You're the queen, and it's the queen's house, and whatever Brigan may accomplish, he's highly unlikely ever to be queen.

What are you grinning at?" Katsa demanded for the third or fourth time. "Is the ceiling about to cave in on my head or something? You look like we're both on the verge of an enormous joke." "Katsa, only you would consider the collapse of the ceiling a good joke.

Katsa watched the long grass moving around them. The wind pushed it, attacked it, struck it in one place and then another. It rose and fell and rose again. It flowed, like water.

And you may blame me for your feelings, but it isn't fair to blame me for how you've chosen to behave.

There is nothing unnatural in this world," he said. "An unnatural thing is a thing that could never happen in nature. I happened. I am natural, and the things I want are natural. The power of your mind, and your beauty, even when you've been drugged in the bottom of a boat for two weeks, covered in grime and your face purple and green - your unnatural beauty is natural. Nature is horrifying.

She cried like a person whose heart is broken and wondered how, when two people loved each other, there could be such a broken heart.

Katsa sat in the darkness of the Sunderan forest and understood three truths. She loved Po. She wanted Po. And she could never be anyone's but her own.