#djar

“Djar mentioned you were to be betrothed to Mutar Charah,” she said as she wiped her hands on a napkin. Ihsan choked on his bite, turning sideways and coughing. Nesrin poured a glass of water and pushed it toward him. As he drank, she poured another and sipped at the glass. “Are you all right?” “I’m fine,” he said. “You also conversed with Djar?” Despite that Ihsan and Amara had made peace, Djar still seemed far too willing to cleave Ihsan in two given the tiniest of reasons. pg.254

“Will you be all right alone?” Nesrin asked as she stepped onto the first of the three stairs. Djar drew back as though insulted. pg.244

“Do you know,” Djar said as they turned onto the main road that would take them to the Sehzade’s home, “that Amara was supposed to wed the Sehzade?” “Noooo,” Nesrin breathed, looking up at him wide-eyed. He grinned at her. “She eventually canceled the arrangement.” “Were they in love?” Nesrin asked. Perhaps he was brusque and rude because he loved another? Djar cast a look at her. “No. Broken men cannot love. Nor broken women, for that matter.” Nesrin had already surmised that whatever traumas lay in the Sehzade’s past lingered with him still. “Is Amara broken?” She seemed the most confident, capable woman. “Not anymore. We all carry ghosts within us. One must face them, or be ruled by them.” “That is very poetic.” Nesrin smiled. “Yes. You did not expect such beautiful words from someone with no hair, hmm?” He smoothed a hand over his bare head. Reyhan snorted, then covered her mouth, glancing at them both as her cheeks colored. “It was the sword, actually. Is hair required for poetry?” Nesrin teased. Djar grinned again. “It is a burden to be so handsome and so gifted with word and sword,” he said, “so I tried to be fair by cutting away my hair but, alas.” He shrugged. Nesrin liked the music in his accent and Amara’s. She liked this moment of feeling ordinary again, her words just words. Inconsequential. She missed the comfort of that. Of being unextraordinary. pg.243-244

“I can walk you back,” Djar said in his rumbling voice, rising from his seat when Amara faced them once more. Nesrin hesitated. That was so much trouble for him, all the way to the house and back. She glanced at Reyhan, who only shrugged a shoulder. “No, I do not wish to burden you with that. We will be all right. Reyhan can be quite fierce when she puts her mind to it,” Nesrin teased. Djar frowned. “It is less trouble than explaining to the Sehzade why his new bride-to-be was robbed or mugged on the way back from my shop,” Amara said. pg.243

Mirari sucked in a sharp, gasping breath that was half sob, and Danel put his arm around her shoulders, glaring murder at Mathei. “Benat is not a murderer. He is afraid,” Danel said. “So was Vural,” Mathei countered. “Fear and anger are two edges of the same blade. Use one side and you reveal the other.” “And both are the twisted mirror of kindness,” Djar said in his quiet, resonant voice. “Vural lost his brother and his love to the Sundering War, to destruction mages. The world no longer reflected his hope for it, and it broke him.” Amara loved that tone he used, gentle, but with unquestionable authority. He did not use it often. Only when something mattered. She smiled at him, and he returned it. pg.368-369

But her heart faltered. Her lungs seized, and for a moment whose span she couldn't name, she was gone. Drifting. Green light like spring circled her mind, and she was drawn back in her body, staring up at a circle of concerned faces. Mirari’s firm hands cupped her face. “Enough,” Djar snarled at her when her eyes opened. “Forgive me,” Amara whispered, the movement cracking her lips, stripped of moisture, so that she tasted blood. She closed her eyes and dropped back into the spell. pg.351

"No!" she croaked when he crossed toward her, slamming the door closed behind him. She could not bear to look at him. To see how he would look at her. "No," she said again, when he took the jug from her hands and brushed the pottery of her lap. "Djar told me I should not take any of your choices from you, Princess, but I'm not going to let you sit on this floor and bleed." He sounded apologetic, but he wouldn't even look her in the eyes. 271-273

"Danel told us your friend called magma from the earth. Is that true?" Djar asked. Mirari took a war pause before she asked, "Why?" "If he did, then he needs more training than anyone here can possibly provide him. A Charah uncontrolled is a great danger to everyone around them." "No," Mirari said. "He is kind. He just wants..." She frowned. "What is a Charah?" pg.269