# The Everlasting  Author:: Alix E. Harrow  ## AI-Generated Summary None ## Highlights > The queen-who-was-not-yet-queen rose and went to her, and the girl trembled, because the woman was so beautiful and gentle, and because the girl had killed those men so easily, almost joyfully. Her own body felt sharp and unwieldy, like a knife without a hilt. The queen asked, ‘Who are you?’ And the girl answered, ‘No one.’ The queen asked, ‘To whom do you belong?’ And the girl answered, with grief, ‘No one.’ The queen knelt low. She stroked the girl’s hair, heedless of the stain it left on her palm, and the girl felt her terror washed away beneath that touch. She thought she would not mind being a knife, so long as it was this hand that wielded her. ‘Then,’ said the queen-who-was-not-yet-queen, ‘will you be mine?’ ‘Yes,’ the girl whispered, and meant it with all her young and shattered heart. ([Location 80](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DVR1JTYZ&location=80)) > “At ease, Corporal.” There was such dry good humor in her voice, such natural authority, that something in me eased, instinctively. I never missed the war, but I missed the sense that someone else, someone better and braver, held the reins of my life. ([Location 1814](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DVR1JTYZ&location=1814)) > I was good at sex, as I was good at war; mine was a body born to be used. ([Location 2306](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DVR1JTYZ&location=2306)) > I did not always let you go as quickly as I should have, afterward. Forgive me—a monster so rarely feels wanted. ([Location 2417](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DVR1JTYZ&location=2417)) > You wanted a grand story, a fitting end to your book. And I wanted … to be what you wanted.” Was that not how you loved someone? By hammering your body into whatever shape they liked best, and handing yourself to them like a hilt? ([Location 2681](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DVR1JTYZ&location=2681))