Or'do cried out, and something inside me cracked.

Or'do  gasped, and the rift deepened,

Or'do fell, and something inside me shattered.

Or'do fell, yet it was I who was torn asunder.

***

I slammed a fist against the earth again, watching through eyes that were not mine, as Or'do fell beneath the onslaught, crumpled and lay still upon the stones. Fury wrung a hoarse cry from my torn throat, and anger turned my cold veins to rivers of flame. On hands and knees I strained, yet again my legs defied me, fell limp and slack as my bloodied cloak, and folded beneath me.

"Damn it all!" My bloodied fist crashed against the stones, spraying my face with beads of darkness and flecks of sundered stone. I reached inward, probing with mental fingers toward the fading Cinder, yet something gave me pause. As if poised over the hilt of a familiar blade, my hand lingered over the fringe where Flame and Dark warred inside me, the tempestuous rift where mighty forces clashed.

Do not try it, Ashen One. The Keeper spoke in quick, urgent tones, certain as a mother watching her child stick its hand into the flame, that I was going to do something I would regret.

"Too late." I murmured, adjusting my crimson spectacles. "The Cinder fades, its power failing and spent warding off the Dark inside me." I reached closer, feeling the electric jolt as surely upon the imagined fingers of my mind, as in every nerve throughout my battered body. "If I am to save Or'do, the Cinder will not help me."

Neither will the Dark! I felt her desperate hands upon my shoulders, her timeless eyes peering into my own.

"Not willingly." I admitted. "Yet as a lodestone repels iron, so too does the Dark despise the Flame."

And you are the Flame's bearer! How kindly will it look upon you?

"As kindly as I upon it."  Those probing fingers brushed against the molten seam, sending a rush of power through my haggard frame. "Yet I seek not to harness the Dark." I pressed harder, my flesh beginning to smoulder as once again light glowed among those ridges of ash. "Nor serve the Light." Keenly, I felt that strange lightning curl around my hand, eager to flood through my veins. "But to stride the narrow line between, and wield both as my ally!"