These soldiers had done what they had done, and been done unto in return. This was how it went. In the cycle of slaughter, reprisal begat reprisal, forever.

But he is pretty. God, I hope he's not an asshole. Do you think there's any chance he's both non-orifice and single? I mean, seriously. What are the chances?

An idea fell like a seed and over the next weeks it went on growing like a fig vine lush and conquering twining round her old beliefs and covering them in new growth until they were as invisible as a tiger in a thicket and just as deadly.

War is all we've been taught, but there are other ways to live. We can find them, Akiva. We can invent them. This is the beginning, here." She touched his chest and felt a rush of love for the heart that moved his blood, for his smooth skin and his scars and his unsoldierly tenderness. She took his hand and pressed it to her breast and said, "We are the beginning.

It seemed she was in a cathedral—if, that is, the earth itself were to dream a cathedral into being over thousands of years of water weeping through stone.

Dead souls dream only of death. Small dreams for small men. It is life that expands to fill worlds. Life is your master, or death is

Stars got tangled in her hair whenever she played in the sky.