“When people first discover beauty, they tend to linger. Even if they don’t at first recognize it for what it is.”

“If more people recognized the difference between friendship and mere attraction, or how love must partake of both to prosper, I expect there'd be more happy people." "And a lot fewer poems and plays," I said, laughing as I splashed about in the scented water.”

“Jaim says that the essence of command is to turn surprises to your favor. You get your perimeter outside the enemy’s perimeter, and attack.”“What does that mean, exactly?”“Oh, I don’t know, some kind of military jabber. I was hoping you knew.”

“Who can ever know what turns the spark into flame? Vidanric's initial interest in me might well have been kindled by the fact that he saw my actions as courageous, but the subsequent discovery of passion, and the companionship of the mind that would sutain it, seemed as full of mystery as it was of felicity. As for me, I really believe that the spark had been there all along, but I had been too ignorant--and too afraid--to recognize it.”

“Why is it the songs all end with the good people winning, but in life they don't?"They don't make songs when the good lose," I muttered. "They make war chants against the bad. So there won't be any songs for us.”

“A wager?" I repeated."Yes," he said, and gave me a slow smile, bright with challenge. ..."Stake?" I asked cautiously. He was still smiling, an odd sort of smile, hard to define."A kiss." My first reaction was outrage, but then I remembered that I was on my way to Court, and that had to be the kind of thing they did at Court. And if I win I don't have to collect. I hesitated only a moment longer, lured by the thought of open sky, and speed, and winning."Done," I said.”

“It is time,' he said, 'to collect on my wager.'He moved slowly. First, his hands sliding round me and cool light-colored hair drifting against my cheek, and then softly, so softly, the brush of lips against my brow, my eyes, and then my lips. Once, twice, thrice, but not closer. The sensations - like starfire - that glowed through me chased away from my head all thoughts save one, to close that last distance between us. I locked my fingers round his neck and pulled his face again down to mine.”