Our people were alone here a long time, she said, and I wondered, what was long to a tree? A thousand years, two thousand, ten? Endless generations, the roots growing deeper every one. We began to gor...
One man can go where a group cannot, and manage on very little, particularly a rough adventurer such as he. More the point, he risks only himself when he goes: you much consider that in your charge is...
No, it is just pyrite, but it is very pretty, is it not? I suppose you are one of those hoarding creatures, Laurence said, looking affectionately up at Temeraire; many dragons had an inborn fascinatio...
No one was enchanted beyond saving in the songs. The hero always saved them. There was no ugly moment in a dark cellar where the countess wept and cried out protest while three wizards put the count t...
My head ached worst of all, some part of me tethered back to the valley, stretched out of recognizable shape and trying to make sense of myself when I was so far from anything I knew.
Keynes, quite ignoring the covert gestures, the attempts at signaling, of nearly every senior officer, examined [Lily] and declared that she was perfectly fit to fly, had better fly, I should say; thi...
Justice is expensive, Tharkay said. That is why there is so little of it, and that reserved for those few with enough money and influence to afford it.
I’m not stupid, nor a liar, I said, and if I can’t do any good, I can at least do something
It wasn't that I wanted a husband and a baby; I didn't, or rather, I only wanted them the way I wanted to live to a hundred: someday, far off, never thinking about the particulars.
It certainly went quicker to throw money away than to make it
If you don't want a man dead, don't bludgeon him over the head repeatedly.
I started to murmur my own spell, but I found myself thinking not of roses but of water, and thirsty ground; building underneath his magic instead of trying to overlay it.
I say to you, here are the dangers. Some are more likely than others. Weigh them, put them all together, and you will know the cost. Then you must say, is this what you owe?
I remembered when my oldest brother married Malgosia, and suddenly the two of them stopped running around with us and started sitting with the parents: a very solemn kind of alchemy, one that I felt s...
I hated her; I wanted her to burn, the way so many of the corrupted had burned, because she’d put her hold on them. But wanting cruelty felt like another wrong answer in an endless chain.
I bent down and sang Tihas, tihas, kai tihas, kai tihas, over and over, and found myself falling into the sound of the birthday song about living a hundred years. That sounds absurd, but the rhythm of...
I am sick of the quarrels of nations and kings, and I would not give a ha'pence for any empire other than our valley, if that can content your ambition.
I am not your subject or your servant, and if you want a cowering mouse for a wife, go find someone who can turn silver to gold for you.
He snorted. He thinks killing a day-old hydra has made him a hero. None of the songs had ever mentioned the Vandalus Hydra being one day old: it diminished the story more than a little.
He settled for writing a letter, in a quiet corner, while Temeraire dictated his own:Gentlemen, I am very happy to accept your commission, and we should like to be the eighty-first regiment, if that n...