Ship of Magic (Liveship Traders, #1)

by Robin Hobb

For the weakest has but to try his strength to find it, and then he shall be strong”.’

‘So may a harp string, struck strongly, awaken its twin, or a pure high note of a voice set crystal to shimmering as you have wakened truth in me.’ He laughed aloud, surprising himself, for it felt as if a bird, long caged in his chest, had taken sudden flight. ‘What you say is so simple, only that we complement one another. I can think of no reason why your words should so move me. But they do. They do.’ ‘Something is happening, here, tonight. I feel it.’

As if the words had awakened in the rough sailor the genteel boy his mother had once schooled, he bowed deeply to her. He very nearly lifted her hand to his lips, but the sight of his own battered shoes and the tattering edges of his rough cotton trousers recalled to him who he was now.

‘If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,’ he declared,

‘I have always admired people who can do that. So few do. Many, of course, will rant and rave against the garment fate has woven for them, but they pick it up and don it all the same, and most wear it to the end of their days. You… you would rather go naked into the storm.’

have always been more curious than wise. Yet any wisdom I have ever gained has come to me from my curiosity. So I have never learned to turn away from it.’

‘You leave no room for me to matter.’

“Words are not cupped deeply enough to hold my fondness. I bite my tongue and scowl my love, lest passion make me slave.’”

Love, she thought dejectedly, was after all, based on things. Family love, the love in her marriage, even her daughter’s love for her. All based on things and the power to control the things. If you gave up power to people, then they loved you. Funny. Since she had discovered that, she little cared if anyone loved her or not any more.