“How can he do this? If you were mine, I would fight to keep you. I would die, before I let you go.”

“I told you once,” said Red, “that I wanted to hear your voice. I did not think the first words I would hear would be these.”“Those were not the first words,” I whispered, fighting tears. I would not weep.”

“I'm here, Sorcha.I would not believe it at first; it had been so long since he had touched my mind in this way.I'm here. Try to let go, dear one. I know how it hurts. Lean on me; let me take your burden for a while.I could scarcely see him; he was on the far side of the fire, behind the others and half turned away, with his head still in his hands. It seemed as if he had scarcely moved at all.How can you? How can you know?I know. Let me help you.I felt the strength of his mind flow into mine, and somehow he managed to close off the terrible, the dark and secret things that he had dreaded sharing with me, and fill my head with pictures of all that was good and brave.”

“He would have told her - he would have said, it matters not if you are here or there, for I see you before me every moment. I see you in the light of the water, in the swaying of the young trees in the spring wind. I see you in the shadows of the great oaks, I hear your voice in the cry of the owl at night. You are the blood in my veins, and the beating of my heart. You are my first waking thought, and my last sigh before sleeping. You are - you are bone of my bone, and breath of my breath.”

“This is a—a proposal of marriage?” he asked me, and there was the very smallest trace of a smile at the corner of his mouth, something I had never seen before.“I suppose so,” I said, blushing again. “And, as you see, I’m doing it properly, on my knees.”“This would, however, be a partnership of equals you’re offering, I imagine?”“Undoubtedly.” (448-49)”

“What sort of man would you choose for yourself, Liadan?, he asked me. One who is trustworthy, and true to himself, I answered straightaway. One who speaks his mind without fear. One who can be a friend as well as a husband. I would be contented with that.”

“He and I…we share a bond. Not love, exactly. It goes beyond that. He is mine as surely as sun follows moon across the sky. Mine before ever I knew he existed. Mine until death and beyond.”