“Recai's hold on sanity shattered as he peered into the same two black eyes that had mocked him as Rebekah lay bleeding across his lap.A scream rose into the night, competing with the sky for the very ear of God.”

“The others saw him as he stumbled down the stairs, bleeding from nose and ears and eyes an mouth. The sheathed form of the Sword lay across his palms. He met their eyes, and choked out:"Remember. Remember, all of you."Mathilda's voice was infinitely gentle. "Remember what?""That I was a man, before I was King. Remember for me, when I forget.His hand closed on the black double-lobed hilt, and the moonfire in the opal glowed. He drew the Sword, thrust it high.And screamed as pain beyond all bearing ripped through him like white fire, turning his body to a thing of ash smoke.He screamed, and knew.”

“The blackness he woke to on those nights was sightless and impenetrable. A blackness to hurt your ears with listening. Often he had to get up. No sound but the wind in the trees. He rose and stood tottering in that cold autistic dark with his arms outheld for balance while the vestibular calculations in his skull cranked out their reckonings.”

“The terror is trapped inside of him and paralyzes him. He closes his eyes again and tries to drown out the scream - but it keeps ringing and ringing and ringing in his ears.”

“He felt like a man who, after straining his eyes to peer into the remote distance, finds what he was seeking at his very feet. All his life he had been looking over the heads of those around him, while he had only to look before him without straining his eyes. p 1320”

“That night, [Black Dog] lay beside Henry, and he stroked her sharp shoulder blades and scratched behind her ears. He did this late into the night as he listened to the low and terrible moans that swept through the hallways of the house and that were not from the lonely wind but from his lonely mother, who had lost her oldest child and would never have him back again.”