In moments, the first High Lord had passed Linden as he and his descendants gathered before Kevin. “Doubtless such passion may cause immeasurable pain. But it has not released the Despiser. It cannot. Mistaken though it may be, no act of love and horror—or indeed of self-repudiation—is potent to grant the Despiser his desires.” Together, Berek, Damelon, and Loric drew near enough to touch the Landwaster. “He may be freed only by one who is compelled by rage, and contemptuous of consequence.”

Fervid with apprehension, Kevin faced his progenitors. The krill glared argent in his eyes.

“High Lord Kevin son of Loric,” concluded Berek. “Others may have fallen—or risen—to that extreme. You have not. You did not. None here can assert with certainty that they would not have done as you did in your place.”

“That is sooth, my son,” Loric murmured roughly, “a word of truth in this fate-ridden time. If I did not speak often or plainly enough of my own encounters with despair, or of the occasions on which I trembled at the very threshold of Desecration, then was I a poor father indeed, and your reproaches must be for me rather than for yourself.”

When he heard his father, something within Kevin broke. Linden saw the chains which had bound his spirit snap as he opened himself to Loric’s embrace.

At once, Loric threw his arms fiercely around his son. Kevin’s eyes bled reflected silver like astonishment as Damelon and then Berek enclosed father and son with their acceptance. Hugged and held by his forebears, Kevin wept as relief found its way at last into his wracked soul.

And as he wept, he appeared to be transformed by the theurgy of the krill; or by Andelain. Briefly he became a glode amid the surrounding night, lucent and exalted. Then he faded until he was only an outline of wisps that evaporated into nothingness.

At the same time, Loric and Damelon also faded, accompanying the last of their line toward his rest. Soon only Berek remained.

His own knowledge of despair and striving shone from him as he turned toward Linden.

However, the moment when she might have winced or hidden her head had passed. Nor did she meet the first Halfhand’s gaze. There was another spectre in the hollow as full of anguish as Kevin had been, and as sorely bereft. Berek should have directed the balm of his compassion elsewhere. Linden had no use for it.

But she was wrong about him: he did not mean to comfort her. His tone sharpened as he began to speak. His words seemed to fall on her like stones.

“Linden Avery, you are scantly known to me. Nonetheless I behold what you have become. You have exceeded the healer who once touched my heart, offering hope amid vast suffering and rue. Now you have made of yourself a Gallows Howe, its soil barren, drenched with fury and recrimination. Therefore you must exceed yourself yet again, while the world awaits its doom. If you do not, the woe of all who live will be both cruel and brief.