You look like a boy who has eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge and doesn't like the taste.

Just remember who you are... The world will try to change you into someone else. Don't let them. That's the best advice anyone can give you.

Hope is a dangerous thing, Raisa thought. Once kindled, it's hard to put out. It makes wise people into fools.

Just tell me you don't love me, and I'll let the matter drop." "What?" "What I said. Just say, 'Rai, I don't love you and I never will'. It's that simple." "Raisa, this is getting us nowhere." "Say it!

What kind of love would drive a man for miles through solid rock?

A vocation is not something you slap on, like a coat of paint, and change whenever you want. A vocation is built into you. You have no choice. If you try to do something else, you fail.

Raisa felt relieved, yet oddly disappointed. She was the blooded princess heir, yet in servants' clothes she was apparently unrecognizable. In the stories, rulers had a natural presence about them that identified them as such, even dressed in rags. What's the nature of royalty, she wondered. Is it like a gown you put on that disappears when you take it off? Does anyone look beyond the finery? Could anyone in the queendom take her place, given the right accessories? If so, it was contrary to everything she'd ever been taught about bloodlines.