"I was not returned. I was pulled back from the brink of death. By sorcery." He shrugged. "Hence the corruption to my soul." If only he had kept his own counsel, he would not be condemned. "It was my first and most brutal lesson here."

"These are new foes to you. You do not know them, their capabilities, or their weaknesses. There was no proper briefing." It was not her fault. "And this is how they convince us, bit by bit, to their scheme of buying ourselves back from them."