That which yields...*

[bending_sickle]

Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey (2001)

“All knowledge is worth having,” – Anafiel Delauney

“Love as thou wilt,” – Blessed Elua

p. 9 – “When Love cast me out, it was Cruelty who took pity on me.”

p. 19 – “Elua was born unwanted to the Magdelene, and what had he done? Wandered, wandered the earth; so then, I resolved, I would follow his footsteps. I set off down the hill.

p. 27 – “Might Kushiel, of rod and weal
Late of the brazen portals
With blood-tipp’d dart a wound unhealed
Pricks the eyen of chosen mortals.”
– from the marginalia of the Leucenaux version of the Eluine Cycle

p. 35- “Besides, a coin well-spent may be returned three times over in wisdom gained.”

p. 91 – “There is no fulfillment that is not made sweeter for the prolonging of desire.”

p. 111 – “Settling on the fields
Evening steals the calm
And farmers count their yields.
The bee is in the lavender
The honey is fills the comb
But here a rain falls never-ending
And I am far from home.”
– The Exile’s Lament, Thelesis de Mornay

p. 109 – “…while I do as you say, be mindful that I do also as you have taught.”

p. 135 – “‘We have raised more than desire to an art form,’ said the Comte de Somerville, and there was a grim reminder of steel in his voice. ‘We defend our borders.’”

p. 167 – “They have found a leader who thinks.”

p. 218 – “We give each other what we can spare, and what we can accept.”

p. 221 – “Love as thou wilt, and Elua will guide your steps, no matter how long the journey. Go with his blessing.”

p. 222 – “…that which yields, is not always weak. Choose your victories wisely.”

p. 268 – “To fail and persevere is a harder test than any you will meet on the practice-field. Keep your sword. I cannot afford its loss.”

p. 314 – “Surely if we knew what bitterness fate held in store, we would shrink back in fear and let the cup pass us by untested.”

p. 334 – “O, dear my lord,
Let this breast on which you have leant
Serve now as your shield.”
– Delauney’s verses to Prince Rolande de la Courcel

p. 780 – “Mother’s comfort, the youngest; Father’s strength, the eldest. It’s the one born in the middle goes to Cassiel. So they say, in Siovale. My sisters used to tease. Three of those, too, you know.”

p. 780 – “’No one who knew you would believe it, Joscelin.’
‘What do they know?’ There was a hard note in his tone. ‘I was ten years old, Phèdre. How do they know what I became?’ He turned his forearms, starlight glinting on his steel vambraces. ‘I hardly even know myself, anymore,’ he whispered.”

p. 799 – “This is the army of the Cruarch of Alba and Ghislain de Somerville. And we are here to offer you the choosing of the matter of your death.”

p.799 – “Selig is smart enough to clean up after himself, and wise enough to leave no blade aimed at his back.”

p. 802 – “’I was the Cassiline. Joscelin Verreil, formerly of the Cassiline Brotherhood.’
‘You’re better off,’ d’Aiglemort said dryly. ‘Steel and faith are an unnatural mix.’”

p. 802 – “’How can you possibly trust him?’
‘He was a hero, once,’ I murmured. ‘Whatever else he may have been, he was that. If we succeed, or even if we die trying, he’ll be remembered as a hero in the end. Without this, his name will ring through D’Angeline history – whatever remains of us to tell it – as Waldemar Selig’s dupe. And he dies knowing Melisande used him to do it.’”

p. 803 – “’How could she bear so much blood on her hands?’ Joscelin asked softly, gazing softly at the Camaeline army sprawled in the valley before us. ‘How could anyone?’
‘I don’t know.’ I shook my head. ‘Except that it’s the game that compels her. I don’t think she ever reckoned the cost in human lives, not truly.’”

p. 812 – “Never despise a trick because it is simple, Delauney said; the old ploys endure because they work.”

p. 818 – “I don’t owe you a quick death, but I’m willing to give it to you, if you’ll speak.”

p. 820 – “I could hear my voice still, whimpering, ragged with pain, and Selig’s whisper in my ear, tell me, tell me. These things happened, I know. And yet it all seemed distant and far beyond me, minor tempests on the outskirts of the maelstrom of agony I inhabited. […] Pain obliterates everything else. In pain, there is only the eternal present. […] Pain redeems all. It is the awareness of life, a reminder of death.”

p. 836 – “I served under your grandfather for many years. But if I die today, I die proud to have served under you.”

p. 837 – “I didn’t always like the Duc L’Envers, but I could not help loving him then.”

p. 867 – “I have always found there to be solace in the vastness of open spaces, beneath the vault of the heavens. It is a comfort, in anguish, to be reminded of the scale of one’s own troubles against the mighty breadth of the world.”

p. 864 – “’What do you want?’ […]
[…] ‘To see you,’ she said, then. `Before I die. Is that so much to ask?’
‘From you,’ I said, ‘yes.’”

p. 868 – “Joscelin, there are things I will never be able to forget. And there will be times I need to try.”

p. 869 – “There was so much between us, and so much that would ever be between us. And yet, I knew, I did not want to be without him.”

p. 877 – “You have stood at the crossroads and chosen, and like Cassiel, you will ever stand at the crossroads and choose, choose again and again, the path of the Companion. The choice lies ever within you, the crossroads and the way, and Elua’s commandment to point you on it.”

p. 877 – “Love as thou wilt, and Elua will ever guide your steps.”

p. 877 – “’Are you sorry?’
‘No.’ […] ‘But there will likely be times when I am.’”

p. 901 – last lines – “’I’ll tell you,’ I said. ‘Tomorrow.’”


* Kushiel's Dart, JCarey