Natasha Ngan angol

I don't want an easy life. I want a meaningful one.

233. oldal, 23. fejezet

“When the world denies you choices, you make your own.”

But no matter how hard I try, it doesn’t work. As the minutes tick by, I draw in breath after breath, and all my lungs find is darkness.
I dream of home that night.
Not the nightmare—this dream is quiet and calm, a stitched patchwork of glimpses from my past life, the small world in which I lived before coming to the palace. Wind stirring leaves in the garden. The smell of herbs. Tien’s pattering footsteps in the shop. A cough from a room above. Baba? Mama, even, before she was taken? Throughout, I stand like an echo in the middle of it all, unable to move and feeling only the edges of tears in my eyes.

I recall Mama’s saying: Light in, darkness out.
Perhaps it works another way, too.
Fire in, fear out.

I was born on the first day of the New Year, under the watchful gaze of the full moon. My parents named me Lei, with a soft rising tone. They told me they chose it because the word makes your mouth form a smile, and they wanted to smile every time they thought of me.

“Love is what gives us hope. What gets us through each day.”

We follow General Yu in the opposite direction to which I ran, out to the oceanfront. There’s a port, busy even at this hour. Lights glint from the wooden gantries, rippling the water with color. A wide, star-speckled sky stretches out to an invisible horizon. Despite everything that’s going on, my eyes go wide at the sight.
I’ve always dreamed about seeing the sea.

“… Remember, even that which seems impossible at first can be overcome by strength of mind and heart.”

Fire so hot it burns even the ice to ashes. Fire like a wave to swallow the world whole.

Ruling is like shaman's magic. You can only give when you have taken.