Written in Red (The Others, #1)

by Anne Bishop

she was going to die anyway, so for once in her life, what happened to her would be on her terms.

Whether it was true or not, it eased his heart to think there was something beyond the physical plane, something that felt benevolent toward humans, because the gods knew there wasn’t much on the physical plane that felt benevolent toward them.

His blue eyes held a fierce kind of friendliness that could reassure or frighten the person meeting those eyes

We are the tenants, not the landlords, a temple priest once said at a weekly gathering. We only borrow the air we breathe and the food we eat and the water we drink.

In his experience, women usually weren’t afraid without a reason.

“Whether you’re beaten or pampered, fed the best foods or starved, kept in filth or kept clean, a cage is still a cage,”

“You took care of him and you loved him and you kept him safe,” she said. “Even if it didn’t show, he was learning from you.”

there was also trust in those eyes instead of fear. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, kill trust.