QUOTATIONS: THE WICKED KING
BOOK ONE
PROLOGUE
"You must be strong enough to strike and strike and strike again without tiring. The first lesson is to make yourself that strong. It will hurt. Pain makes you strong." - Madoc page 1
"Angry was better than scared." - Jude page 2
"Power is the ability to get what you want. Power is the ability to be the one making the decisions." - Madoc page 3
"Power is much easier to acquire than it is to hold on to." - Madoc page 6
"It was good to be hugged. Even by a monster." - Jude page 6
CHAPTER 1
"I won;t be horrible for the sake of my own amusement." - Jude page 10
"Punish me no further, and my loyalty to you will be as great as your wisdom." - Grimsen page 11
CHAPTER 2
"My pride urges me to fight." - Jude page 24
CHAPTER 3
"Watching my back is the perfect opportunity to stick a knife in it." - Jude page 28
"If you don't trust us, just say so. We cam to one arrangement, we can come to another." - Roach page 28
"Human bodies betray us. They get starved and sick and run down. I know it, and yet there is always so much more to do." - Jude page 29
"Let me guess. You though you could strike me, and there would be no consequences." - Jude page 30
"That's the problem with a puppet government: It's not going to run itself." - Jude page 34
"Adrenaline may turn out not to be a replacement for experience." - Jude page 34
"And now that I found in myself a taste for power, will I be loath to give it up." - Jude page 37
"There is only now. There is only tomorrow and tonight and tonight, and now and soon and never." - Jude page 37
CHAPTER 4
"I've missed her too much to risk losing her again." - Jude page 39
"I'm no longer a child, and I don't need comfort." - Jude page 42
CHAPTER 5
"Let's assume I know everything. Everything. Always." - Jude page 53
"Everything's a game, Jude." - Nicasia page 55
"Kiss me again. Kiss me until I am sick of it." - Cardan page 57
"If you're the sickness. I suppose, you can't also be the cure." - Cardan page 57
CHAPTER 6
"But a lot can happen in a year and a day." - Cardan page 60
"Give me all the commands you want, but you'll never think of everything." - Cardan page 60
CHAPTER 7
"A part of me wants nothing more than to prove I am more than what they suppose me to be - the weak and silly appointee of a weak and silly king." - Jude page 64
"I didn't appreciate you properly." - Madoc page 70
"I dismissed your capacity for strategy, for strength - and for cruelty. That was my mistake, and one I will not make again." - Madoc page 70
CHAPTER 8
"Perhaps you tell yourself that you enjoy having something over my head. But in truth, I think it's that you knew no one would ever believe you. I belong in this world. You don't. And you know it." - Nicasia page 79
"I kissed him on the mouth, and then I threatened to kiss him some more if he didn't do exactly what I wanted." - Jude page 81
CHAPTER 9
"I am grateful for the times you were kind." - Jude page 84
"Do not dishonor my vow by thinking it can be dismissed with a wave of your hand." - Tatterfell page 84
"Do something. I know you want to say you told me so, but I don't care." - Taryn page 87
"I have bigger problems." - Jude page 87
"When I'm with him, I feel like the hero of a story, of my story." - Taryn page 87
CHAPTER 10
"Stones grow here as they do anywhere, fed on ambition and envy and desire." - Jude page 89
"Power is infectious. Power is greedy." - Jude page 92
"I never want to be the cause of her pain." - Jude page 92
"Nothing is sweeter, but that which is scarce." - Cardan page 93
"I'm an excellent juggler. Juggling, you see, is just tossing two things in the air at the same time. No matter how many things you add, you've got only two hands, so you can only toss two things. You've just got to throw faster and faster, higher and higher. My advise, is that you learn to juggle, better than I did." - Val Moren page 94
CHAPTER 11
"What has changed? Is he different because I have forced him to be? Is it because he is away from Balekin? Or is he no different at all and I'm only seeing what I want to see?" - Jude page 98
"Something is really wrong with me, to want what I hate, to want someone who despises me, even if he wants me too. My only comfort is that he doesn't know what I feel." - Jude page 98
"Even without liars, there can be still be lies." - Jude page 100
"But I believe it is only that her beauty is...unique." - Cardan page 104
Jude: I hate you
Cardan: Say it again
- page 104
"Whatever you do to me, I can do worse to you." - Jude page 107
CHAPTER 12
"No matter how low I already feel, if he thinks me a fool, then a fool I must allow myself to be." - Jude page 114
"But it would be better for both of us to stop fighting each other and focus on our common interest: power." - Madoc page 116
"What if I'm more interested in the power I already have." - Jude page 116
"The only difference between tonight and all the other nights. When I endured indignities without complaint is that those benefited you, and when I endure this, it benefits me." - Jude page 117
Madoc: I didn't know.
