Cruel Beauty

“I’ve seen the festivals.” His soft voice stopped the breath in my throat. But then he went on, “So, you were ru

“Then don’t,” I said. “Never leave me again.”

I had just created the kind of scandal I’d spent all week scheming to avoid. But with the sky an impossible blue overhead and my impossible, blue-eyed husband sitting beside me, I couldn’t much care.

“Come on.” I took his hand and stood, pulling him up with me. “Let’s go home. Aren’t you tired of being in this house?”

I meant the words lightly, but he looked around the sunlit ruins with solemn eyes. “It’s strange,” he said softly. “I think I’ll miss it.”

And I realized that in every life he had lived, this was his only home and he had never left.

“I miss hating my sister,” I said, pulling him toward the gateway. “She’s a little bit more wicked now, so I can’t even hate her for being too kind.”

But when we were almost at the threshold, he paused again, and this time there was naked fear on his face.

“You do realize,” he said. “I don’t remember how to be anything but a demon lord and his shadow.”

“I’m still not very good at being anything but a wicked sister.” I took his other hand.

A handful of kindness, the sparrow had said, and now we each had two.

“We’ll both be foolish,” I said, “and vicious and cruel. We will never be safe with each other.”

“Don’t try too hard to be cheerful.” His fingers threaded through mine.

“But we’ll pretend we know how to love.” I smiled at him. “And someday we’ll learn.”

And we walked out through the gateway together.

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Acknowledgments

The difficulty in writing acknowledgments for a first novel is that you aren’t thanking everyone who helped you write the novel, you’re thanking everyone who ever helped you become a writer. This is a project doomed to failure, but since I love heroic tragedies, I’ll make the attempt anyway.

So first of all: thank you, Mom and Dad, for teaching me to love stories and never getting tired of listening to mine. I could fill a hundred books with thanks and it wouldn’t be enough.

Secondly, I owe a huge debt to Sherwood Smith for years of mentoring, encouragement, and advice. (And for being brave enough to read my juvenilia.)

Thanks also to my brothers: Tim, who played at storytelling with me when I was little, and Brendan, who first put the idea of writing into my head.

My agent, Ha

My editor, Sara Sargent, has also been amazing and helped make this book far better than I ever imagined it could be when I finished that first draft.

The entire Balzer + Bray team has been great, but I especially would like to thank Erin Fitzsimmons for the gorgeous cover design.

The early manuscript of Cruel Beauty was beta-read by Marta Bliese, Bethany Powell, Je

I try to steal from all the best authors, but Cruel Beauty owes a special debt of inspiration to C. S. Lewis and T. S. Eliot. It was Lewis’s Till We Have Faces that helped me realize what I wanted out of heroines and stories retold. Eliot’s poetry has inspired me in a host of ways over the years, but he particularly influenced the imagery in this book; those who have read his Four Quartets will notice several allusions. (If you haven’t read Four Quartets, please do; it’s one of the most beautiful poems in the English language.)

I also need to thank the staff and my fellow students at the 2007 Viable Paradise Workshop, who helped kick me from wishing to actually writing; and the Second Breakfasts critique group, who were important support for several years after.

Other people deserving of thanks: Tim Powers, who has been very generous with his encouragement; Sasha Decker, who checked my Latin; Laura Haag, who helped research snuggling; Li

Finally, I need to thank Megan Lorance, Kristen Fadok, and Amanda Collyer, because after I spent an entire di

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About the Author

ROSAMUND HODGE received a BA in English from the University of Dallas and an MSt in medieval English from Oxford. She now lives in Seattle, Washington. You can visit her online at www.rosamundhodge.net.

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Copyright

Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Cruel Beauty

Copyright © 2014 by Rosamund Hodge

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-0-06-222473-6 (trade bdg.)

EPub Edition June 2013 ISBN 9780062224736

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