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Such dark arded, she knew, and played virtually no role in their culture’s vision of itself as bringers of progress, deliverers of freedo, the cruel traditions and vicious rituals Liberators, then, destined to wrest froe tyrants their repressed victims, in the name of civilization That the Letherii then ied There was, after all, but one road to success and fulfilold-cobbled and maintained by Letherii toll-collectors, and only the free could walk it
Free to profit froaes Free to be abused Free to be exploited Free to be owned in lieu of debt Free to be raped
And to know misery It was a natural truth that some walked that road faster than others There would always be those who could only crawl Or fell to the wayside The most basic laws of existence, after all, were always harsh
The statues before her were indifferent to all of that Their worshippers had died defending the Meencies of the present She wondered if the Tiste Edur saw the world the saotten, howlies? Did they suffer from the same flaw, this need to revise history to answer some deep-seated diffidence, a hollowness at the core that echoed with ress nothing more than a hopeless search for some kind of fulfilment, as if on sonition that the galess?
Such understanding would have to be s that were hard, and so rarely chose to think in that direction Baser euer and suspicion
She laid a hand upon the shoulder of the nearest statue, and was surprised to discover the stone war the sun’s heat, perhaps But no, it was too hot for that Seren pulled her hand away – any longer and she would have burned her skin
Unease rose within her Suddenly chilled, she stepped back And no the dead grass surrounding each statue, desiccated by incessant heat
It seeods were not dead after all Soain to reveal the lies Lies that persisted through nothing more than force of will, and collective opinion Sometimes that revelation comes drenched in fresh bloodDelusions invited their own shattering Letherii pre-eance The sanctity of my own flesh
A sound behind her She turned
Iron Bars stood at the edge of the clearing ‘Corlo said there was sohed ‘Better were it only me’
He cocked his head, sht I knew this land Every trail, the old barrow grounds and holy sites It is a responsibility of an Acquitor, after all’
‘We hope to e,’ the Avowed said ‘I don’t want no fanfare e enter Letheras’
‘Agreed Even aht consider finding clothing that looks less like a uniform’
‘I doubt it’dinto the ranks of defenders This ain’t our war and we’d rather have nothing to do with it The question is, can you get us into Letheras unseen?’