“They seemed no closer to the tops of the peaks that rose before them. It was only by looking back, to the forest far below, that she knew they'd climbed.”

“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.”

“She'd lost her fury, somewhere, as they'd talked. She didn't feel it anymore. She wished she did, because she preferred it to the emptiness that had settled in its place.”

“Katsa sat in the darkness of the Sunderan forest and understood three truths. She loved Po. She wanted Po. And she could never be anyone's but her own.”

“Katsa watched the long grass moving around them. The wind pushed it, attacked it, struck it in one place and then another. It rose and fell and rose again. It flowed, like water.”

“She didn't want to go far, just out of the trees so she could see the stars. They always eased her loneliness. She thought of them as beautiful creatures, burning and cold; each solitary, and bleak, and silent like her.”

“I love you," he said. "You're more dear to my heart than I ever knew anyone else can be. And I've made you cry; and there I'll stop."She was crying, but not because of his words. It was because of a certainty she refused to consider while she sat before him.”