“Achievements? You enslaved thousands. You murdered thousands more. And for what? For power? For a throne from which to rule the world?”

Elda’s eyes blazed. “You see the world through a child’s eyes. We were falling into chaos, two-score petty kings and queens driven mad by the light and battling for supremacy. Those who fell in my cause did so to build something greater than themselves. You must see that.”

“I might, had they been given a choice.”

Her low, hollow chuckle swept over him. It was strange how readily the mannerisms of today matched those of the woman he’d met before. How much of that irascibility had actually been Elda’s? How close to the surface had Malatriant been that whole time? Had Elda ever truly existed?

“Do I hear the bleat of Belenzo’s democracy? Where foolishness is forgiven and suffering ignored, so long as principle is followed? What matter the means if the ends are the same? Or have you never taken action out of need, even while the world condemns you?”

Viktor’s shadow hissed. Faces rose out of memory, their souls long loosed into Otherworld. His father’s chief among them. “Only to save lives.”

“There. You do understand.” Elda gave a small shake of the head. “If only you’d seen the world I was born into. Strength was the only law, and I had little of my own. So I delved into the Dark and there found not only strength, but truth and purpose. Much as you have done.”

“You and I are nothing alike.”

She scowled. The pressure about Viktor’s limbs grew, as if the fingers were maggots determined to burrow clean through his bruised flesh. Pain trickled a sharp hiss across his lips. Elda nodded, and the dead relented.

“We possess the will to do what others cannot. We see things unshrouded by fickle morality. Where we differ is that I learned to tame the Dark. You, Viktor? You were born of it.”

“I was born to Hadon and Alika Akadra.” Strange that his sire was now a source of pride. Even tarnished metal shone in the Dark. “I’m mortal. Ephemeral.”

“Of course you are. But you’re also something else. Something blessed, as all the greatest witches ever were before madness took them. You carry the primal Dark, a sliver shattered by the light of First Dawn.” Withered lips cracked a faraway smile. “Once, all were one – equal and unchanging in the Dark’s embrace. But then selfish Lumestra brought her light, and parity was lost. Dark is equal. Eternal. Light never falls the same twice, even upon twins. It brings division. Jealousy. Uncounted minuscule differences that shatter order.”

“Lumestra freed us from the tyranny of the Dark.” The words, learned by rote under Makrov’s tutelage, came readily enough. “Her light gave us this world, and the will to tame it.”