One thing I still remembered from my war days was how to move in shrubbery.

What might have happened to them to make them the way they were? It did not change what they now did, but it changed, profoundly, how he perceived their motivations, their place in the world.

Montrose tasted the coffee. No bitterness, a blend of several beans – some of which had been grown precisely the same way for over a thousand years – and just the right temperature. If pressed, he could name the chemical makeup of the coffee and the reaction of the human body to the brew. Yet there was still an almost mystical sense of well-being that few things imparted just by smell, taste, and warmth, and coffee was one.

No, my career as a warrior princess, short as it had been, was over, I thought morosely. Violence only works if you’re good at it. Otherwise, it hurts too much.

Choose the duty that you can most effectively execute: that is, finally, all we can do in life.

The less said about that morning’s ride, the better. I would have been uncomfortable even if I’d been riding with Branaric, for my leg ached steadily from the jarring of the horse’s pace. To be riding along in the clasp of an enemy just made my spirits feel the worse.

Maybe I’m no longer a dog, but I can still bite!

At the best of times I don’t have the kind of voice anyone would want to hear mangling their favorite songs.

I endeavor to be serious and you will not take me seriously.

He said the proclivities for indulging in gossip stems from the same impulse as the reading of novels, only gossip touches on real people. Therein lies the harm.