‘Redemption.’ The syllables were hard, jagged as shattered bone. They tumbled away from him. So did meaning. He took another step. It felt like his last. His body pushed against his armour in all directions. Bones turned back on themselves, slicing through muscle and nerves. ‘Redemption.’ Just noises now. No meaning at all. Dhassaran was wrong. There was meaning in what he heard. The meaning was in Skarbrand’s roar. The loss. The grief. There was no redemption there. There was atonement without end for a crime that could never be expiated. There was meaning in the daemon that had manifested
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