Of Blood and Bone (Chronicles of the One, #2)

by Nora Roberts

So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

It’s the nature of people, magickal and not, to wish for peace and march to war. It’s the nature of those with darkness in them, more than the light, to plot for war, to covet power.

Even a simple act can be a symbol. If I offer you my hand, and you take it, it’s more than a greeting. It’s a gesture of trust, perhaps agreement. My right hand to yours. The hands that hold the sword clasped together in that gesture of trust.

Learning is not child’s play; we cannot learn without pain. —Aristotle

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. —Carl Jung

“You’re not immortal or invulnerable, but no, you’re resistant to illness.” He let out a sigh. “I, unfortunately, am not, so I’ll take the preventative. I’ve never devised a way to make them taste less foul.” “Well, you just entrance yourself so you think it tastes like ale or wine or whatever. It doesn’t, but you think it does and that’s the same thing, right?” He lowered the tankard, stared at her. “That’s bloody brilliant, and it annoys me that in all my life I didn’t think of it.”

Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us. —Samuel Smiles