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b9fcd55
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That was the message. For me, alone among mortals, the gods send their messenger to tell me to stop whining. That'll teach me to go hide in a temple.
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whining
message
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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9d8f804
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She met the magus's stunned look with a smile. "The Thieves of Eddis have always been uncomfortable allies to the throne, Magus. There is the niggling fear that if you fall out with a Thief, he might see it as his right and responsibility to remove you. There are some checks, of course. There is only ever one Thief. They are prohibited from owning any property. Their training inevitably generates the isolation that makes them independent, b..
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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5b8dfd4
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Ten thousand!" I shouted at the walls, back in the room with the wooden shutters, now open, so that anyone could hear me, on the porch or probably across the compound. "That bastard landed at Tas-Elisa. In my port! Mine!" When I was a child and playmates snatched my toys out of my hands, I tended to smile weakly and give in. Years later I was acting the way I should have as a child. Probably not the most mature behavior for a king, but ..
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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0458598
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Your Majesty, is it true that your cousins held you down in a water cache.Is it also true that they wouldn't let you out until you agreed to repeat insults about your own family?" "I could send you to ask them." "It would be a long trip, your Majesty. I would much rather hear the answer from you." "oh the trip would be much faster than you think. Most of my male cousins are died." "Forgive me, Your Majesty, if I offended ." --
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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607677d
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Phresine showed him where he could sleep, in an interior room with no windows, a narrow bed, and a washstand. There were chests stacked along one wall, and Costis guessed the dismal spot was probably a closet cleaned out to make room for him. Hard to believe the royal apartments, so lavish elsewhere, would otherwise have such a plain corner. Expecting better of royal closets, Costis went to bed disappointed.
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royalty
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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398caf8
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I wouldn't destroy an entire house to destroy one man. But I would destroy a man to destroy a house.
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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82224a4
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Today, she had yielded the sovereignty of her country to Eugenides, who had given up everything he had ever hoped for, to be her King.
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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cfbaa6b
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As a ten-year-old boy, the Thief of Eddis could stop a grown man in his tracks with a single look. Where had that look gone?
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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9284efc
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In the afternoon, the king and queen sat to hear the business of their kingdom. At least, the queen sat to hear the business; Costis was still not sure what the king was doing.
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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4da2258
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The gossip will carry to Attolian spies, who will report to Relius, Attolia's master of spies, and he will carry the news to her." "Her secretary of the archives," murmured the magus. "Hmm?" asked the queen. "Secretary of the archives, Relius. Master of spies is so-" "Accurate?" "Overtly direct," said the magus. Eddis laughed."
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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1bbd3dd
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The prison keeper choose an inopportune time to look around the doorway into the cell. He and the king locked gazes, and the king's eyes narrowed while the prison keeper's widened.
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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b1dce83
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He wondered how the Attolians thought Eugenides had managed to become king if he was the idiot they assumed him to be. Perhaps because they had never seen him as the Thief, with his head thrown back and a glint in his eye that made the hair on the back of a man's neck rise up.
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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51bb25e
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But does a good man let his circumstances determine his character?
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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3dc828d
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The magus said thoughtfully, "That lying little monster complained about everything: the food, the horses, the blankets, the company. He even found fault with the stories I told by the fire but I cannot recall that he ever once complained about the climbing." "So many things are obvious in retrospect, aren't they?" I said."
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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4ef78af
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They're going to leave me. All I wanted to do was lie in the dry prickly grass with my feet in a ditch forever. I could be a convenient sort of milemarker, I thought. Get to the thief and you know you are halfway to Methana. Where ever Methana might be.
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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dbca0c3
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If the king could make a throne seem like a stool fit for a printer's apprentice, the queen could make a rumpled bedspread into a throne.
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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1954b28
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I wonder if people always choose what will make them unhappy.
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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95fc348
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I lied.
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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4d2cc57
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Because you do not believe?" "Oh, no," said Attolia bitterly. "Because I believe and do not choose to worship."
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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72043fb
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Wrong arm, dear.
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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82a3d93
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Thank you, thief." "You're welcome, my queen."
