Josiri stared at the marketplace fountain, and the hummock of dead raised upon its stone. And at its foot, kneeling with his eyes closed and hands pressed to his temples . . .

Dark billowed around Viktor like black flame, the shrunken frame of Elda Savka barely visible at its heart. More thralls gathered in a circle, black eyes transfixed.

Fear winnowed its way through Josiri’s coursing blood. Until that moment he’d not truly believed. He dug back his heels. The horse sprang forward.

“For the Phoenix!”

He crested the bridge, thralls scattering before his blade. Anastacia cried out. She struck the cobbles with a clatter and clambered to her feet.

Josiri twisted in his saddle. The strike of Anastacia’s palm drove a thrall over the parapet and into the Grelyt’s seething waters. Others thickened the street behind.

[[Go!]] A sword skittered along Anastacia’s arm, shredding her sleeve. [[Get Akadra!]]

The words weren’t the same, and the women worlds apart, but for an instant Josiri was fifteen years in the past, watching his mother throw her life away. He hauled on his reins, desperate to bring his horse about.

“Ana! Come on!”

[[I’m not your mother, Josiri. I’ve no plans to die in this squalid little town. Go!]]

She leapt into the mass of thralls. As he had at Davenwood, Josiri had a brief impression of black wings unfurling behind her, more dream than substance. Then she was gone, and for the second time in his life he rode from Grelyt Bridge and left a piece of himself behind.

Viktor wandered in the Dark, the sensations of battle lost in a maze of eddying shadows. He heard the battle cry of Essamere. He felt the fire of Melanna Saranal’s sword, the welter of pain from bodies not his own. The confusion to find a Hadari fighting alongside Tressian knights. But more than anything, he felt the cold of his shadow. His true self.

Doubt remained, but it guttered with every step. Stripped of pretence, this was what he was – a vessel of primal Dark.

At Davenwood, with Calenne missing and his army routed, he’d sworn to fight his nature no longer. No more lies, even to himself.

The maze of suffocating Dark – his Dark – fell away into a vortex. A precipice beckoned.

He’d used everyone around him, bent their purpose to his own. Josiri. Malachi. Calenne. Others. He’d twisted them as Malatriant had twisted Eskavord. The man he’d believed himself had been a lie. He’d always been of the Dark. This wasn’t transformation. It was truth.

A woman’s form coalesced on the edge of the abyss. Her features danced, curling soot-laden smoke into mimicry of Calenne’s subtle beauty.

“This is who you are.” She even sounded like Calenne. “This is what you deserve. Claim it. Begin anew.”

Yes, Viktor agreed silently. This is what I deserve.

He took her hand.