Mary E. Pearson

You have to make your peace with Kaden, and he with you. You are not on opposite sides anymore. Do you understand?

If ever there were three mismatched riders, it was us- the crown prince of Dalbreck, the Assassin of Venda, and the fugitive princess of Morrighan. Sons and daughter of three kingdoms, each bent on domination of the other two.

Somewhere beyond all that, on an unseeable horizon, was Morrighan and all the people who lived there, going about their lives, unaware. My brothers. Pauline. Berdi. Gwyneth. And more patrols like Walther's who would meet their deaths, as unaware as I had once been. I want to go with you. Where I was going was no place for Natiya. It was hardly a place for me.

Some things aren't meant to be known. Only believed.

I created an icicle sculpture in the snow. White on white.

The world before us is a postcard, and I imagine the story we are writing on it.

I walked up to Griz and poked him in the chest. "Let me make this perfectly clear to you. Though some might seek to make it appear otherwise, I am not a bride to be bartered away to another kingdom, not a prize of war, not a mouthpiece for your Komizar. I am not a chip in a card game to be mindlessly tossed into the center of the pot, nor one to be kept in the tight fist of a greedy opponent. I am a player seated at the table alongside everyone else, and from this day forward, I will play my own hand as I see fit. Do you understand me? Because the consequences could be ugly if someone thought otherwise.

It's the unknown that I fear, the bites of memories that still have no connections.

If I had been shipped off to Dalbreck, there are valuable things I never would have learned.

Words, Kaden. Only lost unsaid words that added up to good-bye.

Pieces. A bit for someone here. A bit there. And sometimes they don't add up to anything whole. But you are so busy dancing. Delivering. You don't have time to notice. Or are afraid to notice. And then one day you have to look. And it's true. All of your pieces fill up other people's holes. But they don't fill your own.

It can take years to mold a dream. It takes only a fraction of a second for it to be shattered.

Be brave, be victorious

Faith and science, I have learned, are two sides of the same coin, separated by an expanse so small, but wide enough that one side can't see the other. They don't even know they're connected. Father and Lily were two sides of the same coin, I've decided, and maybe I am the space in between.

Faith and science, I have learned, are two sides of the same coin, separated by an expanse so small, but wide enough that one side can't see the other. They don't know they are connected.

Pieces"Isn't that what all of life is anyway?Shards. Bits. Moments.Am I less because I have fewer, or do the few I have mean more?Am I just as full as anyone else? Enough?Pieces.Allys saying "I like you"Gabriel snorting out bread freeing me to laugh.And Ethan reminding me how much I do know.Pieces.I hold them likethey are life itself.They nearly are.

I trust you all slept well,_ I said, deliberately keeping my tone light. I returned Malich__ glare with a tight-lipped grin.__es, we did,_ Kaden answered quickly.____ sorry to hear that.

And all I want is to hold her and make the rest of the world go away.