Elsa

“Leave one small place for freedom in my mind.’
‘To love?’
She lifted her eyes. ‘To hate,’ she whispered. Her fingers circled the cup, kneading the wrought silver. ‘In that one small corner I could breed such a hate that would tear Eldwold apart stone by stone and leave a wasteland for the Sirle Lords to bicker over for centuries. I would bring that King to his knees as he brought me to mine.”
― Patricia A. McKillip, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

“Drede would not have let me come, and I wanted to see you, to know – to know that you – that you still–‘
She smiled. ‘That I still love you, my Tam?’ she whispered. He nodded, his mouth crooking a little ruefully.
‘I still have to know, Sybel.’ He rubbed his face wearily. ‘Sometimes I am still a child.”
― Patricia A. McKillip, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

“I will not draw Coren into the whirlpool of my anger and hatred. No revenge of his making could satisfy me, and it is purposeless involving him in mine. I want– I want t keep him free of hate. He– the night we flew the Dragon, we dropped downward suddenly, rushing toward darkness as though toward the endless deep of the night, blind, helpless, as you are when there is nothing left of you but the unhidden centre of yourself– and from the core of him came a living, joyous laughter. Lost in his own hate for Drede, he could not have laughed like that. He may fight in this war simply because if he refused to fight for my sake and you died at battle, he would never forgive himself for not being with you. But I will give him no great cause to fight for. I will not drag him through his grief and bitterness again. He has given me so much love. At least I can give him that one protection.”
― Patricia A. McKillip, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

“There is a part of me, like a white-winged falcon, free, proud, wild, a souring thing that goes its own way seeking the bright stars and the sun. If you kill that white bird, I will be earthbound, bound in the patterns of men, with no words of my own, no actions of my own. I will take that bird for you, cage it. Only let it live.”
― Patricia A. McKillip, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld