Every time someone forgets, someone else disappears,' my brother wrote.

If I hadn't learned my lesson, I would have wished we could stay there forever. But I knew better now. We'd seen what we'd come to see. The way to trick death. Breathe in. Breathe out. Watch as it all rises upwards, black and blue into the even bluer sky.

Any weapon touched by a woman, even by accident, must be cleansed with both water and prayer so that her essence would not linger, diverting the warrior who might use it next, for even the faintest touch could bring lust to that man's heart. Perhaps that meant a woman who was well trained in arms would be the superior warrior, her attention never wavering from her task.

Real love, after all, was worth the price you paid, however briefly it might last.

Burn me. Drown me. Tell me lies. I will still be who I am.

My mother's blood that would last forever after. The blood of my brother, my grandfather, my father.

That is how you know you've left childhood behind-when you wish for time to go backward.