Helene Aquilla személy
Idézetek
“And you will keep fighting.” Darin grabs both shoulders now. “And you will win. There is not a single person alive who I trust more than you to do what must be done today, Laia. Not a single one.”
From the Shrike or Elias, these words would be encouraging. From my big brother, they are life-giving.
But to my surprise, Mamie steps forward and takes the child with firm hands. He opens his eyes, looks around, and scowls, his tiny nose red.
“He should not be in such thin clothing.” Mamie glowers at Coralia and Mariana, and holds a hand out to Laia. The Scholar offers her cloak without a moment’s hesitation. Mamie wraps Zacharias in it, offering him her brilliant smile. He stares at her as if she is the most fascinating person he’s ever seen. Then he smiles back.
“I am unmade.” I whisper to Harper the words the Augur uttered to me so long ago. “I am b-broken.”
Harper kneels and wipes my tears away with his thumbs. Then he lifts my face to his, his own eyes wet, his gaze fierce in a way I’ve rarely seen.
“You are broken. But it is the broken things that are the sharpest. The deadliest. It is the broken things that are the most unexpected, and the most underestimated.”
I sniff and wipe my face. “Thank you,” I say. “For—” For being here. For telling me to scream. For loving me. For knowing me.
“I saw how you looked at her. That day when she brought us to the Commandant’s house before the Trial of Courage. Like she was water and you were just dying of thirst.”
246. oldal
“We are Aquilla, daughter. Loyal to the end. Say it.”
“Loyal,” I whisper. Even if it means my sister’s destruction. Even if it means a madman running the Empire. Even if it means I have to torture and kill my best friend. “To the end.”
127. oldal
I catch my reflection. I appear as I did just a few months ago, on the eve of my graduation. Same body. Same face. Only the eyes are different. I look into the pale gaze of the woman in front of me. For a moment, I see Helene Aquilla. The girl who hoped. The girl who thought the world was fair.
But Helene Aquilla is broken. Unmade. Helene Aquilla is dead.
The woman in the mirror is not Helene Aquilla. She is the Blood Shrike. The Blood Shrike is not lonely, for the Empire is her mother and her father, her lover and her best friend. She needs nothing else. She needs no one else.
She stands apart.
446. oldal