Quotes About Loyalty

Your Majesty, what I am saying is that I have never seen him driven, and rarely led either. However, if you were to twist him around your finger and could conceivably grind him under your heel in the process, you have to know that I would be eternally grateful. I would die a happy man.

Perhaps you can bring out better in them? Eugenides shook his head. I pulled the carpet out from under them very thoroughly. They will not cross me, but they won't love me, either. I am not Eddis. People do not hand me their hearts. Sounis wondered. He would have given Eugenides his heart on a toothpick, if asked. He remembered Ion's obvious wince at being rated somewhat less significant to Gen than his boots.

If she pardons people because she loves them, someday someone that she loves will betray her and all of Attolia with her. A queen must make sacrifices for the common good.

Coming from light into the dark, he was looking ahead of him, not down at me. My lunge, as I came to my feet, took him in the chest as I drove the sword upward with the strength of my legs. Even rusted, the sword slid through him, and I found, for the first time, how easy it is to kill a man.

Of course," she said, "Your Majesty." I admired the way she could make the words sound so much like "You Idiot.

I will forgive him because I have heard him scream when someone pulled a sword out of him that could have just as easily gone into me. --Sophos

Staring at the wall opposite him he presented the queen with a view of his ear and awaited her orders.

You don't know what I mean. She is so strong, and you assume that strength has no end, no breaking point. You and Teleus are among the few she still trusts enough to love, and you say yes, she should have you tortured and killed. What were you thinking?

Everybody is always willing to throw someone else's country to the dogs.

Kings don't move mountains as a favor to a friend

Attolia had brushed Eugenides's cheek almost shyly before sending him with a wave back to his own couch.

Nahuseresh tells me I am not king. Well see if he really prefers the Thief.

The king's attendants remained, digesting the fact that their helpless, inept king had promised his wife to destroy the house of Erondites in six months and had done it in ninety-eight days.

I'm sure Gen has a plan," Sounis said as he held Eddis in place. "If that doesn't frighten you, it should," said Eddis, glowering.

Even a steadfast enemy was better than a waffler.

She is not so secure on her throne that she can risk offending her people's gods. No woman can be.

I asked her to leave with me on our wedding night." "What?" my grandfather said, his composure further weakened. He too had believed this was all a childish bluff and suddenly felt the ground shifting under his feet. "Oh, yes. We could have been in the Epidi Islands by now, or Mur. I would have taken her anywhere she wanted," Eugenides assured him. "She wouldn't abandon her people—she knew how Erondites would rule if she did.

Nahuseresh tells me I am not king. We'll see if he really prefers the Thief.

Of course the servants had chosen not to follow me; I'd failed them already by refusing to be a man they could believe in.

Unable to guess the answer, she asked, 'Who am I, that you should love me?' 'You are my Queen,' said Eugenides. She sat perfectly still, looking at him without moving as his words dropped like water into dry earth. 'Do you believe me?' he asked. 'Yes,' she answered. 'Do you love me?' 'Yes.' 'I love you.' And she believed him.

Pol knew," said Sophos from the window.

My father thinks that we should forget the old gods. He says that a country with two sets of gods is like a country with two kings. No one knows which to be loyal to.

He would go east and fight the emperor's wars, carrying out the bloody business of larger countries eating up the littler ones. It wasn't a matter of theory in a tiny office in the emperor's palace. It was the work of their lives and the end of many of them.

For a moment Costis could see, not so much what was hidden but that there were things hidden that the king did not choose to reveal. Things that were not for Costis to see. There was no understanding him, but Costis knew he would march into hell for this fathomless king.