Manufactured--synthetic--even virtual, if that is what you turned out to be--I would love you.

And if I should leave you, for any reason," he added, tightening his grip as she struggled to free her hand, "I will return to you. That is as certain as the sun rising tomorrow morning and the thunderbolt falling tomorrow night. That is as sure as the god's existence. I will come back to you, or I will find you - over and over again, as often as we are parted, until the end of the world itself.

He is so kind that he makes me search my soul to find new ways to be compassionate to others.

Only the strongest are put through the fire,' Josiah said. 'And the forge creates things of great strength and beauty.' 'Then I shall be truly glorious by the time my tenure ends.

She shouldn't leave you. Or you shouldn't leave her. I haven't worked it out yet. But you shouldn't be apart.

You have not traveled enough," she said. "Or you'd know that every journey makes its own map across your heart.

She smiled, if he could see that, and waited for him to ask the real question. But he was silent. He wanted her to volunteer the story, she realized, and she could just as easily choose to say nothing. But he deserved to know. They all deserved it, and Kirra already knew it, and Cammon may have guessed it, because Cammon could read souls, but Tayse was the only one she would tell.