Ed Pourier

“He grimaced and went after her. “I’m not a trainer. Just spent a lot of time working out.” 

“Misspent youth, clearly.” She held the door open, standing just outside. 

“My application to princess school was rejected.” Callan exited the building and fell into step alongside her. “Working out was how I coped.”

Sunlight peeked out from behind striped clouds and lit the early-morning sky. Autumn weather chilled the perspiration on his skin. 

“Such a shame.” Meridian glanced up at him out of the corner of her eye. 

“What is?” 

“That you didn’t go to princess school. Could have learned some manners.” Her blue-green eyes sparked in the sunlight. And her mouth . . . Her lips set in some smart-looking, lopsided grin, with a small dimple. 

I should definitely kiss that look off her face.

“Overrated. Inefficient. And I look terrible in a tiara.”
― J. Rose Black, Losing My Breath

“The Empire had no political cohesion, no capital city, no common laws, common finances, or common officials. It was the relic of a dead ideal.”
― Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

“This world would be a pleasant place if people didn’t inhabit it.”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“Human love, human trust, are always perilous, because they break down. The greater the love, the greater the trust, and the greater the peril, the greater the disaster. Because to place absolute trust on another human being is in itself a disaster, both ways, since each human being is a ship that must sail its own course, even if it go in company with another ship.... And yet, love is the greatest thing between human beings.”
― D H Lawrence