“Sometimes, if you want to change a man's mind, you have to change the mind of the man next to him first.”

“It made Costis wonder for the first time just how much the stoic man really wants to hide when he unsuccessfully pretends not to be in pain.”

“Sounis had been thinking of Ambiades. "He would have been a better man under different circumstances."Gen looked at him. "True enough," he said. "But does a good man let his circumstances determine his character?”

“Is that what the wine is for? To help you think?""Oh, the wine. The wine, Costis, is to help hide the truth. It doesn't work. It never has, but I try it every once in a while just in case something in the nature of the wine might have changed.”

“Coming from light into the dark, he was looking ahead of him, not down at me. My lunge, as I came to my feet, took him in the chest as I drove the sword upward with the strength of my legs. Even rusted, the sword slid through him, and I found, for the first time, how easy it is to kill a man.”

“No," he said. "Relius was right and I was wrong. You are My Queen. Even though you cut my head from my shoulders, with my last breath as a noose tightens, to the last beat of my heart if I hang from the walls of the palace, you are My Queen. That I have failed you does not change my love for you or my loyalty.”

“Ornon said, "I have seen him jump across atriums four stories above the ground, a distance that would make your blood freeze, and I heard him once confess that he sometimes thinks the distance is beyond him. He always jumps, Your Majesty. The Thieves are not trained in self-preservation. I beg you would take my advice.”