" By my third try, Lady Aithra had lost her patience and brought me to stand before her son while he was in conference with a group of hard-faced Athenian nobles. I smiled unashamedly when she called me willful, wild, and ungrateful, which provoked her so much that she actually dared to declare, “My son, you must not marry this girl. I don’t care how beautiful she is, she’ll bring us nothing but grief and leave Athens in flames! "
― Esther M. Friesner , Nobody's Prize (Nobody's Princess, #2)