Danielle L. Jensen's Reader Group discussion
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Hidden Huntress
Hidden Huntress Read-Along
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Extra #2 Prequel Scene from Marc's Point of View
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aaaahaauauuughhhh *Flails around* OOOH MYYYYYY <3 <3 so cute... I need more of them <3
THAT IS SO CUTE!!!! I love Msrc so much. I wisxh there was more happiness for him in the world
Oh, this was just so awesome to read! Sad knowing what's going to happen!
Oh Marc! he deserves all the happiness in the world! While I'm not a fan of Penelope, i really do wish that she were still alive at least for Marc! I really hope Warrior Witch gives him his happy ending!
Mod
Why don't you like Pénélope?
Danielle wrote: "Shreya wrote: "Oh Marc! he deserves all the happiness in the world! While I'm not a fan of Penelope, i really do wish that she were still alive at least for Marc! I really hope Warrior Witch gives ..."It's not so much that I don't like Penelope, but I guess I don't like that she's in the dark about everything, which is what makes her hate Tristan and misconstrue the circumstances for the most part. I know she has good intentions and nothing but love for her sister, but I guess I can't fully digest the fact that she doesn't know all the details about the half-bloods and all. On her own, she seems to be a great person, but in this particular situation, her bitter side comes out a bit (kind of like the situation between Cecile and Sabine at the first half of Hidden Huntress regarding their feelings for Tristan). I guess if I could get more insight to her character, I would like her more. But that's just me :)
Mod
That's interesting - thank you!!
Truthfully, I was a little concerned about how people would react to her character given that she doesn't like Tristan. Obviously we all know the truth about him - that he isn't the villain he's pretending to be. But Pénélope doesn't know that. She believes he's a nasty human & half-blood hating aristocrat, and her dislike is compounded by the situation with Anais.
Tristan and his friends have chosen to keep Pénélope in the dark in order to protect her from Angoulême. She isn't magically powerful enough to protect herself, and they don't want to put her in a position where Angoulême might harm her in order to secure information on Tristan's true politics. Certainly, she is aware that there are sympathizers, and she might even be aware that a revolution is brewing, but the fact she doesn't guess Tristan's involvement is testament to just how great an actor he was for all those years.
Truthfully, I feel really bad for Pénélope. Her father and grandmother hate her for her illness having cost Anaïs the crown, and the two people she loves most, Anaïs and Marc, are lying to her. Even amongst her friends, she has been forced into the position of an outsider.
Oh that's so sweet! I loved that!Maybe I missed this information at some point, but why is Pénélope kept in the dark?
I am so in love with Marc and Pénélope's love story. How did two people so aware of their place in the world throw caution to the wind and bond to each other? They must have love each other so passionately and so overwhelmingly, and that makes me NEED this story. I actually love that Pénélope doesn't like Tristan and that she isn't in on the BIG PLAN, because we get to see Tristan as we've never seen him before. Cecile had a moment of having an outside perspective of him, but then they were bonded and her perception of him was always mixed up by his emotions and her attraction. Pénélope only sees what Tristan chooses to show the world and I find that fascinating.
Perla wrote: "I am so in love with Marc and Pénélope's love story. How did two people so aware of their place in the world throw caution to the wind and bond to each other? They must have love each other so pass...""Pénélope only sees what Tristan chooses to show the world and I find that fascinating."
That's a very interesting point!
Oh dear, these two are so adorable and I love them so much!! My heart keeps breaking for them, seeing how much love was there! Poor Pénélope died but Marc was left here without her...
This scene is from Marc’s point of view. He has gone after Pénélope, and she has just told him that Anaïs was betrothed to Tristan prior to the discovery of Pénélope’s affliction.
“The King broke the marriage contract, didn’t he?”
She wiped her eyes, smearing the kohl painted around them. “Within hours. Said he wouldn’t taint Montigny power with weak blood.” Her hands balled into fists. “Which isn’t fair. Nothing about my sister is weak. There isn’t anything wrong with her.”
Except that everyone knew this particular affliction ran in the blood. Magic and our fey nature healed injuries swiftly, and even the wicked slice of iron only delayed the process. It was one of the many attributes those who distained of humans pointed to as proof of our superiority, which is why those with Pénélope’s affliction were viewed as anathema. She healed worse than a human, blood refusing to clot, bones unable to knit. And if the injury was iron inflicted, the black rot was almost instantaneous. While Anaïs herself did not suffer the symptoms, her children might. And in a city where power ruled, such weakness would never be tolerated.
