“I could have wept with the joy of it, had the traitor Belenzo left me eyes with which to do so. Do you know how long I’ve felt myself slip away? Part of me trammelled in a cage, and the rest dwindling as bloodlines perished or thinned? Another generation, perhaps two, and I’d never have found the strength to assert myself – to stir a conflict that would lure that brilliant, dark soul back to me. The Hadari were . . . unexpected, but Drakos Crovan and his wolf’s-head uprising would have given me everything I needed.”

Viktor grimaced. There was little consolation in the fact that he couldn’t have known. Elda was correct on one score. Konor Belenzo had done too good a job of turning history into myth. “And in my arrogance, I set you free.”

“As I knew you would. It was fate, Viktor. You were born to the Dark. Embrace it. Accept my gift. Wield it as your own.”

“And should I choose otherwise?”

“I am fading, yes, but I am still bound to Eskavord. To its people. I will cling to every rock and stone, every scrap of flesh and every spark of soul.” She spoke softly but with needle-like precision, the old woman falling away as the ancient spirit within rose to the surface. “I will blaze with Dark one last time and birth an age of horror and destruction such as you cannot conceive. I will have a monument of blood and bone to ensure I’m never forgotten. And all because you were afraid of your nature. Because you lacked courage.”

The last words formed a sneer, cold and unforgiving, calculated to shrivel. But Viktor had endured the sour tutelage of Arzro Makrov, and hours in the company of Ebigail Kiradin. A thousand years beneath that sneer and he would have remained unwithered.

“At least I know my own mind,” he said. “You speak of serving order in one breath and threaten destruction in the next. You’re every bit as capricious as the gods you despise.”

“Because I’ve had to be. Because selfishness gave me the power to grasp the Dark. I fought to claim it, offered up countless souls to lure it forth, but you? It’s already part of you, and you of it.” Elda spun about, outstretched hand encompassing the gathered thralls. “You can save them all. Not just these wretches, but every child who cowers from a soldier’s cruel fanfare. Every family caught between the clash of egos and a wall of spears. Is that not what you want?”

Viktor stared across the marketplace, at the horde of gathered thralls. “What I want is a world free of you. A world free even of your memory.”