I will not say I am sorry, but I can tell you that I grieve.

Weariness, sometimes more than anything else, can bring an end to war.

One man sees a riselka: his life forks there. Two men see a riselka: one of them shall die. Three men see a riselka: one is blessed, one forks, one shall die.

There was some sadness in how that could happen, Tai thought: falling out of love with something that had shaped you. Or even people who had? But if you didn't change at least a little, where were the passages of a life? Didn't learning, changing, sometimes mean letting go of what had once been seen as true?

Some writers later, describing the events of that night and day, wrote that Wan'yen of the Altai had seen a spirit-dragon of the river and become afraid. Writers do that sort of thing. They like dragons in their tales.

most hated by the dark, for their name is light.

It was different, though, knowing something in your thoughts and then hearing it confirmed, made real, planted in the world like a tree