“You’re wrong,” Dion said quite calmly. “Destroy me as you may, you will never break my faith. I believe in Armes, who brought the Light into the world, and saved us. I believe in his church, who strive to defend us from the Dark. And if we do not destroy you, others will.”

“Such conviction,” Darvezian murmured. “And to think, I used to sound like that. I’ve been so many people, heroes and villains, generation on generation, but at the start I was just like you. Oh, more intelligent, certainly—vastly so, the most gifted magician and philosopher who ever lived, I modestly add—but I was an idealist first, before I became anything else.”

“Well, then.” Dion was trembling slightly. “If you’re going to destroy us anyway, why not show us your true face, your first face. You were a man once, you say? Then show us that man. Show us the truth of the Dark Lord.”

And Cyrene could not but admire the woman, because even at this remove she was still striving to defeat the evil. Would Darvezian’s mortal face bring any of his actual mortality with it? Surely not, and yet Dion was still trying.

But that request appeared to be something that Darvezian had been angling for. “Right question!” he crowed. “Oh, I love it, I love it when they ask that. Yes, O faithful priestess, I shall show you my face. Yes, it shall be my pleasure, and one I indulge only once a generation or so.” He spun away from her and stalked a few paces, spinning on his heel to spread his arms wide. “You have come all this way, after all. You have earned the right to look upon your enemy, and despair.”

“Show me then,” Dion snapped. “But be warned: I don’t despair easily.” Her voice was a ragged ruin as she said it, but there was still a core to her that would not break.

Darvezian sighed, and put his hands up to his cowl, flexing his fingers like a conjurer. With a great flourish he cast his hood back, and with it went all the other mummery: the robe, the gleaming armor, the griffin skull with its gemmed eye sockets. And what was left was a man.

He was a handsome, square-jawed man with a warrior’s strong frame, robed but with a sword at his side. His hair was golden, and his eyes were a deep ocean blue, both of which details were usually missing from the statues Cyrene was used to seeing. He extended his hands, palms down like a priest giving a blessing, and grinned at their expressions.

“Well?” he asked them. “Come on, then, someone say something. You’ve got what you wanted. Why the long faces?”