The Realm of the Impossible Quotes

“I never even understood why I needed to shift to learn to swordfight. But the fight earlier has ensured that I am now very aware of how very little command I have of that body and therefore; how underprepared I am for any physical confrontation.
It is for this very reason the royal line is made of shifters: we are meant to be the woman with the strength of mind and the man with the strength of body in one person. The perfect balance that might never be defeated. Except that for all we do not need choose one over the other, everybody else does and since the mind is undoubtedly superior, so is the female form that allows its greater expression. Because their strength must be beyond question, queens are meant to show no fear and to have no need of the strength of their bodies.
Or at least, it had been an effective argument when convincing my mother to ignore the traditional physical training. Particularly because Dzyer seemed inclined to be my other half in that arena. Something I had pointed out to Mother with ulterior motives but that I had believed stupidly and wholeheartedly.
But Dzyer is not my half, he is a person in his own right. A person I had not thought to shield from, either in body or in mind.
“That cannot be… healthy,” he tells me. It has clearly never occurred to him to be my half or for me to be his. He is whole and I am in pieces.”
― N.J. Lysk, The Realm of the Impossible

“I’m in the middle of a sentence when he grunts in displeasure, but I force myself to set my book down and turn to him. Dzyer gives me a nod and asks if Lambians really prohibit royal women from touching forged steel for fear of them contaminating themselves? I explain that they don’t really speak of it, then recall that I got a few weird looks for carrying a weapon. Of course, early on I also got looks for wearing what Lambians consider ‘masculine’ clothing and forgetting that in their language verbs are conjugated differently depending the sex of the speaker and the person referred to. Efficient, one would think, to know something about who is performing an action but confusing because the action itself does not change.”
― N.J. Lysk, The Realm of the Impossible