Dona do Poder

Sometimes the only way forward is to destroy everything that came before.

"I wish I had gotten to know her better."
"No, you do not."
Nazira stopped, looking into Radu`s eyes. "Yes, I do. Because she is important to you, and you are important to me, so she is important to me."

Attack is my favorite form of defense.

"You know I will make certain you are taken care of. No matter what."
Nazira laughed sadly against his chest. "There you go again, assuming I am worried for myself. You never account for others loving you for you, Radu, rather than what you can do for them. It is my greatest prayer that someday you will know enough love to recognize when it is freely given."

"I was born in Transylvania, and I know what it is to be a stranger in an ew land. Allow me to help you as I would want someone to help my own sister."
"If you try anything unseemly, I am fully capable of blowing up your home."
This time Radu let himself laugh. "My sister would accept help in much the same spirit."

Hold hands with the devil until you are both over the bridge.
Or kill the devil and burn the bridge so no one can get to you.

"It is in God`s hands now."
But which god? Radu thought. With so many men on both sides sending up so many prayers, how could any god sift through the noise?

Halil snorted. "If you have courage, I am a donkey."
"That has always been my personal opinion of you, but I never expected you to agree with me."

She pulled the reassuring weight of the chain mail around herself. Better to be a soldier than a woman.
Better to be a prince than anything.

"You need allies. You need the boyars. You cannot skip past them, and to get them, you need him." Nicolae put an arm around Lada, drawing her close. "Make a deal with the devil until you are both over the bridge."
"Am I the devil, or are they?"
Nicolae laughed again, but he did not answer.

He had a burning intensity that did not slacken no matter what area of life he directed it toward. He saw something unobtainable, and that was the only thing he wanted.

God encompasses more than any of us realize. The peace I feel in prayer is the same I feel when I am alone with Fatima. The clarity of fasting is the same I have when we work side by side. When I am with Fatima, what I feel is pure and good. I cannot imagine a god who hates anything that is love.

That is how we are alike. We saw everything that was not ours, and we hungered. Do not lose that hunger. You will always have to fight for everything. Even when you already have it, you will have to keep fighting to maintain it. You will have to be more ruthless, more brutal, more everything. Any weakness will undo everything you have accomplished. They will see any crack as evidence that they were right that a woman cannot do what you do.

"You ask too much of him."
"I ask only what he is willing to do. Nothing more."
"Then I do know him better, you fool. Radu would do anything for you."

"How can they hate Constantine for doing whatever he must to protect them?"
Cyprian rubbed his face wearily, then looked down at his still-muddy hands. "This is Constantinople. We are more concerned with the purity of our souls than the survival of our bodies."

There were many reasons why Radu might not have come. He was ill. He was delayed. He was dead. Or he finally had what he wanted, and nothing could tempt him to leave.
Lada only marginally preferred the last option to his death.

"I am going to give the wrong impression, wearing this."
"You mean a good impression?"
"Yes, exactly."