I stayed only two days in the capital. I was welcomed by a cheering citizenry, who threw flowers at my head. It was disconcerting to think I could have put almost any young man in my retinue on a white horse and they would have thrown flowers at him instead. It was not me they cared about, only what I meant to them: a cessation of hostilities, a chance for prosperity, food on the table.

It made Costis wonder for the first time just how much the stoic man really wants to hide when he unsuccessfully pretends not to be in pain.

I'm sorry, Dite." Dite shrugged away the apology. "You have spared my brother when you could have killed him and you have offered me escape from the cesspit of my family and this court. You know what it means to me, to make music in the court of Ferria. You've put a purse and an impossible dream in my hand. I don't know why you should apologize." "Because I am exiling you, Dite. I intend to raze your patrimony and salt its earth. You emphatically do not need to thank me.

Are you badly hurt?" "Hideously," said the king, without sounding injured at all. "I am disemboweled. My insides may in an instant become my outsides as I stand here before you.

She met the magus's stunned look with a smile. "The Thieves of Eddis have always been uncomfortable allies to the throne, Magus. There is the niggling fear that if you fall out with a Thief, he might see it as his right and responsibility to remove you. There are some checks, of course. There is only ever one Thief. They are prohibited from owning any property. Their training inevitably generates the isolation that makes them independent, but also keeps them from forming alliances that might become threats to the throne. It is not the folly you might think.

She's like a prisoner inside stone walls, and every day the walls get a little thicker, the doorways a little narrower.

"Before you make a decision," he said, "I want you to know that I love you."