect and reply to them with a quaint civility which often made them stare at her. “She’s got more airs and graces than if she come from Buckingham Palace, that young one,” said the cook, chuckling a little sometimes. “I lose my temper with her often enough, but I will say she never forgets her manners. ‘If you please, cook’; ‘Will you be so kind, cook?’ ‘I beg your pardon, cook’; ‘May I trouble you, cook?’ She drops ’em about the kitchen as if they was nothing.

We can end it right here.' When Triste finally replied, her voice was small, lost. 'I don’t want to die.' Kaden stared at her. She had come so close so many times already. 'Why not?' She shook her head helplessly. 'I don’t know .' 'There is only more of this, Triste. More hiding, more hunger, more torture.' 'We might get out. We might escape.' Kaden shook his head wearily. 'It doesn’t matter. Rassambur isn’t the prison.' He tapped a finger against the side of his skull. 'This is.

EVENING THERE IS THEREFORE NOW NO CONDEMNATION. — ROMANS 8:1 Come, my soul, think about this. Believing in Jesus, you are actually and effectually cleared from guilt; you are led out of prison. You are no longer in chains as a slave; you are delivered now from the bondage of the law; you are freed from sin and can walk around as a free man—the Savior’s blood has procured your full acquittal. You now have a right to approach your Father’s throne. No flames of vengeance are there to scare you now—no fiery sword; justice cannot strike the innocent. Your disabilities are removed. Once you were unable to see your Father’s face; now you can. You could not speak with Him; but now you can approach Him with boldness. Once there was a fear of hell upon you; but now you have no fear of it, for how can there be punishment for the guiltless? He who believes is not condemned and cannot be punished. And more than all, the privileges you might have enjoyed, if you had never sinned, are yours now that you are justified. All the blessings that you would have had if you had kept the law are yours, because Christ has kept it for you. All the love and acceptance that perfect obedience could have obtained belong to you, because Christ was perfectly obedient on your behalf and has imputed all His merits to your account, that you might be exceedingly rich through Him who for your sake became exceedingly poor. How great the debt of love and gratitude you owe to your Savior! A debtor to mercy alone, Of covenant mercy I sing; Nor fear with Your righteousness on, My person and offerings to bring: The terrors of law and of God, With me can have nothing to do; My Savior’s obedience and blood Hide all my transgressions from view.

Get in agreement with God In the Bible, David said, “Lift up your head and the King of glory will come in.” As long as your head is down and you are discouraged, with no joy, no passion, and no zeal, the King of glory will not come. Instead, get up in the morning and say, “Father, thank you for another day. Thank you for another sunrise. I’m excited about this day.” When you’re really alive, hopeful, grateful, passionate, and productive, then the King of glory, the most high God, will come in. He’ll make a way where it looks like there is no way. We all face difficulties. We have unfair things happen. Don’t let it sour your life. I heard the saying, “Trouble is inevitable but misery is optional.” Just because you had a bad break doesn’t mean your life is over. I know a popular minister who led his church for many years and was such a great speaker he was in constant demand. But a few years ago, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. He eventually lost the ability to speak. He had to resign from his church. He once was so eloquent, strong, and vibrant, but it looked as if his career was over. It looked as if his best days were behind him. But just when things started to look really bad for him, he sent me a manuscript with a note: “Joel, as you know, I can’t speak anymore, so I’ve taken up writing. Here’s a look at my newest book.” Just because you can’t do what you used to do doesn’t mean you’re supposed to sit on the sidelines. If you can’t speak, write. If you can’t run, walk. If you can’t stand up, just sit up. If you can’t dance, shake your head. If you can’t sing, tap your foot. Do whatever you can do. As long as you have breath you have something in you. Don’t lose your passion. Think about the apostle Paul: he was thrown in prison at the peak of his career. Just when it was all coming together he had this major disappointment. Paul could have become depressed and thought: “Too bad for me.” He could have given up on his dreams. Instead, he kept his passion. While in prison, he wrote more than half of the New Testament. What looked like a setback was really a setup for God to do something greater in Paul’s life. You may have been through some bad breaks and unfair situations. Stay passionate. God is still on the throne. If you keep your head up, the King of glory will still come in and guide you to where He wants you to be.

I watch him saunter on toward the front, sooty brown hair cut short, big, muscular shoulders outlined where his jumpsuit pulls tight. His walk is slow and loose and cool. He moves like he owns the room. Then he takes my seat in the front, settling in his muscular bulk, shifting slightly sideways, making himself comfortable in the shitty, too-small chair, a barbarian prince on a throne. How is he doing this? And then he smiles at me. God, that smile. It should be illegal.

A leader among the Lollards was Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, a distinguished soldier. His castle of Cowling was a refuge for the travelling preachers, and meetings were held there, in spite of their being forbidden under severe penalties. Henry IV did not venture to interfere with him, but as soon as Henry V came to the throne he besieged and captured the castle and took its owner prisoner. He escaped from the Tower, however, and was able for some years to elude pursuit, though many others were taken and executed, including thirty-nine of the Lollard leaders. When Sir John was finally captured in Wales he was burnt, the first English nobleman to die for the faith. After his death a law was passed that whoever read the Scriptures in English should forfeit land, chattels, goods and life, and be condemned as a heretic to God, an enemy to the crown, and a traitor to the kingdom; that he should not have any benefit of sanctuary; and that, if he continued obstinate, or relapsed after being pardoned, he should first be hanged for treason against the king, and then burned for heresy against God.

You’re terrified that my father will hear that you’ve taken me prisoner. No Spartan woman marries a coward!” “Watch your tongue,” Theseus growled, his hands clenched. If he hit me, I’d hit him back, no matter how bad a beating I got for it. I would not surrender. “Or what? Will you kill me? Go ahead and try. If you succeed, you lose what you really want to gain from this marriage. If I die, I take the Spartan crown with me into Hades’ kingdom. Better that than let you get your filthy hands on it!” He took a step forward. I held my ground, shifting my weight just a bit and grabbing hold of my skirt. I’d changed my mind. If he gave the slightest sign that he intended to strike me, I wouldn’t wait for the blow to land. I’d jerk up the hem of my gown and kick him so hard that--! Suddenly the hall rang with Theseus’s laughter. He held his sides, threw back his head, and brayed. “Ah, Lady Helen, the gods have been more than good to you. The three Graces gave you a face to outshine the sun, then filled your lovely mouth with these bursts of comical nonsense. We should be grateful to them. It’s all that keeps us poor mortal men from mistaking you for a goddess.” He turned his back on me and returned to his throne. From there he proclaimed, “As a reward for amusing me so well, I’m going to give the lady Helen her own lodging in the palace and her very own attendant to be responsible for her every wish, her every whim, and above all, her every movement. Now who deserves such a prize?” His eyes closed and a mean smile twisted his lips. “Telys.

It took Nebuchadnezzar a couple years to respond to Jehoikim’s rebellion, but in 597 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar returned to Jerusalem and laid siege to it, taking Jehoiachin (who had only three months prior inherited the throne from his father at the age of 18) prisoner. 

Manon dismounted Abraxos and walked toward the king and his son. The prince focused on his saddle, careful not to meet her eyes. “There are rebels in your woods,” she said. “They took your little prisoner out of the wagon, and then tried to attack me and my Thirteen. I slaughtered them all. I hope you don’t mind. They left three of your men dead in the wagon—though it seems their loss wasn’t noticed.