“A hand fought best when it made a fist.”

“Battles are won en route, Shalhassan of Cathal though. A worthy thought: he raised his hand in a certain way, and a moment later Razeil galloped up, uneasy on a horse at speed, and the Supreme Lord of Cathal made him write it down.”

“I have been made to realize tonight that there are limits to what I wish to do or see done for any cause.”

“He had a sense—honed by experience—that what he’d contrived might achieve something of the effect he wanted. That, Martinius had always said, was the best any man in this fallible world could expect. [p. 67]”

“A hard truth: that courage can be without meaning or impact, need not be rewarded, or even known. The world has not been made in that way. Perhaps, however, within the self there might come a resonance, the awareness of having done something difficult, of having done . . . something.”

“She lifted her hands and closed them around his head... and it seemed to Catriana in that moment as if that newborn trialla in her soul began to sing. Of trials endured and trials to come, of doubt and dark and all the deep uncertainties that defined the outer boundaries of mortal life, but with love now present at the base of it all, like light, like the first stone of a rising tower. ”

“If this is truly the time that will decide, we have no business refusing people who feel the way we do. No right to decide that they must huddle in their homes waiting to see if they are still slaves or not when the summer ends.”