In the darkness blazed an oval of flame, a gate through whose molten centre I strode. I looked upon my fallen comrade, and clenched my fists at my sides, lightning crackling between my fingers, flame seething around my feet as if I stood upon a font of ignited oil. Blackness to surrounded me, edging the corona of rippling fire in a sheath of shadow whose hem unfurled as I advanced, probing with fingerless hands that were strong and keen as any blade.

"Aleorn!" Or'do climbed to his knees, then gasping, collapsed. "Damn!" He whispered.

"Rest now, Or'do." I turned toward the wet nurse, and without hesitation, without preamble, I lunged. My fist rose parallel with my gritted teeth, black lightning braiding with crimson flame and streaking out behind me. She looked up, her deep cowl hiding her features, yet her sudden shift in stance, her blades orienting upon me, belied her surprise, revealed her fear.

My eyes burned the colour of blazing oil, my body writhed with serpents of dark and light, and as my fist smashed against her guarding blade, it flared with that same mixture, that same marriage of Dark and Flame. The two ages, the two halves of the cycle had become one within me, and their strength, honed to a razor edge by the whetstone of fury, many times tempered in the cold waters of my sorrow, drove my fist through her sword. Splinters of metal gleaming like slashes of mercury in the dark night, sprayed her face moments before my fist crashed home. She dropped her swords, raising emaciated fingers to claw at her now flaming cloak. I twisted past, the immaterial cloak of blackness that clung to me reaching out, stiffening into a crescent scythe in my wake, burning through her body as if it to were mere shadow. In two, she fell to the ground, and thereupon writhed as she was devoured.

"Come." I extended a hand to Or'do. "We've one last foe yet to slay."

He rose unsteadily, accepting the proffered hand. "How?"

"My power comes at great cost." I gestured with fingers that trailed ribbons of ash. Still I died, and my life shortened with each flare of the clashing forces within me. "Look not with envy upon my discovery, for pity is more fitting."

He shook his head. "There is no pity for you, Aleorn. You've attained heights no Ashen One could hope to reach; you are truly the heir to this world and all others, you will break the cycle, my friend." A moment he paused, gathering the will to press on. "And it is an honor to fight at your side."

"Oh come now! None of that!" I waved a hand before me, embarrassed by his reverence. "You showed me the way, Or'do, I merely strode it." Weakness surged through me, and my legs surrendered beneath me, depositing my limp frame in his arms once more.

"Come along, my frail maiden." He grinned. "We've a world to rule."