Fragile defiance came into her eyes, a need to hear words expressed, but too proud to speak plainly. Viktor rose. Skirting the flames, he held out a hand. After a heartbeat, she took it and stood before him. He faltered, apprehensive of a woman half his size. But his earlier determination to speak only truth carried him through.

“Only that you have been my anchor through strife and torment. That there has not been one moment where I did not yearn to see you, to know that you’d come safely through the madness.” He faltered, unused to speaking at such length, and entirely unaccustomed to speaking from the heart. “That’s how I know Malatriant can be beaten, because I have more to fight for than ever.”

“We both do.”

She took his head in her hands and drew him down into a kiss. Looping his hands about her waist, Viktor lost himself in their closeness, in the taste and scent of her. For a long, glorious moment, the world beyond no longer existed. Not the Southshires, nor the Republic as a whole, nor even the Tyrant Queen he’d roused to ruin. There was only Calenne, and a joy he’d never known.

Then he felt it. A seed of darkness buried in Calenne’s soul. Bleak. Hungry. Like to that he’d sensed in Josiri after the Battle of Davenwood, in the manner that a raindrop was like to the storm. The same, yet vast in scale. He’d missed the connection before, even with Kurkas’ letter before him. To think, he’d believed it a Hadari curse. Now there could be no doubt. His shadow, quiescent since before he’d come to the barn, growled its curiosity.

He broke contact and pulled away.

“Viktor?” Calenne kept pace. “Viktor, what is it?”

Truth, he reminded himself. Only truth. “There’s something . . . inside you. Something dark. A piece of Malatriant.”

He’d expected horror, revulsion. He saw only sadness. “I know. I think it’s always been there, waiting, goading . . . whispering through my dreams. I hear her sometimes, calling me as she did back in her crypt. A voice so honeyed and welcoming that it’s all I can do not to listen. But it doesn’t matter. We are all one in the Dark.”

“How do you keep her at bay? How do you stay free?”

A wan smile. “I’m a Trelan. I’m stubborn.”

He nodded, struggling to hold horror at bay while he digested the new information. The shadow on Calenne’s soul dwarfed the one he’d found in her brother’s. If it had grown so vast in a week, it would soon overtake her.

“Let me help.”

“How?”

“I drew the Dark from your brother. I can do the same for you.”

She shook her head. “No. I can’t let you take that risk.”