Warning: This post contains some violence, discussion of rape and abuse, and some very poor handling of a character's trauma.

Oh goodie...

If morality doesn’t move you – and I assume it won’t, for slavers – perhaps pragmatism will?

Slagar in the second Redwall book was a better slaver than this - when one of his captives starts begging for water and an underling hits the poor thing, Slagar steps in and stops him saying "what do you want? Slaves to sell or a load of dead flesh? Give him some water!"

When Redwall makes more sense than your book, you're in trouble.

I’ve, uh, got some bad news for you there, Tristan… namely, that nothing and no one lasts forever

Like your author's career, for example.

As the contradictory, rather frightening thought went through his mind, he closed his dark blue eyes for a moment. The unthinkable had happened. He was coming to curse his glowing, azure blood.

🤣🤣🤣
'scuse me, just dying laughing over here. GOD this is melodramatic.

Celeste, who he loves even though he knows she’s not ready to accept affection on that level and hopes they can truly be together someday.

Um, you barely know each other? Jerk?

three maelstroms of something called screechlings

Another random new monster that comes right the fuck out of nowhere. *does a shot*

At last, the battle starts abating – for certain doom, that sure was anticlimactic

Blah blah blah we do NOT need random monster fights in every other chapter to make this thing "exciting", Newcomb.

PTSD nightmare sequence is inflicted on us

Wow. Fucking wow. This nightmare shouldn't "fix" her! If anything it should be a sign that the trauma is becoming more severe in how it manifests itself! It should be a very, VERY bad sign!

But nooo, the "two women sat talking for hours" thing is all we get. We don't even know what they're talking about or how Sheila or whatever the fuck her name is helps Celeste. Because author forbid we actually dwell on the women doing anything together, let alone talking. (Or, as a guy like Newcomb would probably put it, "whining on about nothing"). Screw this guy and the horse he rode in on.

Celeste’s PTSD is somehow made about Wigg and Tristan

It's because like all misogynists, Newcomb sees a woman being raped as mostly a power-play between the men involved. Ragnar raped Celeste in order to show his superiority to Wigg since before that she "belonged" to Wigg, but by raping her Ragnar made her his possession instead. Now it's Tristan's "right" to have sex with her, thereby asserting that now she's his and not Ragnar's. The actual victim and her suffering come a distant second in all this, when it's considered at all.

Not that it would be much of a loss – and after a moment he does, levitating his chair down the stairs

I'm surprised Faegan hasn't been "fixed" by having his legs restored yet. After all most misogynists are ableist as well and author forbid one his his obvious favourites not be "perfect".

the watchwoman responds by asking him in turn if there has been a recent disturbance in the Paragon.

But is the Force okay?

Though Faegan takes credit for stopping Nicholas – or at least, credit for himself and Wigg – when we all know Nicholas defeated himself by accident.

Wow, and just when I thought this asshole couldn't get any more arrogant.

Scrolls of the Ancients have been loosed upon the world, and considering that could also be read as her being horrified by the release of this book… I’ll admit it, I laughed.

I didn't quite laugh, but I definitely smirked.

So, the watchwoman asks if the Chosen Ones have come and if they’ve become the jin’sai and the jin’saiou

Oh FFS, these stupid made-up words don't even fit the setting!

In any case, the watchwoman thinks they’re so young they might not be able to pay the price and might die trying.

Oh no. Woe is me. We can't let that happen.

they will be forced to relive their greatest regrets.

Bad news: these two are sociopaths who regret nothing.