Twilight's Dawn: Beware the Golden Spider

So far, I have quotes divided by characters and only have quotes from the first book, Daughter of the Blood.

I wasn't Blood as they are Blood. That's why I was broken on a Warlord's spear and became shattered glass that only reflects what might have been.

Better to be broken and sane than broken and mad. Better to see the world and know a tree for a tree, a flower for a flower rather than to look through gauze at gray and ghostly shapes and see clearly only the shards of one's self.

Daemon Sadi, from the Territory called Hayll. He's beautiful, bitter, cruel. He has a seducer's smile and a body women want to touch and be caressed by, but he's filled with a cold, unquenchable rage. When the Ladies talk about his bedroom skills, the words they whisper are "excruciating pleasure."

"The Darkness has had a Prince for a long, long time. Now the Queen is coming. It may take decades, even centuries, but she is coming."

"The Blood in Terreille whore the old ways and make a mockery of everything we are." I wave my hand to indicate the ones who now rule. "They twist things to suit themselves. They dress up and pretend. They wear Blood Jewels but don't understand what it means to be Blood. They talk of honoring the Darkness, but it's a lie. They honor nothing but their own ambition's. The Blood were created to be the caretakers of the Realms. That's why we were given our power. That's why we come from, yet are apart from, the people in every Territory. The perversion of what we are can't go on. The day is coming when the debt will be called in, and the Blood will have to answer for what they've become."

"How many sides does a triangle have?"

Liar. Silky, court-trained liar.

Well, this Eyrien Warlord Prince wasn't tamableÑat least, not for another five years. As for the Sadist . . . Any man who referred to his bedroom skills as poisoned honey wasn't likely to be tamed or controlled unless he chose to be.

He'd been whoring in courts long turned to dust while Maris's people were just beginning to build cities. He'd destroyed better witches than her, and he could destroy her, too. He'd brought down courts, laid waste to cities, brought about minor wars as vengeance for bedroom games.

Seven hundred years ago, Tersa had told him the living myth was coming. Seven hundred years of waiting, watching, searching, hoping. Seven hundred heartbreaking, exhausting years. He refused to give up, refused to wonder if she'd been mistaken, refused because his heart yearned too much for that strange, wonderful, terrifying creature called Witch.

It wasn't lustÑthe body's fire paled in comparison to the embrace of mind to mindÑalthough physical pleasure was part of it. He wanted to touch her, feel the texture of her skin, taste the warmth of her. He wanted to caress her until they both burned. He wanted to weave his life into hers until there was no telling where one began and the other ended. He wanted to put his arms around her, strong and protecting, and find himself protected; possess her and be possessed; dominate her and be dominated. He wanted that Other, that shadow across his life, who made him ache with every breath while he stumbled among these feeble women who meant nothing to him and never could. Simply, he believed that he had been born to be her lover.

"I'm not 'naughty.' Little boys are naughty." He pushed her away from him, stepping over her where she lay sprawled on the flagstones. "And if you ever touch me like that again, I'll rip your hand off."

"A woman with an education may be able to spend more time sitting in a chair instead of lying on her back. A sound advantage, I should think."

"Subtlety is a great weapon. There are other ways to slit a man's throat than to wash the walls with his blood. If you continue down that road, they'll find you, sooner or later. There are so many ways for a man to die." He chuckled, but there was an underlying viciousness in the sound. "Some men die for lack of love . . . some die because of it. Think about it."

"No matter what you do with the flesh, finish the kill. After all, who wants to turn a corner one day and meet up with one of the demon-dead who would like to return the favor?"

"I can't stand being touched by them anymore. Ever since ... I can't stand the feel of them, the smell of them, the taste of them. They've raped everything I am until there's nothing clean left to offer."

"Do you think that someone like me, having lived as I've lived, being what I am, would destroy the one person he's been looking for his whole life? Do you think me such a fool I don't recognize what she is, what she'll become? She's magic, Cassandra. A single flower blooming in an endless desert."

He sucked in his breath when he finally understood. He wore the Black; Jaenelle was the Black. But with her, the Black was not only dark, savage power, it was laughter and mischief and compassion and healing . . . and snowballs.

"No," he said gently when her words finally stopped, "they don't want you. They don't love you, can't love you. But I do love you. The Priest loves you. The beautiful ones, the gentle onesÑthey love you. We've waited so long for you to come. We need you with us. We need you to walk among us."

"I've waited seven hundred years for you," he crooned. "For you." His lips curved in a seducer's smile. "I was born to be your lover."

