Sunbringer

Nothing was more frightening than a smart woman with a vendetta and a plan.

People like me don't change the world. We just survive it.

I will always be in your debt. If I am anyone’s knight now, I am yours. Your protector, your brother, uncle, father, villain. Whatever you need me to be, I’ll be it.

All that mattered was the story. The myths that made gods, brought them to life in their shrines. Stories bind hope and love to make it faith.

Pain could kill a person. That was what his mothers had told him. Exhaustion, grief, injury, heartbreak, betrayal. One needle to the heart could be healed, but a hundred would stop it beating.

Knowledge can bring pain in place of ignorance, terror in place of hope. Whatever place your strength has come from, it is still yours. You choose what to do with it.

Kissen sometimes wondered about animals and gods, whether horses could love a deity. Certainly, there were gods of cattle, gods of wild things, gods of birds. Were they shaped by humans alone, or did animals also pray for love and safety?

As he ascended, he looked down, and saw a sea of colour. Not just the city, its tiles and goods, its flags and clothes, but the people. They busied their streets with the radiance of their feelings in all possible hues; love and anger, fear and hope, for each a different gleam, a different meaning. Each street was a river of beauty and light, some clashed, in conflict, some radiated in harmony, like flame. So much feeling, so much potential, so much faith to give. To give to him. No wonder humans made gods: everything they desired and feared just spilled out of them, staining everything they touched.

I like it here, said Skedi quietly. So many secrets, so many interpretations. So many little lies. Inara looked around and breathed in the scent of paper, bark, wood and parchment. Like a thousand autumns packed into the curving room. So many truths too, she said. Some truths are too bright to look at directly, that is why they couch them in paper.

Naia did not look impressed. She muttered something that sounded very much like ‘Gods save us from bloody men.

So maybe let’s be done with comparing the size of our cocks or the lengths of our loathing

Some truths are too bright to look at directly, that is why they couch them in paper.' - Scian

It was like walking through spiderwebs of hurt; intricate and clinging.

Some things are done out of love.

Skedi flicked his wings uncertainly and felt his damaged one ache. That was what made him bow his head and accept her gift. Inara tied it around his right antler, wrapping the blue thread round and round. As she did so, Skedi felt its colours come into him; her love of her mother, her grief, her thanks to Skedi. They brightened his fur, brought him energy, strength. The ache fled from his wings, the fatigue from his body. It filled him up, brimful, and he knew for a moment what it felt like to be a true god.

Knowledge can bring pain in place of ignorance

Why does it always come to this?’ she said. ‘That power changes, and knowledge burns?

And we will kill gods.

A sacrifice is not a loss.

Save one ... Save the king who would be a god. Fight fire with fire.

If you look at me too closely you'll go blind.

The king is no master here.

strength is strength, but information is the lever.

If we commit to violence, when will it stop?’ ‘If we do not,’ countered Elo, ‘will anything change?

You always tried to fix everything in silence. You have a voice now, Telle. Use it.

But she had never felt fear like this, fear that the world was bigger than she was, and far out of her control.

She was a godkiller still, after all.