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The last thing a drunkard loses, you see, is his cunning: it outlasts his soul by a long season.

There was nothing he could do unless he accepted what was real.

It was impossible to see warfare as anything other than what Morgenes had once termed it: a kind of hell on earth that impatient mankind had arranged so it would not have to wait for the afterlife.

Empires were like seawalls, he thought sadly, even those which embodied the best of hopes. The tide of chaos beat at them, and as soon as no one was shoring up the stones any more...

Miriamele was dismayed by her own willful ignorance. How could she, with all her native good fortune, be so consumed with the few inconveniences that God or fate had put in her way? It was shameful.

She tried to tell Duke Isgrimnur something of her thoughts, but he would not let her slide too far into self-loathing.

“Each one of us has our own sorrows, Princess,” he said. “It’s no shame to take them to heart. The only sin is to forget that other folk have theirs, too—or to let pity for yourself slow your hand when someone needs help.”

Everyone at the Hayholt had seemed obsessed with the empty ritual of power, something Miriamele had lived with for so long that it held no interest for her. It was like watching a confusing game played by bad-tempered children.

There are three kinds of people—the living, the dead, and those at sea.

Binabik had taught him to do only what he could at any given time. “You cannot catch three fish with two hands,” the little man often said.

Strangely, although the world is already full of fearful things, mortals seems always to hunt for new worries.

“Why can nothing be simple?”

Geloë shifted on her stool. The wise woman’s voice was surprisingly sympathetic. “Because nothing is simple, Prince Josua.”

If the strong can bully the weak without shame, then how are we different from the beasts of forest and field?

There are no promises in life, Sludig, but it seems to me smarter to take fewer chances.