“A man who fights you as he does is no better than an opportunist and no worse than a thug.”

“Great seas," he said."What do you want?"He held the candle up to her face."Po, what do you want?""She did a far better job than I would've done.”

“And the kings were no better to their own people than they were to each others.”

“Normal. She wasn't normal. A girl Graced with killing, a royal thug? A girl who didn't want the husbands Randa pushed on her, perfectly handsome and thoughtful men, a girl who panicked at the thought of a baby at her breast, or clinging to her ankles.”

“But you're better than I am, Katsa. And it doesn't humiliate me. It humbles me. But it doesn't humiliate me.”

“It seems better to me for a child to have these skills and never use them, than not have them and one day need them," she said.”

“He was handsome, like Po, and confident, like Po, and so much more authoritative in his bearing than Po could ever be. But - this Katsa came gradually to understand - he was not drunk on his power. He might never dream of helping a sailor to haul a rope, but he would stand with the sailor interestedly while the sailor hauled the rope, and ask him questions about the rope, about his work, his home, his mother and father, his cousin who spent a year once in the lakes of Nander. It struck Katsa that there was a thing she'd never encountered: a king who looked at his people, instead of looking over their heads, a king who saw outside himself.”