Realm Breaker Quotes
"The easy, quick road home. The training yard, the palace, my mother sick and my father dead. With nothing to look forward to but four more years of following Sir Grandel from throne room to wine cellar."
"For once that isn’t true. You with all your charts and your lists. That doesn’t mean you know what the world is really like."
"Though she loved Meliz, Corayne felt small and young in her grasp. And she hated it."
"You think you carry no illusions, Corayne, but you are still blinded by many. Be rid of them. See us for what we are, and what you cannot be."
"You’re radiant when you blush," Meliz said, all the truth she could muster in her words.
"I need this. I need to leave. I can’t stay here any longer. It feels like the world is growing over me."
"The squire did not answer, and that was answer enough."
"The squire fought the impolite urge to grin. ‘Are you calling Sir Grandel a fly?’"
"How fare the winds? Fine, for they bring me home."
"I have never known you to be a liar, Andry Trelland. Not even when we were children, fibbing to the cooks for extra desserts."
"You keep away!" Corayne snapped, drawing the dagger from her boot. She waved it between the travelers.
"I must beg your forgiveness again. Killing you is not my intent."
"Well, that’s good," Corayne sputtered. Her hand dropped, the dagger useless at her side.
"I have a story to tell you, my lady," he murmured. "If you would hear me tell it."
"Did you intend to frighten the girl to death, or are you simply incapable of interacting with mortals properly?"
"This is a warning," he said grimly, drawing aside his cloak.
"You have been named and inked. No amount of blood will rewrite what has already been written."
"The father I’ve never known is dead. A portal is torn to another realm. The Ward is in grave danger."
"I’ve known since I had the sense to know. At least Mother was good enough not to lie about him."
"I’m not interested in you, your quest, or my father’s failure. I want none of it."
"We’ve caused some trouble, you and I," Sorasa gasped out, her eyes on the street.
"I will not ask how they died. I can see it weighs heavy on you, Nephew," said Isibel, Monarch of Iona.
"You know we are not," Isibel said sadly, shaking her head. "Glorian waits."
"The balance of Spindles is delicate. Our way back was lost to us, its location destroyed."
"Better men and women than me died for nothing," he said. "It’s only fair I do the same."
"I do not speak to many mortals," he forced out.
"Few want the chance, Garion," she said, raising a hand in farewell.
"Though women have more right to anger than men."
"We are the successors to Old Cor, the rightful empire, the glory of the Ward."
"History gorges itself on women raised high and then brought low by men grasping for their power. I will not be one of them."
"We can’t think like that, Corayne. The alternative is to accept the realm is doomed."
"I decide who is suitable, Bella. And so far, I have seen none."
"If I am to marry, I will do it for the good of my crown. To strengthen my throne instead of selling it."
"There is no man upon the Ward who would not take my crown if he could, nor one who is worth the risk of losing it."
"The Crown Prince of Madrence, at least, has given up his hopes."
"Everything was infinitely more chaotic than any city of the south or west."
"But chaos makes ease, she knew. In a crowd, on a street, in a city’s foundations."
"Children laughed or wept around every corner."
"Where Corayne gaped, Dom glowered in disgust."
"The avenues connected the bridges like veins through a body."
"The city was an experiment in how not to plan a city."
"The New Palace was no exception, a giant hunched beyond the cathedral."
"In daylight, it would be rammed rail to rail with pilgrims."
"She felt exposed, a hawk reduced to a mouse in the field."
"Such was the way of the northern kings, who saw themselves as emperors."
"The dedicant orders serve their gods and their high priests, not kings or queens."
"Perhaps he is a spy, an assassin from the Amhara, or from another guild."
"Your Majesty, we need your help to defeat an army of demons led by my mad uncle."
"They fear us more than any mortal army upon the Ward."
"Fuck the Elder and the girl and the squire. Fuck the Ward."
"I can sprint for the stairs, vault over the gallery, break my fall on a nobleman’s head."
"The danger fed something in her, enough to quell any fear for now."
"I can’t imagine living for a thousand years and still being so stupid."
"The days of Squire Andry Trelland were certainly aflame."
"The world came back into sharper focus. 'I thought I was dead.'"
"I don’t recommend making it any easier for them."
"I am your ruling queen; I follow my own will."
"Your allegiance is to each other and to the crown."
"It’s good she attacked you. No one will question us riding her down."
"A marriage is a promise, and we promised each other the world entire."
"Take your sword and bleed for me, and I will bleed for you."
"Silent and useless gods do not hold my interest."
"I’m better suited to the council chamber than the feasting hall."
"He’s found some promising leads in the cathedral records, whispers of Spindles through the centuries and further."
"The scriptures say he brought forth Old Cor, ushering your people into Allward from their lost realm."
"I could open a door to any realm in existence, known or unknown."
"Some rules are less important than others, and easier to break, if you know how."
"It’s difficult enough minding the squire, the Elder, and the apparent hope for the realm."
"Certainly you have a plan for whatever enemies we do run into."
"I was sold into slavery before I could walk."
"There are too many curse words, in too many languages, for me to choose only one."
"Sorrow is a mortal endeavor. I have no use for it."
"It’s alright to miss him though. It’s alright to feel this hole."
"The laws of Adira are simple. There are none."
"Something to guide you. Something to guide them. To open your eyes, after where you’ve been."
"But aren’t you? Isn’t that one of your rules?"
"Fear should never be ignored, only controlled. I learned that lesson long ago. It’s good I don’t have to teach it to you."
"Every step from Iona, since the Monarch sent me forth into the harbinger shadows of coming doom."
"The danger, of course, being just punishment for what seems like a great many crimes against a great many kingdoms."
"A pirate galley nearly sank in the Long Sea, on the Sarim current along the Ibalet coast."
"But it is not useless either. Taristan stands in a precarious position. My favor keeps him steady, keeps him important."
"Only to see the serpent’s great head rise up behind him, yellow eyes slitted, the sheen of sharp, white teeth in its jaws."
"It rained, dark as oil, down the length of his steel."
"Spears glanced off its scaled hide; hooks failed to find purchase."
"Stow the oars—that thing will snap them like matchsticks!"
"Defend the masts, men," she snapped, all business.
"The bounty hunter in armor, an ax tight in her fist, was more difficult to ignore."
"You heard her," he said, wagging an ink-stained finger.
"An arrow flew past him, close enough to ruffle his long hair."
"The serpent lost its other eye to Sorasa’s dagger, its wail pitiful and keen."
"Together with Sigil, they eased the doomed creature into the sea."
"Smashed rails on either side of the galley. Lost cargo. A dead captain."
"The navigator met with the Ibalet captain, his purse and papers clutched in his fist."
"The fat, triple-masted galley squatted like a toad on a pond."
"Her fingers danced over the parchment maps spread out like a carpet."
"Do those look like northern conquerors to you?" she said with a proud smile.
"The Jydi mortals were not ignorant of the Vedera like their southern neighbors."
"Either you intend to go around," Dom said, "Or go through."
"Domacridhan of Iona, I know you can hear me!"
"These things are going to cut the Ward in two."