The quarrel struck her forehead an inch above her left eye. The iron head shattered the bone, plunging inward a moment before the spring-driven barbs opened like a deadly flower inside her brain.

Maybe we didn’t listen because none of us believed we would ever reach the coast. Maybe Heboric decided the same after that first meal. Only I wasn’t thinking that far ahead, was I? No wise acceptance of the futility of all this. I mocked and ignored the advice out of spite, nothing more.

‘Why did you leave the priesthood, Heboric? Skimmed the coffers, I suppose. So they cut your hands off, then tossed you onto the rubbish heap behind the temple. That’s certainly enough to make anyone take up writing history as a profession.’

This book is wonderful.

Felisin is an incredible character, I’m amazed at what Erikson can do. He went deep and with a kind of realism that other fantasy writers not only can’t do, but aren’t even willingly to do.

While the first book lacked in characterization, this second improves and then goes beyond.