George R.R. Martin · 690 pages
Rating: (18.8K votes)
“Oberyn wanted vengeance for Elia. Now the three of you want vengeance for him. I have four daughters, I remind you. Your sisters. My Elia is fourteen, almost a woman. Obella is twelve, on the brink of maidenhood. They worship you, as Dorea and Loreza worship them. If you should die, must El and Obella seek vengeance for you, then Dorea and Loree for them? Is that how it goes, round and round forever? I ask again, where does it end?" Ellaria Sand laid her hands on the Mountain's head. "I saw your father die. Here is his killer. Can I take a skull to bed with me, to give me comfort in the night? Will it make me laugh, write me songs, care for me when I am old and sick?”
“Aye," the prince said. "I told the story to Ser Balon, but not all of it. As the children splashed in the pools, Daenerys watched from amongst the orange trees, and a realization came to her. She could not tell the highborn from the low. Naked, they were only children. All innocent, all vulnerable, all deserving of long life, love, protection. "There is your realm," she told her son and heir, "remember them, on everything you do." My own mother said those same words to me when I was old enough to leave the pools. It is an easy thing for a prince to call the spears, but in the end the children pay the price. For their sake, the wise prince will wage non war without good cause, nor any war he cannot hope to win.
"I am not blind, nor deaf. I know that you all believe me weak, frightened, feeble. Your father knew me better. Oberyn was ever the viper. Deadly, dangerous, unpredictable. No man dared tread on him. I was the grass. Pleasant, complaisant, sweet-smelling, swaying with every breeze. Who fears to walk upon the grass? But it is the grass that hides the viper from his enemies and shelters him until he strikes. Your father and I worked more closely than you know...but now he is gone. The question is, can I trust his daughters to serve me in his place?”
“It is a wise woman who knows her place.”
“Snow still chose to dwell behind the armory, in a pair of modest rooms previously occupied by the Watch's late blacksmith. Perhaps he did not think himself worthy of the King's Tower, or perhaps he did not care. That was his mistake, the false humility of youth that is itself a sort of pride. It was never wise for a ruler to eschew the trappings of power, for power itself flows in no small measure from such trappings.”
“Trackers and hunters sworn to deepwood with clan names like Forrester and Woods, branch and bole.”
“Later, when Arianne had gone, he put down his longaxe and lifted Prince Doran into his bed. "Until the Mountain crushed my brother's skull, no Dornishman had died in this War of the Five Kings," the prince murmured softly, as Hotah pulled a blanket over him. "Tell me, Captain, is that my shame or my glory?”
“Oberyn her zaman bir yılandı. Ölümcül, tehlikeli ve öngörülemez. Kimse onu çiğnemeye cesaret edemezdi. Ben çimendim. Hoş, lütufkâr, güzel kokulu, her rüzgârla sallanan. Kim çimenin üstünden yürümekten korkar ki? Fakat yılanı düşmanlardan koruyan ve saldıracağı vakte kadar gizleyen, çimendir.”
“As a matter of fact," the other voice went on, "if you do tie her up from time to time, or whip her just a little, and she begins to like it, that’s no good either. You have to get past the pleasure stage, until you reach the stage of tears.”
“Attitudes change once the die is cast,”
“I shoulda taken ya into town, Missie. Gave ya a chance to see the outside world again, to visit an' chat. I missed yer need, Missie, an'-an' ya never complain-jest let me go on, makin' dumb mistakes right an' left. A sorry-looking bunch of cowpokes, a work-crazy husband an' a baby who can't say more than 'goo' ain't much fer company. Yet ya never, never say a thing 'bout it. I love you, too, Missie-so very much.”
“A humming sound alerted him to a message on his cell phone. He looked at it.
'She said yes'.
Yes! Yes! Yes!”
“Forget you are afraid – there is too much worth living to just hide behind your own uncertainties.”
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