Yanik

“A pair of minstrels stood beneath them on a ramshackle stage, puffing air into homemade woodwinds. There had been four of them once, but the war had taken two, including the singer. The two remaining had not learned enough about music to compensate the losses, and so they merely played the same parts they had always had, harmonies without melody, and the music wandered anxiously through the air like a lost child.”
― Eric Fenstermaker, The Reaping

“During the months of winter and spring King Casmir looked only twice at the infant princess, in each case, standing back in cool disinterest. She had thwarted his royal will by coming female into the world. He could not immediately punish her for the act, no more could he extend the full beneficence of his favor.
Sollace grew sulky because Casmir was displeased and, with a set petulant flourishes, banished the child from her sight.
Ehirme, a raw-boned peasant girl, and nice to under-gardener, had lost her own infant son to the yellow bloat. With an amplitude of both milk and solitude she be came Suldron's wet-nurse”
― Jack Vance, Suldrun's Garden

“Poor kid. All of them, really. And the years stretch ahead, a march beneath a sun that never goes down.”
― Stephen King, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

“Well, then, dueling with me should be fun, because I like to use a little bit of everything. You can critique my form. That should be a nice change for you." Vernestra winked as she said it, and Reath found himself flushing.”
― Justina Ireland, Out of the Shadows