Ursula K LeGuin

The land outlasts the empires. The conquerors may leave desert where there was forest and meadow, but the rain will fall, the rivers will run to the sea

us,” said Ember. “For us who live, in hiding, neither killed nor killing. The dead are dead. The great and mighty go their way unchecked. All the hope left in the world is in the people of no account.”

“I don’t see why one couldn’t be.” She never saw why something could not be. Another reason he loved her.

“Oh, Darkrose,” Diamond said, “I love you.”

“Of course you do. You’d better. I’ll witch you if you don’t.”

And if not a happy ending, that was a true joy, which may be enough to ask for, after all.

As she went about her work in the kitchen, Hawk lent her a hand now and then in the most natural way, so that she began to wonder if men from foreign parts were all so much handier about the house than the men of the Marsh. He was easy to talk with, and she told him about the curer, since there was nothing much to say about herself.