Sometimes, if you want to change a man's mind, you have to change the mind of the man next to him first.
Who am I, that you should love me?
The king lifted a hand to her cheek and kissed her. It was not a kiss between strangers, not even a kiss between a bride and groom. It was a kiss between a man and his wife, and when it was over, the king closed his eyes and rested his forehead in the hollow of the queen's shoulder, like a man seeking respite, like a man reaching home at the end of the day.
You learn something new everyday." "What are you learning?" Sophos asked. "To keep my mouth shut, I hope.
Her queen danced like a flame in the wind, and the mercurial king like the weight at the center of the earth.
The Thieves of Eddis don't have breaking points. We have flash points instead, like gunpowder.
I hate horses. I know people who think that they are noble, graceful animals, but regardless of what a horse looks like from a distance, never forget that it's as likely to step on your foot as look at you.
These people make my family look easy to get along with.
I would very much like to strangle someone. Why don't you go away until I decide it isn't you?
No," he said. "Relius was right and I was wrong. You are My Queen. Even though you cut my head from my shoulders, with my last breath as a noose tightens, to the last beat of my heart if I hang from the walls of the palace, you are My Queen. That I have failed you does not change my love for you or my loyalty.
She thought of the hardness and the coldness she had cultivated over those years and wondered if they were the mask she wore or if the mask had become her self. If the longing inside her for kindness, for warmth, for compassion, was the last seed of hope for her, she didn't know how to nurture it or if it could live.
If we truly trust no one, we cannot survive.
He waved at his attendants. "I dragged them like a ball and chain all the way across the palace and back." "If sterner measures are called for, we can find a larger ball and chain." The queen turned and disappeared into the partment. "Oh, dear," Eugenides muttered as he followed...The queen's sterner measures, dispensed by the Eddisian Ambassador, arrived before dawn.
The queen was settling on the edge of the bed, ungainly with hesitation and at the same time exquisite in her grace, like a heron landing in a treetop.
It was a race between the tortoise and the hare, but the tortoise had just enough head start, and he had the magus to drag him along.
You will make the boy Thief king?" he [Nahuseresh] said. "When you could have had me?" Attolia allowed a slight smile. "A fine revenge for the loss of a hand," said the Mede, close to snarling. "I will have my sovereignty," said Attolia thinly. "Oh, yes, a fine one-handed figurehead he will make," spat Nahuseresh. Then he remembered Attolia's flattery earlier that morning. "Or do I insult your lover?" he asked. "Not a lover," said Attolia. "Merely my choice for king.
He loves me, and I reward his love by forcing on him something he hates. In the evening, after we dance, he rarely returns to the throne; he dances with others or moves from place to place through the room. The court thinks he is trying to be gracious, sharing his attention. Only I see that he moves always to the empty spot and the court always moves after him. He is like a dog trying to escape his own tail. He indulged himself in one brief moment of privacy, and almost died of it. Relius, he hates being king.
I thought that being king meant I didn't have to kill people myself. I see know that was another misconception.
Relius looked away. "He said that you...cried," he said softly. "But not that he cried as well," said the queen, amused at the memory. "We were very lachrymose... would you like to hear more romance of the evening? He told me the Guard should be reduced by half, and I threw an ink jar at his head." "Is that when he cried?" "He ducked," said Attolia dryly. "I had not pictured you for a fishwife." "Lo, the transforming power of love.
I think a good book is a good book forever. I don't think they get less good because times change.
I am not sure I trust you." "You can trust me with your life, My King." "But not with my wine, obviously. Give it back.
Safety is an illusion, Costis. A Thief might fall at any time, and eventually the day must come when the god will let him. Whether I am on a rafter three stories up or on a staircase three steps up, I am in my god's hands. He will keep me safe, or he will not, here or on the stairs.
Will there be poppy juice in it?" Phresine shook her head. "Good. My wife and I agreed that only my wine was to be poisoned.
It isn't an easy thing to give your loyalty to someone you don't know, especially when that person chooses to reveal nothing of himself.
We are not philosophers, we are sovereigns. The rules that govern our behavior are not the rules for other men, and our honor, I think, is a different thing entirely, difficult for anyone but the historians and the gods to judge.
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