Sherwood Smith

“Who can ever know what turns the spark into flame? Vidanric's initial interest in me might well have been kindled by the fact that he saw my actions as courageous, but the subsequent discovery of passion, and the companionship of the mind that would sutain it, seemed as full of mystery as it was of felicity. As for me, I really believe that the spark had been there all along, but I had been too ignorant--and too afraid--to recognize it.”

“But I'd also learned that the self might want one thing, but that didn't mean it was right.”

“Some of it was wrong decisions made for the right reasons, and a little of it was right decisions made for the wrong reasons; but most of what I did was wrong decisions for the wrong reasons.”

“It is time,' he said, 'to collect on my wager.'He moved slowly. First, his hands sliding round me and cool light-colored hair drifting against my cheek, and then softly, so softly, the brush of lips against my brow, my eyes, and then my lips. Once, twice, thrice, but not closer. The sensations - like starfire - that glowed through me chased away from my head all thoughts save one, to close that last distance between us. I locked my fingers round his neck and pulled his face again down to mine.”

“Jaim says that the essence of command is to turn surprises to your favor. You get your perimeter outside the enemy’s perimeter, and attack.”“What does that mean, exactly?”“Oh, I don’t know, some kind of military jabber. I was hoping you knew.”

“We'll abduct Garian. Or Jason.""And—?""And dump them into the ocean. Nobody would ever pay a ransom for them.”

“One doesn't lose a self, like a pair of gloves or a pine. We learn and change, or we harden into stone.”

“The more one has, the less one desires.”

“It would have been funny if I had been an observer and not a participant, an idea that gave me a disconcerting insight into gossip. As I walked beside the silent Tamara, I realized that despite how entertaining certain stories were, at the bottom of every item of gossip there was someone getting hurt.”

“No, I don't think I could fall in love with him, handsome though he is, because I don't accept any of that huff he gives me about my great beauty and all that. I'd have to trust a man's words before I could love him. I think.”

“I've been working hard at assuming Court polish, but the more I learn about what really goes on behind the pretty voices and waving fans and graceful bows, the more I comprehend that what is really said matters little, so long as the manner in which it is said pleases. I understand it, but I don't like it. Were I truly influential, then I would halt this foolishness that decrees that in Court one cannot be sick; that to admit you are sick is really to admit to political or social or romantic defeat; that to admit to any emotions usually means one really feels the opposite. It is a terrible kind of falsehood that people can only claim feelings as a kind of social weapon.”

“If more people recognized the difference between friendship and mere attraction, or how love must partake of both to prosper, I expect there'd be more happy people." "And a lot fewer poems and plays," I said, laughing as I splashed about in the scented water.”

“I had seen ardency in men's eyes, but I had only felt it once. With Flauvic, false and therefore easy to dismiss. I suddenly wished that I could feel it now. No, I did feel it. I did have the same feeling, only I had masked it as restlessness, or as the exhortation to action, or as anger. I thought how wonderful it would be to see that spark now, in the right pair of eyes.”

“It desolates me to disappoint you, but your brother is not here. Despite two really praiseworthy attempts at rescue."... The hint of amusement irritated me, and sick and hurt as I was, I simply had to retort something. "Glad... at least... you're desolated.”

“Maybe I'm no longer a dog, but I can still bite!”

“Despite how entertaining certain stories were, at the bottom of every item of gossip there was someone getting hurt.”

“When in doubt, be ridiculous.”

“When people first discover beauty, they tend to linger. Even if they don’t at first recognize it for what it is.”

“Finally someone takes me seriously enough to ask for my word of honor, and it’s a villain.”

“Except. What is normal at any given time? We change just as the seasons change, and each spring brings new growth. So nothing is ever quite the same.”

“You, there, girl! Halt!"Who in the universe ever halts when the enemy tells them to?”

“A horse blanket, Mel?I remembered what I was wearing. 'It tore in half when Hrani tried washing it. She was going to mend it. This piece was too small for a horse, but it was just right for me.'Bran laughed a little unsteadly. 'Mel. A horse blanket.”

“Because you showed one face to all the rest of the world, and another to me.”

“Why did I laugh at his sorry, bedraggled appearance? Because ridiculousness made a repellant situation more bearable.”

“Everyone is an idiot," I stated. "Except me.”

“So let me end with the wish that you find the same kind of happyiness, and laughter, and love, that I have found, and that you have the wisdon to make them last.”

“They're safe,'' he said. "And you're not made of glass". He swept me up in his arms.I laughed. "And I'm not made of glass."He carried me into our room and kicked the door shut behind us.”

“Memory warps time, as it does the sights and sounds and smells of reality; for what shapes it is emotion, which can twist what seems clear, just as the surface of a pond seems to bend the stick thrust into the water.”

“The only noise now was the rain, pattering softly with the magnificent indifference of nature for the tangled passions of humans.”

“Angry men with pointy things sent to secure a foreign city are pretty much alike anywhere. That's what I've heard. So far nothing's convinced me different.”

“A wager?" I repeated."Yes," he said, and gave me a slow smile, bright with challenge. ..."Stake?" I asked cautiously. He was still smiling, an odd sort of smile, hard to define."A kiss." My first reaction was outrage, but then I remembered that I was on my way to Court, and that had to be the kind of thing they did at Court. And if I win I don't have to collect. I hesitated only a moment longer, lured by the thought of open sky, and speed, and winning."Done," I said.”

“Why is it the songs all end with the good people winning, but in life they don't?"They don't make songs when the good lose," I muttered. "They make war chants against the bad. So there won't be any songs for us.”