"Black-Jeweled Queens are few and far between. There was no one to help me when I became Witch, no one to talk to, no one to help me prepare for the drastic changes in my life after I made the Offering." She laughed without humor. "I had no idea what being Witch would mean. I didn't want the next one to go through the same thing."

"She isn't 'going to be' Witch, Cassandra. She already is Witch."

"I'm not going to control her, Cassandra. She's Witch. No male has the right to control Witch."

"What would you have me do, Geoffrey? Shall we take her away from her home? Confine her in the Keep until she comes of age?" He let out a strained laugh. "As if we could. The only way to confine her would be to convince her she couldn't get out, to brutalize her instincts until she wasn't sure of anything anymore. Do you want to be the bastard responsible for that emotional butchering? Because I won't do it. By the Darkness, Geoffrey, the living myth has come, and this is the price required to have her walk among us."

"I will teach her. I will serve her. I will love her. That will have to be enough."

"Yes, Titian. He's blood of my blood, seed of my loins. I know him well . . . and not at all. He's a double-edged sword capable of cutting the hand that holds him as easily as he cuts the enemy."

How long? Dark witches, strong witches, powerful witches. Always willing to take what he offered, in bed and out, but they had never liked him, never trusted him, always feared him. And then there was Jaenelle. How long would he wait? "Until she returns."

When he had ruled Dhemlan in Kaeleer and Dhemlan in Terreille, he had never hesitated to curb Hekatah's ambition. He'd believed then, and still believed, that it was wrong to use force to rule another race. But if Jaenelle wanted to rule ... It would cost him his honor, to say nothing of his soul, but he would drive Terreille to its knees for her pleasure.

Why had he given up drinking brandy? Such a delightful drink. Like pouring water on a blazing mental fire. Or was it like pouring oil? No matter.

"I frighten you," he said bitterly. "I've never harmed you, never touched you in anger, seldom even raised my voice at you. I loved you, served you well, and used my strength to keep a vow to you through all those desolate years. And I frighten you. Since the day I returned with the Black, I've frightened you." He leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling. "You're frightened of me, and yet you have the audacity to provoke my son into a murderous rage and try to dismiss it as if nothing happened. What I don't understand is why this place is standing at all, why I'm not trying to locate your remains, or why he wasn't standing on the threshold waiting for me. Did you tell him about me? Was I your trick card to make him hesitate long enough for you to try to smooth it over?"

If you want to bed a woman, do it in the bedroom. If you want to seduce her, do it in the dance.

"No," he said with soft malevolence. "You will not take my Queen from me. You will not take my daughter."

She hadn't gone roaming for three days. She'd been locked in her cold misery, alone, wondering if there was any living thing that wouldn't fear her. He had come to the Black as a young man, but mature and ready, and even then living that far into the Darkness had been unsettling. For a child who had never known anything else, who had been traveling strange, lonely roads since her first conscious thought, who tried so hard to reach toward other people while suppressing what she was . . . But she couldn't suppress it. She would always shatter the illusion when challenged, would always reveal what lay beneath.

I was barely twelve when I was betrayed and taken from Kaeleer. He took me for his amusement and broke me on his spear. But everything has a price. I left him a legacy, the only seed of his that will ever come to flower. In the end, he'll pay the debt to her. And when the time comes, she'll serve the young Queen."

"It's good she has so strong a protector. She's fearless, our Sister. It's wise to teach her caution. But don't be deceived. The children know what she is. She's as much their secret as their friend. Blood sings to Blood, and all of Kaeleer is slowly turning to embrace a single dark star."

"She will follow that strange road wherever it leads her. What makes you think a child who sees no difference between the living and the dead will see a difference between sanity and the Twisted Kingdom?"

"Don't rub against his bedpost too much, dear. You know how he hates the scent of a woman's musk."

"Did you know that if you sing to them correctly, they'll tell you the names of the ones who are gone?"

"As long as Chaillot stands above the sea, the ones they were planted for won't be forgotten. And someday the blood debt will be paid in full."

"Everyone knows I'm different. It just doesn't matter to someÑand it matters a lot to others." A tear slipped down her cheek. "Why am I different?"

"What is real?" she demanded. "I see beautiful things, I hear them, I touch them with the body's hand, and they say bad girl to make up stories, those things are not real. I see bad things, cruel things, a twisted darkness that taints the land, a darkness that isn't the Darkness, and they say bad girl to make up stories, bad girl to tell lies. The uncles say no one will believe a sick-mind girl and they laugh and hurt the body so I go away to the misty place to see the gentle ones, the beautiful ones and leave them ice that hurts them when they touch it." She hugged herself and rocked back and forth. "They don't want me. They don't want me. They don't love me."