“If I decide to make a career in the army, he said, I would never be rich, but I would live one of the most satisfying lives there was to be had. Thenhe warned me that satisfaction would come at a great cost to me and any family I might have. I should never expected to be thanked; a soldier, if he was going to be content, had to understand that no civilian, no government,sometimes not even the army itself, would recognize the true nature of the scarifies he made.”

“How do I describe the feeling that envelopes my being when he is near? It is like a cocoon of warmth and peace, but beneath that there is a deep longing, a hunger that one kiss would not be able to satisfy, one kiss would only make the hunger greater. But oh, how I long for that kiss, a kiss that might never come. Being close to him does things to me, makes me feel things I never knew existed, makes me want things I have never wanted before. I have never desired to know a man's body before I met Ariston. I wonder if he knows that I desire him in such a way, that I not only want to know his body, but that I want him to know mine. There is a part of me that would not care if he loves me or not if I could just have one beautiful, passionate night with him, while the rest of me knows that one night would never be enough.”

“They said I would never live. I lived. They said I would never think. I think. They said I would never walk. I walked. They said I would never dance, but I never danced anyway.”

“We would have died without the additional men," he admitted matter-of-factly. "But we would have taken the entire Mede army with us. Poets would have written about us, and songs would have been sung about us-""For all the good that would have done your dead bodies," Eugenides cynically interrupted."Well, I wasn't looking forward to it," said Sounis caustically. "But over our dead bodies the Medes would never have been accepted by the people of Sounis. Much more likely that they would have allied with Attolia." He looked at Eugenides, who was still eyeing him in surprise. "I didn't expect to die," he said. "I knew you would send help.""Why?"It was Sounis's turn to be surprised. He said, "You told me you needed me to be Sounis. I am. I needed my king to send me help. You did. There had to be reinforcements at Oneia, so they were there." To him it was obvious.Eugenides swallowed. "I see.”

“He used you, yeah. But what if you hadn't come? My family would have run again, but we would never have been free. We would never stop hunting us.""I know." I thought of my frustration in Paris and I couldn't even imagine how sick of running Seth must be. "That's why I had to come."His eyebrow cocked upward. "And here I thought you came to see me.”

“It will never be true. Things have never been okay with us. Maybe if I'd paid attention, I would have seen that on our first few dates. Maybe I would have noticed his possessiveness; maybe I would have seen the way he wrapped around me, made me his entire world, his obsession. Maybe I would have felt the wight he placed on my shoulders, one tiny stone at a time.”