“That isn’t just betrayal.” Swallowing dread like bile, Covenant insisted, “It’s the betrayal. Treachery pure and absolute. With that kind of power—”

“She is complete in herself,” Esmer countered. Blood rimmed his eyes. It formed streaks like shame down the sides of his face. “She cares naught for such theurgies.

“You are indeed betrayed, but not by me.”

Abruptly the bane gave a vast roar of triumph. An avid pounce and gnash slashed Elena’s voice from the air.

Elena!

Involuntarily Covenant turned. But Giants blocked his view. He did not see his lost daughter eaten by the many maws of She Who Must Not Be Named. He saw only the bane’s towering savagery as She consumed Elena—

—who had never been forgiven.

This was his fault, his. Not by me. Then by whom? He could not think of anyone to blame except himself. Who else had failed Linden and her companions and Elena badly enough for the failure to be called treachery?

Fiercely he faced Esmer again. With his own rage and grief, he rasped, “Sure. She’s complete. I understand that. She wants my ring because it’s a wedding ring. She doesn’t care about white gold. Wild magic can’t make Her any more eternal.

“But it’ll make Her victims into monsters.” It was the symbol and instrument of everything that they had ever desired; everything that had been taken from them. “They’ll be capable of endless butchery. They won’t have to wait for the Worm. Hell, they won’t even need the Worm. And they’ll probably start with Kastenessen just because he’s using Her. But they won’t stop there.

“It’s going to be the end of everything, and it’s your doing!

“You can’t want that. Not if you’re still Cail’s son.”

Almost as an afterthought, he added, “If you let us go now, you can always get us later. If Kastenessen doesn’t like it, you can tell him you saved his life.”

Mouths and teeth and fire advanced on the ledge again. Esmer’s chagrin was as vivid as the bane’s hunger.

“I remember my father.”

“Then do something about it. Don’t let her get my ring.”

For an instant, Esmer appeared to hesitate. Storms scattered the blood in his eyes. Winds and screaming whipped at his hair, tugged his torn cymar, stung his damaged flesh. Out of nowhere, hail pelted the company like a fall of stones.

Then he wrapped himself in nothingness and disappeared.

The bane’s glee seemed to deafen the world. Excoriation and rage reared over the ledge. Covenant did not have time to see the Demondim-spawn race away, fleeing for their lives; barking incantations of concealment.

But Esmer was gone.

As though he had spent his entire life waiting for this moment, the Ardent flung his ribbands around the company and snatched them all into darkness.

Part Two - “Only the damned”