Fortress in the Eye of Time

What we individually deserve isn't as much as what we collectively merit.

A fine lady she weren't, oh, but a damn fine woman and a brave one....

Before is the only time you own, the only before you can trust is now, and you don’t even know how long before is.

Unquestioning believers who thought they questioned everything, unhearing believers who heard nothing that in the least degree questioned the tenets of their sacred quest toward a salvation they predetermined to exist.

Once he had thought it a refuge, once he had thought it holiness.... But now he began to suspect that the good brothers did not shadow the ether not because they were good, but because they had masked themselves from everything, had carefully erased their stray thoughts, had poured out their human longings, emptied themselves of desires and become so transparent as existence that they had not only ceased to be evil, they had ceased to be good. They had ceased to fight the battles of everyday life, and simply weighed nothing. Not a feather. Not a grain. They had given up everything, until they vanished from the scale of all that mattered, having given away themselves long before any power declared the contest.

Murder has been done for far lesser things than thrones. Most dangerous when the possessors of thrones forget how they came by them.

But it was safety he had found at Uwen’s back, at long last, after long running. Uwen offered him protection, a trusted, a kindly presence, strong enough to chase the shadows for him.