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“Why are you here now?” she asked, dreading his answer. He never did anything without a purpose.
“When two people work closely together under circumstances of stress and challenge . . . when they come to trust and depend on each other . . . well, as you’ve learned in your training, those are opportunities for attachments to form. Danger, or the threat of it, can often knit two hearts together. Look into your own past and tell me if you haven’t seen this pattern?”
Life, she’d come to learn, could end abruptly.
Rand wasn’t the man whose good opinion she most desired, but there was something intoxicating about his admiration.
Your mistake, on the other hand, was a major lapse of moral judgment.
The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of its homes.
we prize integrity above all. We will not part from it, no matter what the cost.
if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.
“I know how to hurt you, Sera Fitzempress. You vain little thing. When I am done with you, no one will want you. No one will even bear to look at you.
Why dwell on the past? She couldn’t change it. Why be miserable for decisions that had been forced on her?
Why not submit to her fate? A whisper penetrated her mind. Because you do not decide what is right and what is wrong.
No person, Cettie or otherwise, could define truth. It existed, independent of belief. Inviolate. Immovable.
an older man poked his head into the hallway. He saw the tears streaming down her cheeks. She felt exposed and miserable and looked away from his searching face.
“Who are you?” “A friend, if you’ll have one. My name is Owen.
He walked over and gave her a hug, the gesture full of an easy, generous affection she hadn’t experienced in a long, long while.
She felt more like herself—her old self. How strange that the transformation should come about so quickly. It was like awakening from a nightmare.
“Isn’t it a miracle that we are even here? That there is enough air to breathe? That a burning sun keeps this world perfectly warm . . . just as it does on your planet? On both worlds there is water to drink and food to eat. And good people that we can call friends and family.”
The isolation was its own kind of torture.
Lady Corinne could slice Sera’s body like so many ribbons. She could poison her, torture her, cripple her. But she could not break her will. Only Sera could do that.
Even the most oppressed woman, scrubbing dirty clothes in a stagnant fountain, could still whistle and sing while she worked.
“But in this world, I am a wayfarer, a prophet, a beggar, a fool.
“That was when we met.” “But I don’t remember you,” Cettie said, shaking her head. “No, of course you wouldn’t. But even though you do not remember, it is nonetheless true.
Every choice has its consequence. It is like this staff.” He hefted it in his hand and offered it to her. “If you take one end, you get the other end too. Choices, consequences. Sometimes we know what they will be. Other times we do not. The consequences may surprise us. Or hurt us. We accept both ends when we pick our actions. Is this not so?”
Owen gave her a sympathetic smile. “I cannot choose for you. But I’ve come to recognize the right path usually is the harder one.
Her mind is so wrapped up in knots, she’ll want to die.
“My father was cruel, but he wasn’t brutal.”
doubt and belief cannot coexist. One must drive out the other.”
Reality would always be preferable to a pretty dream.
Why do we keep coming back to our origins? Why does the past torment us so?
I will not yield,”
Existence is meaningless.
it will be no greater miracle that brings us into another world to live forever with our dearest friends than that which has brought us into this one to live a lifetime with them.”
No matter what restrictions they put on me, they could not force my mind to be still. I was sovereign over only one thing, and that was my thoughts.
“It’s you. Or it’s no one.
