Her family had shown her that love is a lie. It isn't stone-solid; instead it bends and crumbles away, weak as rusty metal.

The people we love are the ones who hurt us most, after all.

Love betrayed has an entirely different sound from hatred outright.

I never saw Kelenli, or her child, again. Too ashamed of the monster I’d become, I never sought them out. She lived though. Now and again I heard the grind and grumble of her stone voice, and those of her several children as they were born. They were not wholly alone;

But love like that doesn't just disappear, does it? No matter how powerful the hate, there is always a little love left, underneath.Yes. Horrible, isn't it?

So there was love, once. More than love. And now there is more than hate. Mortals have no words for what we gods feel. Gods have no words for such things. But love like that doesn't just disappear, does it? No matter how powerful the hate, there is always love left, underneath. Horrible, isn't it?

The quality of the light through the amethyst, as the sun slants toward setting, stirs a feeling of longing and relief in me that I will one day learn is called homesickness.

She is such a good child at her core. Don't be angry with her, she can only make choices within the limited set of her experiences. And it isn't her fault that so many of those experiences have been terrible. Marvel instead at how easily she loves, how thoroughly. Love enough to change the world. She learned how to love like this from somewhere.

(Schaffa saw her hand on the child's face, covering mouth and nose, pressing. Incomprehensible. Did she not know that Schaffa would love her son as he loved her? He would lay the boy down gently, so gently, in the wire chair.)