“...he had found the courage once in his life to seize a chance at love from a person who knew how to give it. Lena prayed on these two moons that she would find that same courage.”

“Anton's bowels tightened in fear and he prayed to the Elders he would be able to find the courage to explain to Marcus how his two most senior warriors had been ambushed by an uncouth horde of half-breed mongrels.”

“Once giving way to tears, she wept bitterly for all that she had lost, and all that she must lose so soon. Her mother had had the courage to leave everything she loved and to come out here with her father; she in turn ought to show just that same courage about going back, but she could not find it in her heart.”

“How could he possibly understand just how much she had to give and how desperately she wanted to give it to him, and him alone? He, who had the weight of the world on his shoulders, but bore it with this capable strength. He, who stood alone at the top, silent and courageous in his dedication to the legacy he had inherited. And lastly, he, who so clearly needed someone, anyone, to understand him.”

“She had told herself she should be reassured by his squeamishness; a man who balked at scars would not give her new ones. Now she suddenly wondered if she’d had it wrong. A man without scars would always underestimate their value. He would not see them as marks of courage.”

“She was a girl and she was a queen and back in the mists she was a woman who had seized the moon from the sky and drunk its light so that she would never die. And she never had.”