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9c26d90
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I was so tired that I was nothing but my body: the steady dull throb in my thighs, the tremor all along my arms, the thick grime of dust muffling my skin.
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Naomi Novik |
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2c31f54
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her fire was roaring, her silhouette raising showers of orange sparks with a hammer made of shadow.
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Naomi Novik |
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e41d12a
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Elsie eyed him puzzledly, and then offered, "Would you like to see my plate?"
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humour
plates
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Naomi Novik |
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ad8e001
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then he spluttered at me, "You impossible, wretched, nonsensical contradiction, what on earth have you done now?" I"
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Naomi Novik |
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61c2c42
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I felt argument coiling in my belly.
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Naomi Novik |
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2c0c1f6
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He'd chosen to go for a soldier. Maybe he had a story that began that way: a poor widowed mother at home and three young sisters to feed and a girl from down the lane who smiled at him...he'd go home then in his fine uniform and put silver in his mother's hands and ask the smiling girl to marry him. Or maybe he'd lose a leg and go home sorrowful and bitter to find her married to a man who could farm; or maybe he'd take to drink to forget t..
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Naomi Novik |
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1aeba0d
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I stood panting with my hands clenched at my sides, still ringing head-to-foot, and said, "Is that magic enough to put me on the list? Or do you want to see more?" They stared at me, and in the silence I heard shouts outside in the courtyard, running feet. The guards were looking in with their hands on their sword-hilts, and I realized I'd just shaken the king's castle, in the king's city, and shouted at the highest wizards of the land."
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Naomi Novik |
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6707b72
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I watched them roam awhile, and had a small weep, but even grief had its limits. By dinner-time I was horribly bored.
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Naomi Novik |
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a05a9e4
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I think we must only a few of us go," Laurence said, low. "I will take a few volunteers - " "Oh, the devil you will!" Granby exclaimed furiously. "No, this time I damned well put my foot down, Laurence. Send you off to go scrambling about in that warren with no notion where you are going, and nothing more likely than running into a dozen guards round every corner; I should like to see myself do it. I am not going back to England to tell the..
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Naomi Novik |
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95469f4
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I wouldn't hold myself that cheap, to marry a man who'd love me less than everything else he had, even if what he had was a winter kingdom.
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Naomi Novik |
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0d844d1
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The Wood knew I was here: even now its creatures were moving towards me, stealthy padding feet through the forest, walkers and wolves and worse things still. I suddenly was sure that there were things that never left the Wood at all, things so dreadful no one had ever seen them. And they were coming.
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Naomi Novik |
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9da9bff
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One man can go where a group cannot, and manage on very little, particularly a rough adventurer such as he. More the point, he risks only himself when he goes: you much consider that in your charge is an inexpressibly valuable dragon, whose loss must be of greater importance than even this mission." "Oh, pray, let us be gone at once," said the inexpressibly valuable dragon, when Laurence had carried the question, still unresolved, back to h..
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Naomi Novik |
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dfed832
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It's a lie that matches his desire.
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Naomi Novik |
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8091938
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Of course", I said. I was sure he'd even gone to Olshanka for the tribute first, just so he could pretend that was the truth for a little bit longer. But I couldn't really bring myself to pretend with him, not even long enough for him to get used to the idea; my mouth was already turning up at the corners without my willing it to. He flushed and looked away; but that wasn't any better for him, since everyone else was watching us with enormo..
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Naomi Novik |
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a2554eb
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The water-dragon's name was Lady Kiyomizu, although much to Junichiro's horror she breezily told Laurence to call her Kiyo, and not to stand on formality. "You have no manners anyway," she said, "and there is no sense your trying to put out sakura blossoms, when you are a bamboo."
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Naomi Novik |
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92ed098
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The passageway smelled of smoke: burning wood, a torch, acrid. His head ached. Blood was wet and sticky upon his arm and on his fingers, and the orange glow of torchlight played from behind his back and over the corridor walls, leaping like a bonfire. There was a strange familiarity to it: the narrow walls in around him. And when he came to a wooden door set in the wall, he put his hand upon it and pushed it open. There was a room, and a pa..
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Naomi Novik |
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b281b2c
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It felt like a war between two endless things, between a bottomless chasm and a running river.
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Naomi Novik |
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f93b34e
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No one had made her talk to me, or be in my company. I couldn't understand why she would have gone to the trouble just to be unpleasant.
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Naomi Novik |
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c94f15c
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Bring me the winter king, and I will make you a summer queen.
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Naomi Novik |
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3deee18
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And yet Praecursoris is not punished the same way, only because it is not practical, and he is needed for breeding?
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irony
logic
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Naomi Novik |
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9bde76e
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Solya may not be wicked, but he likes to be too clever for everyone's good.
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Naomi Novik |
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4d141ba
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With bare feet in the dirt, fulmia, ten times with conviction, will shake the earth to its roots, if you have the strength, Jaga's book had told me, and the Dragon had believed it enough not to let me try it anywhere near the tower. I had felt doubtful, anyway, about conviction: I hadn't believed I had any business shaking the earth to its roots. But now I fell to the ground and dug away the snow and the fallen leaves and rot and moss until..
