Quotes from Storm Constantine

Ah, Khaster, do you not see? It is up to you entirely how you react to this. That is your control over the outcome.

Gone were the precise and mannered portraits he was famous for at home, which hung on the walls of patron galleries. Now, his paintings were undisciplined and fierce: no demure maidens in limpid bowers, but powerful sorceresses depicted against violent skies, cowering souls dismembered at their feet, soulscape monsters wheeling 'round their heads.

Pale, glowing blooms exuded a secret, aching perfume into the moist darkness and above the cracked and mossy stones of the garden, the moon swam, pregnant with light in a smooth, velvet sky, sequinned with stars.

I am always waiting for something, he thought, kept on hold; but for what? What is it that I have forgotten?

Daniel was his strength, his psychic eye. But it had been plucked out.

I had a choice now. I could view him as an adversary or as a potential partner; it was entirely my decision. Avizah'e would accept either role without overt complaint. But whatever I decided, Beth would still be his

I should have stayed in my nest, which was, of course, my ignorance. Now I was out among the giants, and I would have to be more vigilant.

Barbara Eager, Othman knew, was a ripe fruit for plucking. Still he did not intend to gather the harvest himself. That would be too easy.

You have begun a change, a leap forward in your evolution. It will take a while to complete, but it has begun.

Everna told Pharinet how Ellony would wander about Caradore at night, like some mad ghost, dragging the hem of her nightgown across the flagstones.

Her friendliness and openness were quite at odds with her rather forbidding appearance.

I want to make love to you properly." "Well you can't, and you've only yourself to blame.

Great moving cities prowl in the Flatlands. They are drawn along lines of glittering stones, which are planted by a race of people who, steeped in their own mystery, direct the motions of the city. The cities are vast, huge leviathans that carve a deep wound into the earth.

As Ishtahar wept, so the sky rained tears. Her grief mirrored Anu's anger.

I wanted you, Pharinet. Is that so terrible? I love your brother. It often frightens me how much. I have to possess what he possesses.

Gastern wants Valraven. Not in the sense Bayard does, but politically. Gastern is his father's favorite, but he's no fool. He knows that once Leonid goes, all hell will break loose. He'll need close allies, then. No Caradorean has ever been as close to the emperor as Valraven. You are a spiky lot. You do your duty, but you're always fighting the bit. Not Palindrake. He can be ridden without a bridle.

Tayven would be good for you. He possesses rare qualities. He could heal you utterly. Just his light, his presence. He is a balm to me, but I am not a greedy man. He does not love me as a lover should, nor I him. Yet he deserves love. He has so much to give.

You come in rags of the soul: a broken company and a disillusioned priestess. Barefoot you come to the mountain and showed your innermost selves to it. Whether you know so or not, you come with good intention.

When the dragon women smiled upon you, you could be assured of good fortune, but their anger was swift and without remorse. People feared the daughters of Foy, yet they loved them too, for they were the warriors of Caradore.

He pretended he'd been deep in thought, and took a few seconds to answer me.

She drew attenuated figures, wreathed in flowing hair, wearing his face. She drew a naked man, cupping his genitals in his hands, offering them like a sacrifice. That was perhaps her own magic.

I want him, Taz. He escaped from me, because I wasn't prepared for what happened at Little Moor. Now, I know what I'm dealing with, and I can handle it. This isn't over until I deliver Shemyaza, alive or dead, to High Crag.

It was like a fairytale. She couldn't imagine these creatures of myth physically present in the land.

In Vangery, Dannel had been a great matriarch of one of the most influential families on the marsh. Now she felt like a coddled grandmother, even though she was not that old nor had grand-children.