“I never said it’s right. My world isn’t cut into black and white, right and wrong, Kylar. Yours shouldn’t be either. Our world only has better and worse, shadows lighter and darker. Cenaria couldn’t win against Khalidor no matter what happened tonight. This way, a few nobles die rather than tens of thousands of peasants. It’s better this way.”

“Better? My best friend’s dead and they’re probably raping his wife! How can you stand by and do nothing? How can you help them?”

“Because life’s empty,” Durzo said.

“Bullshit! If you believed that, you’d have died a long time ago!”

“I did die a long time ago. All the good passes by and all the evil passes by, and we can’t do a damn thing to change anything or anybody, Kylar. Least of all ourselves. This war will come and go, there will be a victor, and people will die for nothing. But we’ll be alive. Like always. At least, I will.”

“It’s not right!”

“What do you want? Justice? Justice is a fairy tale. A myth with soft fur and reassuring strength.”

“A myth you believed in, once upon a time,” Kylar said, gesturing to the word JUSTICE etched into Retribution’s blade.

“I used to believe a lot of things. That doesn’t make them true,” Durzo said.

“Who’s better off? Logan or us? Logan could sleep at night. I hate myself. I dream of murder and wake in cold sweat. You drink yourself oblivious and blow your money on whores.”

“Logan’s dead,” Durzo said. “Maybe he’ll wear a crown in the next life, but that doesn’t do him much good now, does it?”

Kylar looked at Durzo strangely. “And you’re the one who says life is empty, meaningless. That we don’t take anything of value when we take a life. Look how you hold on to yours. You fucking hypocrite.”

“Every man worth a damn is a hypocrite.” Durzo reached into a breast pocket and pulled out a folded scrap of paper. “If you kill me, this is for you. It explains things. Consider it your inheritance. If I kill you . . . well, when I die, I’ll take a break on my way to the lowest plane of hell and stop to talk.”

Durzo tucked the paper in a breast pocket and drew a huge sword with a long red ribbon dangling from its hilt. It was a longer, heavier blade than Retribution, but with his Talent, Durzo could wield it with a single hand.

“Don’t do this,” Kylar said. “I don’t want to fight you.”

The wetboy closed on him. Kylar stood still, making no move to defend himself. “Did you already give him the Globe of Edges?” Kylar asked.