Shouldn’t a position as important as guarding a gate be for someone older? Shouldn’t a job as important as delivering the Dominar’s messages be for someone older? Ouch.

You have to believe me that I’d do anything for her now. She’s like a ship that sailed by and I got tangled around her anchor rope. I can never go back to where I was before. There’s just something about her that I need to protect and nurture and without that ... without that there’s nothing.

“Born high on the mountain, Blazing bright under the sun’s demise, Twice blind but still seeing, The only bulwark against the dark Watch as the arches declare Dominion of Light.”

You could repay it by treating your life with value. Every time I see you, you’re risking it for something!” He shrugged. “I’m a Dragon Rider. We hold our lives with open hands.” It seemed like a terrible way to guard something so precious.

You’re like a bright flame in a dark night. Like a red flower in a field of dead grass.” ... “Stop thinking of me as a flower and start realizing I can be a help to you. The world isn’t going to let me be a delicate, closely guarded thing. I don’t have a choice but to be tougher than I ever wanted to be.

Now that the mess is sorted out, I have urgent business to return to.” “I thought you were playing cards?” Ephretti said, surprise on her face. “Precisely.

Every time you see me, I’m broken,” he admitted, twisting his fingers together. He looked like he’d exposed his heart and offered me a dagger. What did he think? That I judged him? “Leng,” I said gently, hobbling to where he was. “I will always be broken. It doesn’t make me weak. When I see you hurt it doesn’t make you weak.

It would be so much easier if I could just be a student instead of always a pawn in a bigger game – and I had no illusions. I was no center of the storm. I was no rook or bishop. I was a pawn and nothing more.

We don’t know that. We don’t know anything except that we are alive. Hold on to that, spider. If my senses are right, this is only the beginning.