A Crown of Swords (The Wheel of Time, #7)

by Robert Jordan

A golden hawk stretched out its wing and touched her, and she and the hawk were tied together somehow; all she knew was that the hawk was female. A man lay dying in a narrow bed, and it was important he not die, yet outside a funeral pyre was being built, and voices raised songs of joy and sadness. A dark young man held an object in his hand that shone so brightly she could not see what it was.

As the plow breaks the earth shall he break the lives of men, and all that was shall be consumed in the fire of his eyes. The trumpets of war shall sound at his footsteps, the ravens feed at his voice, and he shall wear a crown of swords.

“Men teach cats curiosity, but cats keep sense for themselves.” “I’m no bloody cat,” he muttered, stalking out of the bedchamber into the sitting room. He just had to know; that was all. “Of course you’re not a cat,” Tylin said. “You’re a succulent little duckling, is what you are.”

In his experience, old memories or new, there were only two times a woman admitted she was wrong: when she wanted something, and when it snowed at midsummer.

“It’s Cadsuane. She is going to teach you something, you and the Asha’man. All the Asha’man, I mean. It’s something you have to learn, but I don’t know what it is, except that none of you will like learning it from her. You aren’t going to like it at all.”