I'm not good at love. I'm like a barbed creature. I push everyone I love away.

Part of avoiding thoughts about something was not encouraging opportunities for that something to makes itself felt.

Are you determined to leave me in this world to live without my heart?

In the saddle again, Fire mulled over the commander's trust, prodding it around, like a candy in her mouth, trying to decide whether she believed it.

If her enemies were Brigan's friends and her friends were Brigan's enemies, then the two of them could walk through the world arm in arm and never be hit by arrows again.

Then she'll know I'll want to knock her senseless if she so much as looks at me.

It was a very hard thing to have crushed the heart, and the hopes, of a friend.