Were you lying?" "I never lie," he said piously. "About what?" "The sand, the snake." For a young man who never lied, he seemed surprisingly unoffended by the question.

Discretion prevented me from saying that I thought she was a fiend from the underworld and that mountain lions couldn't force me to enter her service.

We are not philosophers, we are sovereigns. The rules that govern our behavior are not the rules for other men, and our honor, I think, is a different thing entirely, difficult for anyone but the historians and the gods to judge.

Where are my guards, Teleus?" He was still speaking softly. Three men dead and he wasn't even breathing hard, Costis noted.

I would very much like to strangle someone. Why don't you go away until I decide it isn't you?

Irene-" "Don't call me that." "You were the princess Irene the first time we met." "It means 'peace'," Attolia said. "What name could be more inappropriate?" "That I be named Helen?" Eddis suggested. The hard lines in Attolia's face eased, and she smiled. Eddis was a far cry from the woman whose beauty had started a war.

If we truly trust no one, we cannot survive.