I had been depressed for so long that it had become a permanent state of mind. Expectations might lift the edge of the cloud every time one took a new job, but life never turned out to be as good as the hopes.
For my part, if I have recalled a few details of these hideous butcheries, it is by no means because I take a morbid delight in them, but because I think that these heads of men, these collections of ears, these burned houses, these Gothic invasions, this steaming blood, these cities that evaporate at the edge of the sword, are not to be so easily disposed of. They prove that colonization, I repeat, dehumanizes even the most civilized man; that colonial activity, colonial enterprise, colonial conquest, which is based on contempt for the native and justified by that contempt, inevitably tends to change him who undertakes it; that the colonizer, who in order to ease his conscience gets into the habit of seeing the other man as an animal, accustoms himself to treating him like an animal, and tends objectively to transform himself into an animal. It is this result, this boomerang effect of colonization that I wanted to point out.
Hangi tür kitapları seviyorsun?
🔎 Polisiye
💕 Romantik
🚀 Bilim Kurgu
🏰 Fantastik
📖 Klasik
🧠 Kişisel Gelişim
🏛️ Tarih
😱 Gerilim
“I see the ragged edge of things a good deal.”
(Hayatın yoksulluk ve sefaletle parçalanmış yüzünü fazlasıyla görüyorum.)
The edge of a brilliant red sun was now gleaming through the trees.
Long Live the Queen
Not an official throne—just a larger, finer chair that had been selected
from the sad lot of candidates.
Darrow, too, stared toward the open doors, face impassive. Yet his
eyes glowed.
The trumpets rang out.
A four-note summons. Repeated three times.
Pews groaned as everyone twisted to the doors.
Behind the dais, hidden beyond a painted wooden screen, a small
group of musicians began playing a processional. Not the grand,
sprawling orchestra that might accompany an event of this magnitude,
but better than nothing.
It didn’t matter anyway.
Not as Elide appeared in a lilac gown, a garland of ribbons atop her
braided black hair. Every step limped, and Rowan knew it was because
she had asked Lorcan not to brace her foot. She’d wanted to make this
walk down the long aisle on her own two feet.
Poised and graceful, the Lady of Perranth kept her shoulders thrown
back as she clutched the bouquet of holly before her and walked to the
dais. Lady of Perranth—and one of Aelin’s handmaidens. For today.
For Aelin’s coronation.
Elide was halfway down the aisle when Lysandra appeared, clad in
green velvet. People murmured. Not just at the remarkable beauty, but
what she was.
The shape-shifter who had defended their kingdom. Had helped take
down Erawan.
Lysandra’s chin remained high as she glided down the aisle, and
Aedion’s own head lifted at the sight of her. The Lady of Caraverre.
Then came Evangeline, green ribbons in her red-gold hair, beaming,
those scars stretched wide in utter joy. The young Lady of Arran.
Darrow’s ward. Who had somehow melted the lord’s heart enough for
Aelin
With each stroke beneath the surface, out into the darkness, she could
feel it again. Herself. Or whatever was left of it.
Aelin. She was Aelin Ashryver Whitethorn Galathynius, and she was
Queen of Terrasen.
More magic rippled out, but she held her grip. Not all—not yet.
She had been captured by Maeve, tortured by her. Tortured by Cairn,
her sentinel. But she had escaped, and her mate had come for her. Had
found her, just as they had found each other despite centuries of
bloodshed and loss and war.
Aelin. She was Aelin, and this was not some illusion, but the real
world.
Aelin.
She swam out into the lake, and Rowan followed the jutting lip of
stone along the shore’s edge.
She dropped beneath the surface, letting herself sink and sink and
sink, toes grasping only open, cool water, straining for a bottom that did
not arrive.
Down into the dark, the cold.
The ancient, icy water pulled away the flame and heat and strain.
Pulled and sucked and waved it off.
Cooled that burning core of her until she took form, a blade red-hot
from the fire plunged into water.
Aelin. That’s who she was.