pilfered_words

1) Pushy? I love you guys

 

2) Gen is really starting to show his hand here. Not enough to give the game away to people not in the know, of course, but enough that when the reveal comes, it doesn’t feel cheap.

 

3) One thing you guys didn’t mention: among the voices arguing about Gen are “the king of Sounis and the queen of Eddis” - and the question you don’t ask on the first read is, how does Gen know what the queen of Eddis sounds like?!

 

4) Gen’s life being stretched out between him and the sword is such a vivid image. It’s so great.

 

5) “His wife died in the winter. His three children live with their aunt in Eia.”

 

6) Re: bump at the base of Gen’s skull: I noticed it on my first read, but assumed it was an injury that he was hiding from the magus.

 

7) Re: Gen’s sigh of relief: the assumption on my first read was, I think, that he was relieved the river wasn’t actually flowing the wrong way. And I’m still not sure that’s wrong! I love these little double-edged moments.

 

8) Re: “if you could be anywhere”: I can’t reread this without thinking of the way it comes up in CoK.

 

9) It is indeed completely ridiculous that the “There will be no Sounis, no Attolia, no Eddis, only Mede” line wasn’t initially meant to set up the entire plot as we know it.

 

10) “A thief never makes a noise by accident” - that just comes up, over and over and over, doesn’t it.

 

11) The last sentence of this chapter still makes me have a mini-heart attack every time I read it.