Were there once only women warriors, Mother?” “Don’t know.” “Oh.” I started to get up. “Makes sense,” she said. “Why?” “Who else should take a life? No man ever brought a child out of his body.
When someone insults me, it makes me angry.” “If that’s true, then your feelings will always be at the mercy of others.
Sometimes even now I entertain the hope that Love lives in the world independently of us, but when I am most courageous, I believe that love was born within the human heart, and that the survival of love in the world, as well as its ultimate triumph, is entirely our responsibility.
I’m not sure I understand you,” she said. “Are you telling me you saved my life because you were angry with me?” The idea struck me funny. “Yes,” I said, trying not to smile. “Furious.” “Furious?” “Enraged,” I said. “Oh dear.” And then she smiled.
Merin smiled. “I fought in battle and your mother bore two children. Of the two of us, I think she was the courageous one.
Your task will be to let your heart grow large enough not to break.
Losing her was the worst of it, but loving her hurt almost as much sometimes.
As I lay in the darkness with the thong around my wrist, I believed I understood Gnith’s spell. The thong was more than long enough, but every time Maara moved, I felt it move with her. It kept me constantly aware of her, and if a person’s thoughts are with someone, how can she break away to go with someone else? When I slept, my warriors walked in my dreams, and in my dreams, the thong that bound us was not from wrist to wrist, but from heart to heart.
I felt like a bird, caged all its life, set free by an open window and cowering upon the windowsill.
When your body feels pain,” she said at last, “you try to find the cause and do something to stop it, because your pain is warning you of a real danger. When your heart feels pain, you need to find the cause of that too, because the danger is no less real, and your pain will grow worse until you understand what caused it. Only then will you know what can be done to stop it.
I trusted her not to be careless with my heart or with my feelings. I trusted her to understand and to accept what might be broken or imperfect. In some dusty corner there may be things I tossed away, forgotten, things that might once have shamed me. I trusted her with those things too. I trusted her to accept me as she found me and to love me as I was, as I loved her.
Before I loved Maara, life seemed filled with endless possibility, yet I knew even then what I was waiting for. Love was only an idea to me then, something to hope for, a promise of happiness, insubstantial and immortal, until it found the one to settle on. Now love and Maara were one and the same, and love had become as mortal as she was.
Every thing in the world can wait but one. Only love can’t wait.
Food is the distance you can travel in a day, and the cold you can withstand at night.
All I can tell you is this. Some hearts break from grief and some from joy. Some even break from love. But hearts break because they are too small to contain the gifts life gives us. Your task will be to let your heart grow large enough not to break.” Namet.
Because you didn’t know you had a choice.” “What choice?” “To be angry or not.” It was the silliest thing I’d ever heard. “That’s not a choice.” “Yes,” she said. “It is.