Shadowcaster Quotes

“Why is it always easier to be optimistic about somebody else’s worries?” Adrian said with a bitter laugh.”
― Cinda Williams Chima, Shadowcaster

“Didn't you say that the key is to live in the moment?" Metelon asked.

"That's the excuse people use for foolish behavior.”
― Cinda Williams Chima, Shadowcaster

“Sometimes you have to get away to remember who you are. Believe in yourself, Lyss. You’re strong and smart enough to do this job. Never let anyone tell you different.”
― Cinda Williams Chima, Shadowcaster

“Even if the job you’re assigned is not to your liking, a Matelon will see it done.”
― Cinda Williams Chima, Shadowcaster

“A battle is like a deadly sort of dance, Lyss thought. We learn the steps by sparring in the practice yards, by marching up and down the field in the hope that we’ll remember the moves when we’re distracted by the smell of blood and the shrieks of the wounded anddeath howling toward us from all sides. We go into battle to the cadence of drums and guns, but our dance cards are blank. We have no idea who we’ll dance with that day, when death might cut in, and who’ll leave the floor alive.”
― Cinda Williams Chima, Shadowcaster

“Pirates having a tea party? Not possible.”
― Cinda Williams Chima, Shadowcaster

“She spotted Cam Staunton in his dress blues, scouting the dessert table. As she watched, he scooped up two biscuits and stuffed them into his mouth. When he turned and saw Lyss watching, his face went scarlet, which contrasted nicely with the powdered sugar around his mouth.”
― Cinda Williams Chima, Shadowcaster

“Matelon gripped both her hands. “We are soldiers,” he said. “We are not game pieces on a board. Don’t let them play us. Give this thing a chance.”
Lyss gently pulled free. “You’re wrong, Captain,” she said. “We never had a chance. At the end of the day, that is all that we are—game pieces. If you don’t know that by now, you soon will.”
― Cinda Williams Chima, Shadowcaster

“We need to let go of what we have been doing and take a chance. If we do what we’ve always done, we’ll get what we’ve always gotten.”
― Cinda Williams Chima, Shadowcaster

“Instead, she said, “Well, then. Go ahead, I don’t mind.”

“You don’t mind?” This was totally outside Hal’s admittedly limited wooing experience.

“No. I don’t mind,” she said with a shrug.

“Oh. Well, do you want to?”

“Forget it,” she growled, spots of pink coloring her cheeks. “Let’s walk back. I’ve spent less time dickering over a horse.”

Hal’s father always said that a good soldier adapts to a changing battlefield.

“Wait.”

When she turned back, he cradled her chin with his gloved hands and kissed her. Her lips were warm and rough and perfect. Encouraged, he slid his arms around her and pulled her close, extending the kiss. They were of nearly equal height, and they fit together like the two halves of—of something fine. She smelled like fresh air and sweat, metal and horse—perfect.

When they finally broke apart, she studied him a moment, then took his face between her warm hands and kissed him again, long and deep, their hearts thumping between them.

With a kind of growl, Hal pinned her to the wall and answered her with a longer, deeper kiss of his own. And then it was like a kind of madness took them, a frenzy of kissing”
― Cinda Williams Chima, Shadowcaster

“He couldn’t say why Captain Gray got under his skin the way she did. Though strong and well made, she was no great beauty, compared to the women he’d been introduced to at court. Yet, when they were together, she elbowed everything else out of his mind.

“Matelon?”

He looked up, and she was studying him with her amber eyes. Did she know that she had this effect on him? He prayed to all the gods she did not.”
― Cinda Williams Chima, Shadowcaster

“He sat in the other chair, taking advantage of the opportunity to take another good look at her. Her fawn-colored hair was sun-streaked from long days spent outdoors. Now it was done up copperhead style, the multiple braids decorated with beads and feathers. One braid per kill—wasn’t that the rule?”
― Cinda Williams Chima, Shadowcaster

“Adrian. Adrian was alive, and he was at Oden’s Ford. And no one had told her these four long years, because they thought she would do something stupid.”
― Cinda Williams Chima, Shadowcaster

“Even when we win, we lose, Lyss thought.”
― Cinda Williams Chima, Shadowcaster

“The northern soldiers are just men,” Hal told the men in his command. “And women,” he amended. “When you cut them, they bleed, just like us.”
― Cinda Williams Chima, Shadowcaster