“Auguste had fought with honour. He hadbeen the one honourable man on atreacherous field.”

“He became aware of a man drawnalongside them, frozen in stillness evenin the midst of battle, andknew that what had just happened hadbeen seen, and overheard.He turned, the truth on his face. Strippedbare, he could not hide himself in thatmoment. Laurent, he thought, and liftedhis gaze to meet the eyes of the man whohad witnessed the last words of LordTouars.It wasn't Laurent. It was Jord.He was staring at Damen in horror, hissword lax in his hand.”

“She was intelligent, accomplished, beautiful. She was everything I could have asked for in a woman. But she was a king maker. She wanted power. She must have thought her only path to the throne was through Kastor.' 'My honourable barbarian. I wouldn't have picked that as your type.' 'Type?' 'A pretty face, a devious mind and a ruthless nature.”

“Laurent fought like he talked. The dangerlay in the way he used his mind: therewas not one thing he did that was notplanned in advance. Yet he was notpredictable, because in this as witheverything he did there were layers ofintent, moments when expected patternswould suddenly dissolve into somethingelse.”

“You fight them, his father had said. You don't trust them. His father had been right. And his father had been ready. Rabatians were cowards and deceivers, they should have scattered when their duplicitous attack met the full force of the Akielon army. But for some reason they hadn't fallen at the first sign of a real fight, they had stood firm, and shown metal, and, for hour upon hour, they had fought, until the Akielon lines had begun to slip and falter.And their general wasn't the king, it was the twenty-five year old prince, holding the field. Father, I can take him, he'd said.Then go, his father had said, and bringus back victory.”

“Auguste preferred women. He told me I would grow into it. I told him that he could get heirs and I would read books. I was . . . nine? Ten? I thought I was already grown up. The hazards of overconfidence.”

“The embroidery came later, in the retelling, as the story was told again and again by the men, taking on its own character as it passed over camp.The Prince had ridden out, with only one soldier. Deep in the mountains, he had chased down the rats responsible for these killings. Had ripped them out of their hiding holes and fought them, thirty to one, at least. Had brought them back thrashed, lashed and subdued. That was their Prince for you, a twisty, vicious fiend who you should never, ever cross, unless you wanted your gullet handed to you on a platter. Why, he once rode a horse to death just to beat Torveld of Patras to the mark.In the men's eyes the feat was reflected as the wild, impossible thing it was--their Prince vanishing for two days, then appearing out of the night with a sackful of prisoners thrown over his shoulder, tossing them at the feet of his troop and saying: You wanted them? Here they are.”