Cast in Shadow

I'm missing something, aren't I?" "Brains", he snapped. "And survival instinct. The Hawklord's been waiting for you for three hours." "Tell him I'm dead.

The gods where like the weather; sometimes good, sometimes bad, and either way, always beyond her.

Truth, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder.

History is not our guide, it is not our friend. It is a passing stranger, one which shadows legend, sprinkling it with the seeds of truth.

Kaylin is not known for her punctuality. She is known, in fact, for her lack--even by those outside of the Hawklord's command.

Trying is fine. Failing is inevitable. Don’t let it devour you.

Leontines were a tad on the possessive side, they didn’t share space well, and they responded to an order as if it were a suicide wish and they were magic wands.

She’d learned early that if she couldn’t be on time to save her life, she’d better cultivate the unseemly art of groveling.

Her hair was a flyaway mess, and her cheeks, she knew, would be a little too red for dignity—but she often had to choose between dignity and living another hour.

The Swords were the city’s peacekeepers, something illsuited to Kaylin; the Wolves were its hunters, and often, its killers. And the Hawks? The city’s eyes. Ears. The people who actually solved crimes.

They were like gray stone, like the walls of the round room; they gave no impression of life, and they hinted at nothing but surface. His face, pale as ivory, heightened their unusual color; his hair, gray, fell beyond his back. He was not Barrani, but he might as well have been; he was tall, proud and very cold. But his wings crested the rise of drawn hood, and they were white, their pinions folded. Hawklord.

His hair was a dark, dark black—Barrani black—but his build was all wrong for Barrani. He was a shade taller than Teela, and about twice her width. Three times, maybe. His hands were empty; he carried no obvious weapon. Wore no open medallion. The hand that he lifted in ritual greeting, palm out, was smooth and un-adorned.

He wasn’t as tall as Tanner, and he wasn’t as broad; he had the catlike grace of a young Leontine, and his hair was a burnished copper, something that reddened in caught light. But his eyes were the blue she remembered, cold blue, and if he had new scars—and he did—they hadn’t changed his face enough to remove it from her memory.

To try. To live through the horror of failure; to endure the guilt. To try again. To make that choice.

Kaylin’s memory was like a kaleidoscope; fractured, but in a way that was arresting, even beautiful, if looked at the right way. As a child, Catti’s hair had been bright red, but it had shaded

Kaylin’s memory was like a kaleidoscope; fractured, but in a way that was arresting, even beautiful, if looked at the right way.

How much did a Dragon hide, when he walked the streets of the city?

She outpaced Severn. Whole years of her life had been narrowly defined by the fact that she couldn't even keep up.