Durzo wasn’t done. He spoke quietly. “Kylar, the fact Curoch was in the Wood tells me Neph’s using Iures to break Jorsin’s and Ezra’s spells on Black Barrow. It makes Elene’s talk of a Titan plausible. It also means that you’re taking the thing he wants most straight to him. If he takes Curoch from you, he could break the world. I don’t mean that metaphorically. For seven centuries I’ve done all I could to keep artifacts of such power out of the hands of men and women who will use them unscrupulously. If you fail, he’ll undo everything I’ve spent seven centuries doing.”

“You trust me this much?” Kylar asked.

Durzo grimaced. “Come here, you’re wasting daylight.”

Kylar stepped close.

“When Jorsin Alkestes commissioned me for this task, Kylar, he bound me with an oath he claimed was as old as the Night Angels themselves. If you so desire, here it is.” Durzo’s back straightened, his voice deepened, and Kylar knew Durzo was remembering his friend and king Jorsin Alkestes. “I am Sa’kagé, a lord of shadows. I claim the shadows that the Shadow may not. I am the strong arm of deliverance. I am Shadowstrider. I am the Scales of Justice. I am He-Who-Guards-Unseen. I am Shadowslayer. I am Nameless. The coranti shall not go unpunished. My way is hard, but I serve unbroken. In ignobility, nobility. In shame, honor. In darkness, light. I will do justice and love mercy. Until the king returns, I shall not lay my burden down.”

“Who’s the king?” Kylar asked.

“Vows are a bitch, huh?” Durzo grinned.

“This is what the Sa’kagé is supposed to be, isn’t it?”

“The Sa’kagé’s always been made of thugs and murderers, but there have been moments, like diamonds studding a pile of shit, when they’ve been crooks with a purpose.”

“Thanks for the image.”

“You gonna say the words?” Durzo asked.

“You’d make me commit to something I don’t fully understand.”

“Kid, we’re always committing to things we don’t fully understand.”

“I thought you’d lost your faith in this and everything else,” Kylar said.

“This isn’t about my faith; it’s about yours.”

It was standard Durzo evasion. You don’t ask someone you care about to swear their life to horseshit. Durzo was continuing the conversation they’d started months ago about Kylar’s destiny. In choosing a life in the shadows, in choosing obscurity, Kylar would avoid one of the greatest temptations of the black ka’kari—the temptation to rule. Its power made him almost a god already, and the danger was always that he could become what he sought to destroy. Durzo hadn’t even trusted himself with so much power. Did Kylar think he was that much better a man than his master?