Jude: You didn't want to know.
- page 117
CHAPTER 13
"If you're asking whether I have secrets. I could easily ask the same of you." - Jude page 120
"I may be rotten, but my one virtue is that I'm not a killer." - Cardan page 121
"Do not play with me. We know each other too well for tricks." - Cardan page 122
"Legends need not concern themselves with something as small as happiness." - Nicasia page 123
"Give me an order again, and I will show you true shame." - Jude page 124
CHAPTER 14
"Let me make myself clear: I do not beg for comforting reminiscences or love stories. If you have something better to give me, then perhaps I will find something for you. But do not think I need you." - Jude page 130
"But no one can escape fate." - Asha page 130
CHAPTER 15
"Whenever I see her, I remember all over again how it felt to be made a fool." - Jude page 133
"You can fight anything. Winning, though, that is something else again." - Cardan page 139
"I hate you, I hate you so much that sometimes I can't think of anything else." - Jude page 145
"I hate being vulnerable." - Jude page 146
"I like him better than I've ever liked anyone and that of all the things he's ever done to me, making me like him so much is by far the worst." - Jude page 146
CHAPTER 16
"I am done with being polite." - Jude page 149
CHAPTER 17
"But some lies are not worth the telling." - Roach page 159
"Humans will deceive themselves." - Jude page 160
"Politics are boring." - Vin page 162
CHAPTER 18
"What do I know about love?" - Jude page 169
"Pain makes you strong. Get used to the weight." - Madoc page 174
CHAPTER 19
"But nothing and no one is infallible." - Madoc page 183
"No, I do not need you." - Cardan page 186
"Although I have sometimes been harsh with you, it was because I sought to make you better." - Balekin page 187
"Without me, you would be nothing. Without me, you will be nothing." - Balekin page 187
CHAPTER 20
"It is said we learn more from our failures than our successes." - Madoc page 203
CHAPTER 21
BOOK TWO
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
"I would tell him whatever you wish." - Jude page 238
"I have never been so much alone, and I have never had to play a role for this long. i feel hollowed out, diminished." - Jude page 240
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
"Do with me, what you will. I am yours." - Jude page 260
CHAPTER 26
"At first, I tried to prove that was nothing like he thought me. But when that didn't work, I tried to be exactly what he believed I was instead. If he thought I was bad, I would be worse. If he thought I was cruel, I would be horrifying, I would live down to his every expectation. If I couldn't have his favor, then I would have his wrath." - Cardan page 265
"I wasn't kind, Jude. Not to many people. Not to you, I wasn't sure if I wanted you or if I wanted you gone from my sight so that I could stop feeling as I did, which made me even more unkind. But when you were gone - truly gone beneath the waves - I hated myself as I never have before." - Cardan page 266
CHAPTER 27
"Sometimes lying is a real pleasure." - Jude page 277
CHAPTER 28
"Oh, how many times have I wished that you couldn't lie? Never more than now." - Cardan page 289
"Why was I awful to you? Because I could be. Because I liked it. Because, for a moment, when I was at my worst, I felt powerful, and most of the time, I felt powerless." - Cardan page 290
"I want to be anyone but the person I am." - Jude page 298
CHAPTER 29
"I wanted to show you that you could trust me to do things. I wanted to show you that I believed you'd thought it all through." - Cardan page 303
"I need to make my own decisions." - Cardan page 303
"Marry me. Become the Queen of Elfhame." - Cardan page 304
CHAPTER 30
"Like you, I am not skilled at forgiveness." - Cardan page 312
EPILOGUE