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Naomi Novik |
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04e35f7
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But wanting cruelty felt like another wrong answer in an endless chain.
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Naomi Novik |
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4a2cf45
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I glared down. "Do you me to go?" His hands tightened on my arms. He didn't look me in the face. For a moment he didn't speak. Then harshly he said, "No."
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Naomi Novik |
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8c7e31e
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It was all right when I did it," I said, "but when you did it, it was wrong. As though--you were following a trail, but a tree had fallen down in the meantime, or some hedge grew up, and you insisted on continuing on anyway, instead of going around it--" "There are no hedges!" he roared. "It comes, I suppose," I said thoughtfully, speaking to the air, "of spending too much time alone indoors, and forgetting that living things don't always s..
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Naomi Novik |
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d26dcf9
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I didn't know how to answer anything so brazen; the only thing I could have managed would have been an inarticulate hiss.
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Naomi Novik |
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36d47ee
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I reached out my hands to them, suddenly: I put out my hand to Sergey on one side, and to Stepon on the other, and they put out their hands to me, and to each other, and we held tight, tight; we made a circle together, my brothers and me, around the food that we had been given, and there was no wolf in the room.
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fantasy
retellings
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Naomi Novik |
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460c5be
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That was a story, too; they all had stories.
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Naomi Novik |
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fc65f7a
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The first was wit; the second beauty, and the third--that fools should recognize neither.
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Naomi Novik |
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997b487
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Out ahead of them, Arkady began something very like a marching song, chanting lines answered by the other ferals, their voices ringing out across the sky, each to each. Temeraire added his own to the chorus, and little Iskierka began to scrabble at his neck, demanding, "What are they saying? What does it mean?" "We are flying home," Temeraire said, translating. "We are all flying home."
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teammates
home
journey
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Naomi Novik |
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93b276e
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And to crown the whole, you must needs come back and make a martyr of yourself, so now anyone who cares a farthing for your life must watch you hanged; that is, if they do not decide to make a spectacle of it and draw and quarter you in the fine old style. I suppose you would go to it like Harrison, 'as cheerful as any man could do in that condition.' Well, I should not be damned cheerful, and neither should anyone else who loved you, and s..
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Naomi Novik |
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beb6c4d
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You are not wrong," Laurence said. He had assumed as much himself, after all, in his Navy days: had thought the Corps full of wild, devil-may-care libertines, disregarding law and authority as far as they dared, barely kept in check-- to be used for their control over the beasts, and not respected. "But if we have more liberty than we ought," Laurence said, after a moment, struggling through, "it is because they have not enough: the dragons..
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inspirational
temeraire
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Naomi Novik |
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470e821
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Because that's what the story's really about: getting out of paying your debts.
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Naomi Novik |
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8ef513e
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As happy as I would be to forgo the very doubtful pleasure of watching you flop about like an exhausted eel over the least cantrip," he bit out, "we've already seen the consequences of leaving you to your own devices."
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Naomi Novik |
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5f5d46d
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He coiled himself neatly and waited without fidgeting, as was polite; but at length, when Majestatis showed no signs of waking--after ten minutes, or perhaps five--very nearly five--Temeraire coughed; then he coughed again, a little more emphatically, and Majestatis sighed and said, without opening his eyes, "So you are not leaving, I suppose?" "Oh," Temeraire said, his ruff prickling, "I thought you were only sleeping, not ignoring me deli..
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Naomi Novik |
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6dd2b5e
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The only thing that had ever done me any good in my father's house was thinking: no one had cared what I wanted, or whether I was happy. I'd had to find my own way to anything I wanted. I'd never been grateful for that before now, when what I wanted was my life.
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fantasy
retellings
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Naomi Novik |
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56bf2de
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He is mine, too.
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fantasy
retellings
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Naomi Novik |
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e793196
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I thought I could smell the sorcery in him, a sharp pungent mix of cinnamon and pepper and resin of pine, and deep below it burning woodsmoke.
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sorcery
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Naomi Novik |
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342f741
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Darby, sir, but Janus they call me," the seaman said, "on account of a surgeon we shipped in the , a learned bloke, saying I saw both ways like some old Roman cut-up by that name."
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Naomi Novik |
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a8caef5
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I worked very hard after that. I took as much of Da's work as I could. I didn't want to make a row of dead babies and die.
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Naomi Novik |
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f898aed
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and it came out that this King Arthur and his knights had done nothing of real note but to kill innocent dragons all around Britain: almost certainly a pack of lies, as Forthing admitted they had not possessed even any guns at the time, and unpleasant lies at that.
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temeraire
king-arthur
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Naomi Novik |
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8ac55a7
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No, my dear," he said at last, softly, knowing it was only the truth. "I would rather have you than any ship in the Navy."
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Naomi Novik |
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f721764
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I started to murmur my own spell, but I found myself thinking not of roses but of water, and thirsty ground; building underneath his magic instead of trying to overlay it.
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Naomi Novik |
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48e9edb
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He could not help a certain resentment that a conscience seemed to be so very expensive, and yet had no substantial form which one might admire, and display to one's company.
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Naomi Novik |