#yalit**

The lurking shadows vanished entirely as Azriel's head dipped a bit - his night-dark hair sliding over his handsome face as if to shield him from that mercilessly beautiful grin.

“I fell in love with you, smartass, because you were one of us—because you weren’t afraid of me, and you decided to end your spectacular victory by throwing that piece of bone at Amarantha like a javelin. I felt Cassian’s spirit beside me in that moment, and could have sworn I heard him say, ‘If you don’t marry her, you stupid prick, I will.” 

“Where were you?“ Shahrzad tried to control the tremor in her voice. "Not where I should have been.” “This morning and last night.” His breath fanned on her skin as he bent toward her ear. “This morning, I was not where I should have been. Last night, I was not where I wanted to be.” 

a near-opalescent golden stone that seemed to hold the gleaming of a thousand sunrises within it. Steps and balconies and archways and verandas and bridges linked the towers and gilded domes of the palace, periwinkle morning glories climbing the pillars and neatly cut blocks of stone to drink in the gilded mists wafting by.  

“It was because they were two parts of a whole. He did not belong to her. And she did not belong to him. It was never about belonging to someone. It was about belonging together.” 

I was not a pet, not a doll, not an animal. I was a survivor, and I was strong. I would not be weak, or helpless again I would not, could not be broken. Tamed