Shadowmarch

If you are going to without trust. men tasks to do, then once they have proved themselves, you should let them get on without you standing over them. There is no point in giving responsibility wifh

That is the problem with rumors,” said Avin Brone. “It is very hard to prove that things are not true—much more difficult than proving they are.

He has about him still a kind of terrible beauty, as dangerously beguiling as the grandeur of a storm rushing across the sea.

Oh, please, Barrick, sweet angry Barrick, don’t fall in love with Death.

Perhaps a heart was indeed like a piece of dry birchwood, and could only take fire and burn brightly once—that any fire that came after would be only an ember, smaller and cooler.

You see, that is the secret of history, little Briony—who tells the last story.

You dream too much, child. Our kind, we make our way with strong backs and closed mouths.

Briony’s ladies-in-waiting kept their distance, as though their mistress had some illness which might spread—and indeed she did, Briony thought, because unhappiness was ambitious.

COME AWAY, dreamer, come away. Soon you will witness things that only sleepers and sorcerers can see. Climb onto the wind and let it bear you—yes, it is a swift and frightening steed, but there are leagues and leagues to journey and the night is short.

Were all these castle folk in their ornate finery no more than confused souls hiding inside costumes, as the hard shells of snails protected the helpless, naked things that lived within them?

You dog!” she said, so loud that half the crowded tavern turned to watch. “A few days past the walls of the inner keep and you think your pizzle has turned to solid silver? At least when Nevin Hewney falls asleep on top of a girl, drooling and farting and limp as custard, he doesn’t pretend he’s done her a favor.