I know that if you don't look for an alternative, Sophos, you certainly won't find one.

I CAN DO ANYTHING I WANT!

Who was the Thief that she would love him? A youth, just a boy with hardly a beard and no sense at all... A liar, she thought, an enemy, a threat. He was brave, a voice inside her said, he was loyal... A fool, she answered back. A fool and a dead one. She ached with emptiness.

I sometimes believe his lies are the truth, but I have never mistaken his truth for a lie.

Were you lying?"
"I never lie," he said piously. "About what?"
"The sand, the snake."
For a young man who never lied, he seemed surprisingly unoffended by the question.

She reached out and touched the king’s face, cupping his cheek in her hand.
“Just a nightmare,” he said, his voice still rough.
The queen’s voice was cool. “How embarrassing,” she said, looking at his maimed arm.
The king looked up then, and followed her gaze. If it was embarrassing to wake like a child screaming from a nightmare, how much more embarrassing to be the reason your husband woke screaming. A quick smile visited the king’s face. “Ouch,” he said, referring to more than the pain in his side. “Ouch,” he said again as the queen gathered him into her arms.