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she wanted to see an actual flying, fire-breathing dragon the way every child of Jin-Sayeng did and claim it for herself. She would capture it and bring it back home.
No offense to your brother, of course, but…there are better ways to find money than in signing up for servitude to rich men who obey no laws.
She didn’t like the man’s arrogance, but she could swallow pride as easily as she could swallow a handful of rice, and getting paid could make up for the rest.
Most men were arrogant in some way, and almost no woman ever hit her teens without having brushed against one if not outright deal with them.
the last thing he needed was to lose a brother again, to be reminded of how everything that was thrusted into his hands turned to dust.
Sometimes compassion meant death. Each man’s path was his own, untouched by his fellows, even his god.
Kefier knew that sort—a man who, snake-like, could pretend to be enjoying the sun while waiting for the moment to strike.
His anxiety made her aware of hers, made her nauseous.
“We are not a family of thieves. We are poor, Dai, but we work for what we have.
That was another thing about a wave—that as soon as it starts, you are powerless.
Moon prattled on as if he was a student himself, giving him an overview of the arts they learned down in Enji. It all had to do with the manipulation of natural forces: wind, water, earth, or fire.
If your life is taken forever by such things—ended, then and there, for reasons beyond your understanding—are you ever truly free?”
She really only wanted to go home—to hold Dai in her arms, to listen to the wind outside their window and think about nothing beyond tomorrow’s breakfast.
“Everyone is kind. Until you are not useful anymore.”
They would never let him do business honestly; he needed to be twice the snakes they were to get anywhere in life.
To her family, to Dai, she could yet be everything he and her father could never be.
“You don’t know how angry it makes me to be told I have to whore myself out to get what I want.” “We all whore ourselves out.”
strangling was so unsophisticated; it was probably easier to cut him with a knife and drop all the bits in the lake for the fish to feed on.
In the end, how could a woman who was raised to know the difference between right and wrong, and honour and duty, justify being happy that her husband of seven hours was dead?
“You sold me,” she said in Jinsein. “And then you almost kill yourself trying to get me back.” She started to say something else, and instead found herself laughing at the complexities of men, the absurdity of it all.
the priests of Yohak spoke of the life-wheel? After death, they say, a soul lingers in the spirit world only long enough to turn a wheel that decides their new body. They immediately pass on, all past life forgotten.
The spirits have been mischievous with our lives,
