Quotes from Storm Constantine

Life aboard the beast was bizarre; the creature rocked from side to side, or undulated, but very soon the rhythm of it became compelling, needed. The Roughtys called it Beraftiel; they considered it to be a god, although they knew that a few generations forward, it would die and have to be burned and eaten. Then a new god would have to be found, or the family would die out.

I was married off without realizing what that entailed, but found myself in a a fairy tale. This land is beautiful, as if I dreamed it up in my head.

He felt as if all the clocks in the world stopped at that moment. Would Daniel dare not come to him?

History was a tapestry long in the making, and through time the threads would change.

Emma leapt over the wall and with all the strength she possessed, enfolded Aninka in a tight embrace and threw both of them backward with the weight of her body

The cruel bitterness of the drink drew claws down Khaster's throat. He craved that feeling. It was as if a creature were captive in his brain, punching his skull, trying to get out. But he did not fall as his companion had suggested. The Red Witch cleared his sight. Every sense felt honed, alert, precise.

As I said, he danced on both sides of the coin; master on intrigue and cunning and devoted lover to a damaged man.

They comprehended no divinity that was not plated and segmented.

I realised I was witnessing the unprecedented sight of my father being teased.

She was aware of all he was; a mind, thinking, impenetratable. Light played on his skin, deepening the hollows of his throat.

They seemed to live every day as if it were their last, subject to a brutal vitality, a careless disregard for conventional behaviour. Yet this mood was tinged by a kind of wistfulness, like a thin song in the great vault of the night.

The men, comparitively dull beings in this house of feminine finery, were dashing nonetheless in tight clothes of viridian and iron blue, gold earrings glittering among the oiled ringlets around their shoulders.

He had a strong urge to wipe his hands after touching the boy. This was no Daniel.

Don't question my generosity. Such gifts should be accepted without argument.

It was the sea that injured her. Why should its produce heal her?

I had always believed marriage to be as my parents portrayed it, something safe and staid. With you, that will not be so.

It was as if she needed and wanted something from Ays, but would not speak plainly about it, or even off signals of a definite nature. He was sure it wasn't simply love or protection she was after, but something more profound, which she was perhaps unable to define herself.

The last person Owen wanted to see when he went into the cottage was Peveral Othman, yet there he was, as large as life, a little bedraggled, sitting at the kitchen table as if he'd lived there for years.

To Aninka, he seemed all bones and ribs, his skin stretched tightly over his body. His slim naked feet looked fragile. Aninka swallowed, thought Shem's boy. And understood immediately the root of Taz's desire. Shemyaza had touched this creature; part of him lived in Daniel.

He wondered if his misgivings were caused only by jealousy, the revelation that someone who'd been close to Shem in the past had reappeared, someone who might possibly take on some of Daniel's position. Had he become greedy and protective of his status and power? The thought did not please him. He knew that power was a corrupting force, and that Grigori power was more corrupting than most.

He couldn't imagine anyone less attractive than Leeth; her ugliness was on the inside, something damp and cold and dark.

The gods of Mewt are still very much alive, and not even the emperor would deign to destroy them.

I'm not my pain, nor my bitterness. Nothing seems consequential up here. Even Taropat. I see him as a crusty old man, tramping through the dark valleys down there. I've escaped him, like a spirit.

Rule wisely, oh king, for the land is your flesh, its people your blood.