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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4fc67d2
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The Lord of Rags and Tatters.
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young-adult
fantasy
dialogue
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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0767d2d
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As soon as the guards where gone, I lay down on my stone bench and dumped the king and his threats out of my head without ceremony. They were too unpleasant to worry over anyway.
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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196326a
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Treachery," said the Mede. "Diplomacy," said Attolia, "in my own name." --
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mede
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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c7c44d4
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It made Costis wonder for the first time just how much the stoic man really wants to hide when he unsuccessfully pretends not to be in pain.
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king-of-attolia
eugenides
the-queen-s-thief
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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8fbc335
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I grieved, but a part of me felt a lightening of a burden that I had carried all my life: that I could never be worthy of them, that I would always disappoint or fail them. As an unknown slave in the fields of the baron, I knew the worst was over. I had failed them. At least I could not do so again
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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afa8950
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Would you have your hand back, Eugenides? And lose Attolia? And see Attolia lost to the Mede?' Eugenides's eyes were open. In front of his face the floor was littered with tiny bits of glass that glittered in the candlelight. 'You have your answer, Little Thief.
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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14cd164
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When I am actually willing to marry you, I will wear your earrings. Don't wait for it, Thief.
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marriage
thief
thieves
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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8f81b02
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I asked Ochto what in the name of all that was sacred he thought he was doing. "Helping you," said Dirnes. "Why?" They put the soldier down, and Ochto straightened to look me in the eye. "Because I know nothing about kings and princes, but I know men."
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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b5e1e2c
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You are treasure beyond any price.
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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38bee92
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Are you telling me in your own gentle way to stop whining?" "Yes." "I don't feel like a hero. I feel like an idiot." "I think heroes generally do, but those men believe in you." "I did wait until I was outside before I threw up."
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whining
hero
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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7306357
|
Where are my guards, Teleus?" He was still speaking softly. Three men dead and he wasn't even breathing hard, Costis noted."
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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2704037
|
Just asleep," Eddis reassured her. At the sound of her voice Eugenides's head turned slightly, but he didn't wake. Attolia, seeing the movement, breathed again and pressed her hand to her chest where it hurt."
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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3333e10
|
Thanks to His Majesty," the magus said, and my father seemed startled at the correction but not displeased. He looked thoroughly satisfied and very much like Ina when she has all her embroidery threads arranged to her satisfaction. He looked so pleased that I checked over my shoulder to see if there might be someone else behind me who had drawn his attention."
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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21d52eb
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I'm terrified that if they know how much I hate it, they might take it away.
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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ddd850c
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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.
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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5f06c12
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No man can choose to serve only himself when he has something to offer his state. No one can put his own wishes above the needs of so many.
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serve
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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0d8ed4b
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The flat top of the hill was scattered with the bodies of dead men in the uniforms of Sounis and Eddis. The outposts of both armies had met here. As I stood staring, I thought, These are my dead. All of them. The battle hadn't been unanticipated or forced on me, as the raid in the villa had been. I had chosen it. These men, Eddisian and Sounisian alike, had died for my decisions. When the magus stepped from the bushes toward the back part o..
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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d2bd058
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You are wary of treachery?" "More wary of stupidity."
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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5fee7ea
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Unkingly, in so many ways, My King.
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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c13c830
|
Everything I said he agreed with, which was trying, and his flute playing would make the deaf wince, but I think the real problem with Hyacinth was that he reminded me of myself. He read poetry. He flinched at loud noises. In addition to having no musical skills, he had no martial skills. He avoided any situation that might require physical effort on his part. Seeing him, I found it no wonder that my father despised me.
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self-reflection
σοφός
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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3ef352d
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Let the gods into your life and you rapidly lose faith in the natural laws.
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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7f9dbb9
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He didn't want to talk to Pol. Pol would want him to go somewhere on the back of a horse.
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Megan Whalen Turner |
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7a82423
|
Ornon says, Ornon-who-always-has-something-to-say says, the Thieves of Eddis don't have breaking points. We have flash points instead, like gunpowder. That's what makes us dangerous." -Eugenides"
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Megan Whalen Turner |