Sarah Monette

“Jonak says to say he send congratulations and well-wishes and all the things he ought—he was so pleased with himself for being an uncle he couldn’t sit still to think them out.”

“He fell away into the column before Isolfr could blink the thought of thanking him into his bleary mind, and Isolfr looked up at Frithulf in supplication. “What was that about?” “Stay pretty,” Frithulf advised, through a mouthful of meat. Isolfr would have kicked him if he hadn’t been out of reach on the horse.”

“...and killed a trellsow, one of the ones he'd learned to recognize as a smith. And thought of Thorlot, who might be a better blacksmith than her father or brother or dead husband, or more than her son would be, but who would never be anything more than wife, sister, daughter, mother. At least she was honored, he thought, wrenching his axe free of the trellsmith's ribs. He didn't mean Thorlot, and he did not know whether he was angry at his own kind for their blindness or angry at the trolls for making him see how blind they were.”

“Isolfr," Frithulf said, "you weigh a hundred stone.""Do I? Sorry," and he tried to straighten, but nothing was working.Frithulf swore and said,"Kari, I think I'm going to need you to get his feet."Are they running away? Isolfr wanted to ask.”

“Well fuck me sideways 'til I cry”

“You know how sometimes you can be going along and do something or say something, and suddenly you *know* yourself? I mean, it's like you're looking at somebody else, and it's just so fucking clear you want to hit something.”

“He's not my lover," Isolfr said.She raised an eyebrow, a long feathery, shaggy sweep. "You're his beloved. Both of them. I saw enough on the war-trail to know." Then she laughed, and took her hand off his and pushed his chest like a wolf-cub nudging playfully. "We don't get to pick who loves us, you know. And better to get him to write the song than be remembered forever as 'fair Isolfr, the cold.'"He scrubbed a hand across his face, roughness of beard and scars and the smooth skin of the unmarked cheek. "Is that really what they call me?"She smiled. "You frighten them, Viradechtisbrother. You went down under the mountain and came out again, twice, and the alfar call you friend. They'll have you among the heroes before you know it. And you can seem quite untouchable—'ice-eyes, and ice-heart, and ice-hard, his will.'""Othinn help me. It is a song already.”

“Although Mar would be quite pleased to be consort, Skjaldwulf didn't want to be wolfjarl.He wanted Isolfr, and he would take the damned job that went with it, if he could win it, if that was what it took.”

“Sacred bleeding fuck,” I said, because, I mean its one thing to know your crazy hocus brother sees ghosts, and a whole different thing when you find out they’re telling him bedtime stories.”

“It is a rose planted in your heart, and as it's thorns tear you, so does it thrive and flower”

“The dead person is not truly dead until the last person who rememebers them dies.”

“If I was really, really lucky, Felix might throw a fireball at me, and I'd get out of the rest of this freakshow.”

“Felix just sat there, not smirking exactly - or not so as you could call him on it - but clearly happy with how unhappy he'd managed to make all of us.”

“Was you born this fucking dumb, Milly-Fox, or do you practice every Dixieme?”

“The rats we met the size of small dogs and they watched us go by like they'd figured out that what People were for was feeding rats.”

“I gave up on cussing - I'd run out of words filthy enough - and just started praying.”

“The obligation d'âme meant that his only allegiance was to Felix, making them a separate kingdom of two, with Felix as king and Mildmay as ministers, army, and populace all combined in one. A stormy little kingdom, I thought, with periodic flare-ups of civil war and a magnificently unstable government. And I was glad I wasn’t a citizen of it.”

“I catch a flash of red-gold beneath the surface of the water, and realize that there are koi in the pond, massive, serene, and I wonder: are they dreams of fish, or fish who dream?”

“Consider the stars. Among them are no passions, no wars. They know neither love nor hatred. Did man but emulate the stars, would not his soul become clear and radiant as they are? But man's spirit draws him like a moth to the ephemera of this world, and in their heat he is consumed entire.”