“She would have been a good queen,” Pénélope said. “A great queen; and because of me, the chance has been stolen from her.” Her voice shook. “And perhaps I might have forgiven myself for this, but she loves him. And I had to watch her face as she was told that their marriage would never be. That it would be some other girl of the King’s choosing that Tristan would bond. And that there was no power in this world or the next that would change that fact.”
“The King is cruel.” I hated him as much, if not more, than everyone else in the city, and knowing this only increased my distaste. “But this is his doing, not Tristan’s. He adores Anaïs, and nothing would make him willingly cause her grief.”
“And yet he does!” Pénélope was on her feet, pacing back and forth in front of me. “Despite knowing what he does, he acts as though nothing has changed. Still monopolizes her time and steals kisses from her when he thinks no one is looking. And in doing so, makes it seem as though that was all she was ever good for. His entertainment.”
Her anger all of a sudden made a great deal of sense, but I knew that its motivations were misguided. “Pénélope, he doesn’t know about the betrothal contract.”
She stopped in her tracks. “You can’t honestly believe that’s true?”
“I’m certain,” I said. “He has his secrets, but this isn’t one of them.”
“I cannot believe it. He collects information like others collect artwork, and this concerns him intimately. How could he not know?”
I shrugged. “He’s fifteen. Marriage is not a matter of much concern to him.”
The truth was, it was something Tristan wished to avoid at all costs. In the one conversation I’d had with him about it, he’d said, “Marc, I’m trying to instigate a rebellion to overthrow my own father. I’m a traitor guilty of treason on many levels. How cruel would it be to bond some girl’s life to mine when there is every chance I’ll lose my head in the coming years and take her to the grave along with me.” He’d shaken his head. “I’ll not court the notion, and if he brings it up, I’ll fight it to the bitter end.”
But Pénélope knew nothing about our rebellion, and it needed to stay that way.
“I’ve seen the way he looks at her,” she snapped. “Seems as though he thinks about it a great deal.”
“That is another matter entirely,” I said, silently cursing Tristan for his rare lack of discretion. “He might behave differently, if he knew.”
She sat down heavily next to me. “Now that you know, are you going to tell him?”
It was a piece of information Tristan would want to know – that his father was secretly negotiating his future union was no small thing. Loyalty demanded that I tell him, but… “Anaïs has not told him for reasons that are her own,” I said. “It’s her secret to tell, not ours.”
She nodded, but was quiet for a long time, the only sounds the tinkle of the stagnant fountain and the roar of the waterfall. But eventually she said, “There are times I think that Anaïs is the center of my world. That everything I am and everything that I’ve done has been to ensure her success. That without her, my life barely exists.”
Well I knew that feeling. Far too well. “Maybe it doesn’t have to be that way for us,” I said, wishing all the hopes in my heart would disappear, because I knew they would amount to nothing. “The worst has happened, and yet here you sit, alive and well. Maybe now you can live your own life the way you want without living in fear of discovery. Your affliction no longer owns you.”
“What you speak of sounds like a dream,” she said, and though my hood blocked my peripheral view of her face, I knew she was watching me. “Marc, why did you hate my painting?”
Sitting still in the face of that question felt impossible, so I rose and walked over to a glass tree, brushing the dust off one of the branches. Not a day went by when I was not reminded of my own affliction, every looking glass and averted gaze reminding me of my disjointed and disfigured appearance, and it made me think of what a hypocrite I was to tell her not to let her affliction own her when mine very much owned me.
“I know what I look like,” I said, forcing the words from my lips. “But sometimes I like to imagine that maybe it isn’t as bad as I think. That maybe my eyes are cruel and deceptive critics, and that maybe others see a different reality.” I swallowed hard. “But what you painted was what my eyes have always shown me, and it reminded me that such dreams are for children and fools. What you painted was reality.”
Her skirts rustled and her heels clicked as she came to stand between the tree and me. Even with her cosmetics smeared and her hair in disarray, she was the most beautiful girl in Trollus. Reaching up with one hand, she pushed back the hood of my cloak, and I instantly turned my head so she would see me only in profile. But she caught my chin with her slender fingers and pulled it back.
“I painted you as you are, because I love you as you are,” she said.
Before I could say a word, she stood up on her tiptoes and kissed me. And was gone so quickly that I wondered if I was a fool lost in a dream after all.