The Speaker

Wanting the world to be a better place than it is? That doesn’t make you weak. That makes you the kind of person this world needs.

There were three ways to kill a king: You could face him with all the force of your military might, and in the end one of you would fall. You could stab him from behind like a coward, cringing in the shadows. Or you could kill him slowly, from the inside out, so he wouldn't even know until it was too late. If you did your job right, he might even thank you for it. These were the differences between Soldiers, Assassins, and Politicians. Only Politicians did it with a certain flair.

Together, we can do anything.

Nothing was okay. And he was far from home.

Once there was, and one day there will be.

But maybe if we tried to change destiny instead of running toward it with open arms, maybe what’s written wouldn’t be set in stone.

He shook his head. "Good-bye, my dear. I'm afraid the next time we meet, we'll be bitter enemies." She clasped his hand. "Then I hope we never meet again." Then, with a wave of her hands, she vanished.

With bones of ships and soldiers at her feet. With blood on her hands and nothing inside.

Rovon said very seriously, looking into her eyes, "You never have to take a life, Riki. You always have a choice." Archer folded his napkin. Almost picked a fight with his uncle. Almost walked out. A choice? Sometimes the choice was kill or die.

He'd find a way to cheat death—or die, gloriously, trying.

Everything in the world could be found in the points of contact between them: all the ins and outs of the tides, the pulsations of stars in the sky, and the running of wolves across the cold north—all part of the same rhythm. This one. Theirs.

He kissed her. And in that second, kissing her was everything. An explosion—a downpour—a secret. A sigh—a bolt of lightning—the feeling of flight before the fall.

She closed her eyes. She didn’t want the world. She wanted his mouth on hers. She wanted his hands at her neck, along her back. She wanted Archer, and, at least for tonight, absolutely nothing else.

Was it enough to live on in legend if the legends were lies?

What is written comes to pass.

It was little more than a weak flame flickering under the weight of his melancholia, but it was there. A splinter of possibility. Maybe he didn't want to die. Maybe, just maybe, he wanted to live. It didn't burn away his sadness. It didn't make his future appear any less dark. But it was there—hope, perhaps, or something like it—and it was enough.

A good leader protects his own, if you ask me.

If you want to save him, you can't keep him.

Sentiment makes fools of us all.

In that moment, the nameless boy understood: This was the end. He was going to die. He would cease to breathe. Cease to be. Cease to hurt. It would be easy. But he didn't want to die.

Wielding the Book proved even more difficult than Sefia had expected; the amount of information was so massive and so little of it was what she needed.

It's the same with stories as it is with people. They get better as they get older. But not every story is remembered, and not all people grow old.

It ain't worth livin' forever if you're just livin' for yourself.