The Core (The Demon Cycle, #5)

by Peter V. Brett

But every problem had its solution. Every warding its weakness. He would bide his time, and find it.

She was beginning to understand how Duchess Araine could walk past a cloud of bowing and curtsying servants while pretending not to see them at all. Sometimes it was the only way to get where you meant to go.

“No point laying blame when you’ve a fever to fight, Bruna used to say,” Darsy said. “Everyone’s got perfect vision—” “—when they’re looking back,” Leesha finished.

It was strange, how sharing pain could sometimes do what good times could not.

“You’re doing this on purpose.” Elona cackled. “Course I am, girl. Keeping the stick from your arse requires constant maintenance.”

Baron Cutter goes through clerks faster than mugs of ale. Squire Emet resigned after the baron threatened to tear his arms off.”

“I’ve two brothers myself,” Rosal said. “I know more than I’d ever wish about their love lives.” She winked. “But I won’t say the information wasn’t useful.”

“Rojer’s protecting us, even now,” Leesha said. “Course he is,” Wonda said. “Creator wouldn’t have taken Rojer if his work wern’t done.”

Thamos, dead. Arlen gone, and Ahmann’s fate uncertain. And now Rojer. Would it be her fate to bury every man she loved?

Elissa swallowed her smile. Men could face demons and Krasians and everything else the world could throw at them, but a suckling babe was still too much for many of them to bear witness to.

It was more than ten years since Briar lost his family to the night, but he remembered. How his brothers and sisters tormented him. How he hated them. How he would give anything to have them back.

“Mum always said, Only way to kiss a man who eats garlic is to eat some yourself.”

For better or worse, a simple scouting mission had changed his life forever.

“But you can’t go down to the Core carryin’ our baby.” “Can’t?” Renna crossed her arms. “You think, Arlen Bales. Ever have a talk you started with can’t go well for you? Can and will.”

“Belief is stubborn as a rock demon.”

“I said when humanity needed them, great generals rose to lead us. Their existence is documented, Arlen. It’s a fact.

“Tears are never hard to find.

‘Sorry’s only halfway to makin’ things right.’ ”

“We do not see marriage as you greenlanders do,” Shanvah said. “The Evejah tells us love is boundless. It does not dishonor the Damajah to share. A portion of infinity remains infinite.”

“Enough, Par’chin! I have a doting mother and fifteen wives. I don’t need you trying to suckle me as well.” “Had to make it awkward.”

“Mercy should never be cause for regret,”

“I do not need an excuse,” Leesha said. “We are not married, and the law is clear. She is Olive Paper. And why should she not be? It was I who made her. I who carried her in my own body, nursed her on my own milk. It is I who protect her. I who will raise her.”

“Know yur rich, when you have a room just for sittin’,” Yon said.

“Gonna take some gettin’ used to, Ren. You bein’ my daughter-in-law.” “Shun’t be hard. Been acting like you was mam for years.”

Maybe it’s just the way o’ das and their boys.”

grudges never made anyone a better man,”

“Keep talkin’ like’at, ya little pissant, Ragen’s gonna have to get in line.”

“Mistakes are easy to see, when you look back.”

“Jongleur carriages look like a rainbow vomited on them.”

Dealing with a small army of Mountain Spears seemed a gentle breeze compared with dealing with her mother.

“On the way out, I will be hauling a fat, crippled khaffit with me.” Qeran chuckled. “A weight I know well.”

Who would have thought the half-chin son of a traitor would be a better parent to her son than his own father?

The Consort compartmentalized emotions, for therein lay the essence of magical control. Still, it took an effort to suppress the shame that he should have been taken unaware and captured by…mammals.

Ragen and Elissa told him many times growing up that marriage was hard and full of compromise, but he never truly understood till it happened to him.

The daughter of Harl was powerful. Fearless. Sacrificing her life and the life of her child in the First War. She was not Krasian, but she was Evejan in her heart. He shamed himself by doubting her.

Ent wise to get between a pregnant woman and her food.”

“Startin’ to think it don’t matter if Everam’s in the sky or in your imagination. It’s a voice that tells you to act right, and that’s more than most folk have.”

“We can spend eternity questioning the past, but it is the future we must look to.”

“Girls might tell boys size don’t matter, but it’s just to make ’em feel better.”

“Ahmann.” Arlen tried, and failed, to keep his voice from trembling. “I…think I just found the Spear of Ala.”

All men are brothers in the night was the Krasian mantra. To meet in darkness was a sign of truce, a reminder of the common foe.

We started this together when we brought Arlen Bales here from Tibbet’s Brook. A good story demands we end it together, as well.”

“My family has guarded this city against the corelings for three hundred years. I won’t cede it in a single moon.”

It’s always the moment for politics, times of trouble most of all.”

“Arlen’s loyalty isn’t a thing you can buy,” Elissa said. “The two of you earned it.”

Magic by itself was not always enough. She turned to Countess

“You’re too good for her, Da.” Erny chuckled. “Too good, yet never good enough. I’ve made my peace with it, but it never stops stinging.”

“Glad we’re friends, ’cause sometimes you scare the piss out of me.” Jardir smiled. “And you, my zah’ven.”

“Be at peace, my friend. If I am Deliverer in this place, there can be no doubt I would never have reached it without you.”

When she looked away from the girl, Leesha could pretend it was Rojer playing, and felt her friend watching over her on this last, desperate mission. —