Someone had to be blamed. Someone had to die. (...) What you can't understand, you destroy.

You were never able to break her. She is the stone of this kingdom.

We pass more women with swollen bellies hurrying towards the godshouse and Arjuro presses a kiss to Tariq's outstretched fingers. 'She's mocking me, runt of our litter,' Arjuro tells him. 'The Oracle is mocking me for choosing a man to share my bed. And her punishment is that I spend the rest of eternity staring between the legs of women.

About my first memory, sitting on the shoulders of a giant who I know can only be my father. Of touching the sky. Of lying between two people who read me stories of wild things and journeys with dragons, the soft hum of their voices speaking of love and serenity. See, I remember love.

They always prided themselves on looking youthful. “Forty’s the new thirty,” they’d joke. Until heartbreak and grief enter your life, and then forty’s the new one hundred.

I didn't realize until those few days how much a hug meant. To have someone hold you could be the greatest medicine of all.

Do you think I don't want him to be gone more than you do? I do. Because I need to know that I can still breathe properly when he's not around. If something happens to him, I have to know that I won't fall apart.