No," he said. "Relius was right and I was wrong. You are My Queen. Even though you cut my head from my shoulders, with my last breath as a noose tightens, to the last beat of my heart if I hang from the walls of the palace, you are My Queen. That I have failed you does not change my love for you or my loyalty.
— Megan Whalen Turner
Jaw-dropping King Of Attolia quotations
Sometimes, if you want to change a man's mind, you have to change the mind of the man next to him first.
But there are other words for privacy and independence. They are isolation and loneliness.
He didn't marry you to become king. He became king because he wanted to marry you.
It isn't an easy thing to give your loyalty to someone you don't know, especially when that person chooses to reveal nothing of himself.
Then come out," said the king, helping him, "knowing you'll never die of a fall unless the god himself drops you.
Who am I, that you should love me?
I'll stop shouting. I won't sit down. I might need to throw more inkpots.
Calf love doesn't usually survive amputation, Your Majesty.
Why did you come if not to murder my king?" "I came to steal his magus.
" "You can't," said the magus in question. "I can steal anything," Eugenides corrected him, "even with one hand.
Her queen danced like a flame in the wind, and the mercurial king like the weight at the center of the earth.
Are you badly hurt?" "Hideously," said the king, without sounding injured at all. "I am disemboweled. My insides may in an instant become my outsides as I stand here before you.
No 'Glory shall be your reward' for me. Oh, no, for me, it is, 'Stop whining' and 'Go to bed'.
Oh, that," said the king with a shrug.
"That isn't your honor, Costis. That's the public perception of your honor. It has nothing to do with anything important, except perhaps for manipulating fools who mistake honor for its bright, shiny trappings. You can always change the perceptions of fools.
That one,"-he nodded toward the closed door-" will rule more than just Attolia before he is done. He is an Annux, a king of kings.
The king lifted a hand to her cheek and kissed her.
It was not a kiss between strangers, not even a kiss between a bride and groom. It was a kiss between a man and his wife, and when it was over, the king closed his eyes and rested his forehead in the hollow of the queen's shoulder, like a man seeking respite, like a man reaching home at the end of the day.
I was listening," the king said, aggrieved.
"I closed my eyes to listen better." "What did you hear?" "I'm not sure," he said." That's why I was listening so closely. I may have to ask the baron to repeat some parts of his report on his grain tax." "I am sure you can arrange an appointment." "I am sure I can too.
