Funny thing, employment. If you keep doing it, you keep getting paid.

This means, in a way, that true light is dependent on the presence of other lights. Take the others away and darkness results. Yet the reverse is not true: take away darkness and there is only more darkness. Darkness can exist by itself. Light cannot.

If the gods do decide to wipe us out, is it such a bad thing? Maybe we've earned a little annihilation.

Love betrayed has an entirely different sound from hatred outright.

We worship Him not because He is the best of our gods, but because He is, or was, the greatest killer among them.

But when I got angry, my nerves sought an outlet, and my mouth didn't always guard the gates.

I remembered Nahadoth's lips on my throat and fought to suppress a shudder, only half succeeding. Death as a consequence of lying with a god wasn't something I had considered, but it did not surprise me. A mortal man's strength had its limits. He spent himself and slept. He could be a good lover, but even his best skills were only guesswork - for every caress that sent a woman's head into the clouds, he might try ten that brought her back to earth.