21
" We got to see a Corsair ship up close – all matt black, no markings, no lights – and practically invisible out here in the dark! What a sight to behold! Most people don’t get to see those bastards up close. That is, for very long! Anyways, the ship was just floating there, no sign of life. Our hails weren’t being answered, and so we assumed the ship was dead in space. Captain Mulligan, gods-rest-his-soul, told me to form a boarding party of security and medics from the sickbay and that we were going over there. We weren’t a military ship, and we’re not Star Marines, so we were lightly armed and quite nervous. I mean, this wasn’t just some of my security section being called out to break up a fight at one of the bars on the promenade, this was serious life-and-death shit! So I said ‘okay’, and told my assistant supervisor, Lisa Garfner, to get them all together. Seven of us shifted over to the other ship with the transmatter (you still use those things, I take it?) not knowing what to expect. It could’ve been anything… and it was. It was crazy. "
― Christina Engela , Life Signs
22
" Right before Jesus went to the cross, He prayed that all believers, past, present, and future " may be one, as You, Father are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me" (John 17:21 NKJV). This was Jesus's prayer for us all, yet more often than not, I fear we have not lived up to it. Instead, we fight for our own way, for our selfish desires, for our right to be superior. We build churches centered on our own cultural ideas of God, rather than on seeking to bring us back to Him. And then we fight with other churches and religions about who is serving their personal culture god the best. Come dream with me. Dream of a fight for something bigger, something more important and worthwhile. We need to fight for justice and peace, for the walls between us to come crashing down. "
25
" If she captured Tamlin’s power once, who’s to say she can’t do it again?” It was the question I hadn’t yet dared voice.
“He won’t be tricked again so easily,” he said, staring up at the ceiling. “Her biggest weapon is that she keeps our powers contained. But she can’t access them, not wholly—though she can control us through them. It’s why I’ve never been able to shatter her mind—why she’s not dead already. The moment you break Amarantha’s curse, Tamlin’s wrath will be so great that no force in the world will keep him from splattering her on the walls.”
A chill went through me.
“Why do you think I’m doing this?” He waved a hand to me.
“Because you’re a monster.”
He laughed. “True, but I’m also a pragmatist. Working Tamlin into a senseless fury is the best weapon we have against her. Seeing you enter into a fool’s bargain with Amarantha was one thing, but when Tamlin saw my tattoo on your arm … Oh, you should have been born with my abilities, if only to have felt the rage that seeped from him.”
I didn’t want to think much about his abilities. “Who’s to say he won’t splatter you as well?”
“Perhaps he’ll try—but I have a feeling he’ll kill Amarantha first. That’s what it all boils down to, anyway: even your servitude to me can be blamed on her. So he’ll kill her tomorrow, and I’ll be free before he can start a fight with me that will reduce our once-sacred mountain to rubble.” He picked at his nails. “And I have a few other cards to play.”
I lifted my brows in silent question.
“Feyre, for Cauldron’s sake. I drug you, but you don’t wonder why I never touch you beyond your waist or arms?”
Until tonight—until that damned kiss. I gritted my teeth, but even as my anger rose, a picture cleared.
“It’s the only claim I have to innocence,” he said, “the only thing that will make Tamlin think twice before entering into a battle with me that would cause a catastrophic loss of innocent life. It’s the only way I can convince him I was on your side. Believe me, I would have liked nothing more than to enjoy you—but there are bigger things at stake than taking a human woman to my bed.”
I knew, but I still asked, “Like what?”
“Like my territory,” he said, and his eyes held a far-off look that I hadn’t yet seen. “Like my remaining people, enslaved to a tyrant queen who can end their lives with a single word. Surely Tamlin expressed similar sentiments to you.” He hadn’t—not entirely. He hadn’t been able to, thanks to the curse.
“Why did Amarantha target you?” I dared ask. “Why make you her whore?”
“Beyond the obvious?” He gestured to his perfect face. When I didn’t smile, he loosed a breath. “My father killed Tamlin’s father—and his brothers.”
I started. Tamlin had never said—never told me the Night Court was responsible for that.
“It’s a long story, and I don’t feel like getting into it, but let’s just say that when she stole our lands out from under us, Amarantha decided that she especially wanted to punish the son of her friend’s murderer—decided that she hated me enough for my father’s deeds that I was to suffer.”
I might have reached a hand toward him, might have offered my apologies—but every thought had dried up in my head. What Amarantha had done to him …
“So,” he said wearily, “here we are, with the fate of our immortal world in the hands of an illiterate human. "
― Sarah J. Maas , A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)