The power churning through Cale’s head lit his body afire. The shadows around him spun wildly. Sakkors and its flying mountain flared with Magadon’s power, glowing orange and red like a tiny sun as it sank toward the ground.
I am hate! Magadon shouted. And I am power!
Above them, Kesson’s chanting gave way to a scream of agony. His horns shattered, and blood poured from his nose, his ears, his eyes. The shadows around him spun. He grabbed hold of his head, screamed again, and fell face-first to the ground.
“Now!” Cale said, and staggered forward, bent as if against a gale.
Riven and Rivalen, blades bear, did the same. Both men bled freely from their nose and ears.
Sakkors shined red and orange as it slowly sank, its light chasing the pitch of the Shadowstorm, overhwhelming the shroud that surrounded Sakkors. To Regg, it seemed an artificial dawn and he fell to his knees.
“There is light even in darkness,” he said.
Lathander had provided him another sign. His work was not yet done. He stood and looked around the glowing plains.
Through the rain and darkness he saw four forms in the distance, and marked them as Erevis Cale, Riven, the Shadovar, and Kesson Rel.
He grabbed Nayan by the arm. “There! Can your men take us there?”
Nayan looked, saw, nodded.
“Roen, gather your priests!”
Cale, Riven, and Rivalen stumbled forward to execute Kesson Rel.
But Kesson, his head haloed in red light and bleeding from his eyes, ears, and nose, with pulsing veins tracing a throbbing web on his brow, rose to all fours.
“No!” he said, and made a cutting gesture.
No! Magadon shrieked, and Cale heard madness in the tone.
The red glow around Kesson’s head winked out. Cale cursed, lunged forward, and raised Weaveshear high for a killing stroke across the back of Kesson’s neck.
Kesson threw an arm out blindly behind him and power exploded outward from his form. Black energy slammed into Cale, Riven, and Rivalen. It blew all of them backward five paces, cracked bone, opened flesh.
Exhausted and bloodied, Cale rose to all fours, knowing they had missed their opportunity, knowing they were all going to die.
He found himself staring at a booted foot. Hands took him under his armpits and lifted him to his feet. Regg stood there, looking past him, through him, to Kesson Rel. Nayan stood behind the Lathanderian, his expression unreadable.
Cale glanced around and saw Roen and the priests of the company, ten in all, arrayed in a circle around Kesson Rel, who rose haltingly to his feet.
Warmth suffused Regg’s body. The armor and shields of Roen and his fellow priests glowed orange in the setting sun of Sakkors’ fall. He thought of Abelar, of faith, of friendship. The thoughts lit a fire in his spirit and he dropped to one knee, brandished his battle-scarred shield, and channeled the divine light of his god. The seed Abelar had planted in his soul bloomed fully.
“Dawn dispels the night and births the world anew,” he began, and the rose on his shield began to glow.
Roen fell to one knee, held forth his own shield, his own rose, and joined his voice, and his light, to Regg’s.
“May Lathander light our way, show us wisdom …”
The remaining priests fell to one knee, held their shields before them, and joined in the Dawnmeet prayer.
“… and in so doing allow us be a light to others.”
The shields of Lathander’s faithful glowed with a brightness to rival a dawn sun. Regg’s spirit soared to see their faith so embodied in the symbol of their god. He wept as the holy luminescence exposed the darkness of Kesson Rel.
Kesson, already weakened, screamed in the blast of light, fell to the ground. Their light burned away the shadows that shrouded him. He writhed on the ground as if he were afire, shrieking.
“Finish it,” Regg said to Cale.
The light from the Lathanderians made Cale queasy but he endured. He watched Kesson fall, shriek, watched the darkness around Mask’s First Chosen fall away. He took Weaveshear in both hands and stepped into the circle. Riven did the same.
The light stripped away the shadows that coated Cale, his shadow hand, and for the first time in a long time he felt human. He glanced at Regg and Roen, and thanked them for that with his eyes.
Still, the emptiness of his spirit, the hole dug by the Black Chalice, needed filled.
He and Riven stepped up to Kesson Rel. Riven stabbed him through the chest with a saber. Cale cut off his head,