"Love is an illusion we create to escape our bad feelings. However, it eventually shatters and leaves..."

"I had been walking for hours and was starting to feel tired, but I wanted to go as far as I could be..."

"The firelight flickered between us, casting long, dancing shadows against the rough stone of the cav..."

"​The vow hung in the air, thick and heavy as the woodsmoke. Karlos didn’t move, and for a second, I..."

"The trek to Fortundra was a grueling blur of aching muscles and restless nights. Every mile dragged..."

"Fortundra was a fever dream of color, a kaleidoscopic assault on the senses that felt more like a pa..."

"Adrenaline burned through my veins, sharp and metallic, tasting like copper and panic. I crashed thr..."

"I wasn't exactly thrilled about the prospect of dining with a snobby king while a room full of stran..."

"I sat beside Zion, my pulse a frantic, uneven rhythm against my ribs that felt loud enough to echo o..."

"The night was an expansive, suffocating velvet, and I moved through it like a secret. I slipped thro..."

"The sunlight hitting the silk sheets felt like a physical weight, gold and heavy against my eyelids...."

"I studied Zion throughout breakfast, dissecting every word he spoke as if it were a coded message. I..."

"The morning sun in Fortundra didn’t just shine; it interrogated. It poured through the floor-to-ceil..."

"The solar of the high wing was bathed in the amber glow of the afternoon sun, a stark contrast to th..."

""You... you painted this from memory?" I asked, my voice trembling."I couldn't get the image out of..."

"I was standing in the center of the Fortundra solar, but the stone walls had melted into a transluce..."

"The fact that Karlos had agreed to meet me again in the deepening shadows of the woods was a miracle..."

"Your Highness,I pray this letter reaches you with the swiftness of the north wind. My anticipated re..."

"The candle flickered, casting long, skeletal shadows against the pale cerulean walls that felt like..."

"The next morning, the woods felt like a different world—honest, rugged, and free of the silk-wrapped..."

"I closed my eyes and kissed him back, my fingers tangling in the thick hair at the nape of his neck..."

"Get in, find it, and get out. That's it, I told myself an hour later, stepping into the cool, metall..."

"Finally, the familiar silhouette of Bran broke through the morning mist, a streak of obsidian agains..."

"The morning light felt like a physical intrusion, a cruel contrast to the cold, jagged terror poolin..."

"Just say goodbye and go, Diana. I took a shaky breath, the weight of the stolen scrolls and the cold..."

"He sighed, a long, weary sound that seemed to carry the weight of every secret stone in the fortress..."

"I met Karlos’s gaze as we stood in the shadow of the ancient treeline, far enough from the fortress..."

"Karlos is upset; I can feel it in my bones, a cold vibration that has nothing to do with the mountai..."

"The journey back to the borders of Silvermere had been an arduous trek across jagged terrain and thr..."

"Improve, make it very very very long and change Poe to Karlos, Rey to Diana, Ben to ZionWeeks had bl..."

"The journey back to the jagged, obsidian borders of Fortundra was a grueling trek that felt as thoug..."

"The night air was heavy, thick with damp earth and the ghost of distant woodsmoke that drifted from..."

"The first gray light of dawn didn’t so much break over the horizon as it bled into it, staining the..."

"The forest began to thin, the towering pines replaced by gnarled, skeletal trees that looked as thou..."

"I tried to shove the light back down, pressing my glowing palms into the frozen dirt as if I could b..."

"Come here little spy.The passage narrowed until the air grew thin, the cold squeezing the breath fro..."

"The corridor outside the King’s Solar was a tunnel of oppressive silence, the air chilled by the pro..."

"I looked Zion dead in the eye, and for the first time, I saw a flicker of hesitation in the depths o..."

"The dust had barely settled from the collapse of the Solar's western wall when the truth began to cr..."

"The ground beneath Ultarion’s feet erupted. Huge shards of obsidian rose like teeth, driven by the a..."