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“I suppose if I was Ur-Durik,” Damon said thoughtfully, “I would rather possess Selim than Atticul, but it’s close.”

Perl doesn’t really respond to this, saying, “Selim was devoted to Zai. If Ur-Durik’s plan was to possess Selim perhaps he wanted to be inside the body of his most devoted servant.”

“Selim was certainly that,” says Damon. “So you think Ur-Durik’s plan was to take over the body of his most devout servant, and now is stuck with Atticul?”

“Perhaps so. Is Atticul devout?” Perl addresses his question to Damon. Tobi only half-listens, his focus all on Harok, stroking his Irgorye’s forearm, watching his dark eyes refocus until he sees Tobi. He smiles, crinkling the shadows of the dark paint he has not reapplied to his face in several days.

“I suppose he believes in Zai. In public at least,” Damon says.

“Lukas once told me that if demons were real, Zai must be the greatest demon of all.” Elric says, quietly from a corner of the shrine room, where he is slumped on the floor.

Perl says, “Then perhaps Ur-Durik is fortunate he did not end up inside Lukas.”

Damon raises a brow.

Tobi leans closer to Harok. In Ambolk, he says, “Irgorye, would it be easier for Ur-Durik to control someone who believed in him?”

In a soft, dark tone, still shadowed with the voice of the demon, Harok says, “It is impossible not to believe in the demon when it is inside you.”

“But what if, what if you had loved Ur-Durik before he took you? You were angry with him for killing your father. How would it have been if you had instead been a worshipper?”

Harok blinks. His voice is still soft and slow. Tobi can follow his Ambolk easily, “I do not know. Perhaps I would have welcomed the demon inside me. Perhaps I would not have wanted to be rid of him and allowed him more control.”

Perl looks thoughtful. Tobi thinks he understood the exchange, but he continues in Artemian, saying, “We know he wants to open the vault beneath the Forest of Amber to release the other Bellator. Perhaps he would have found that easier to do if he were inside Selim.”

Elric says, “Then Lukas has saved us?”

“We don’t know that. But I think he might have put a significant obstacle in Ur-Durik’s way.”

Tobi can tell it pleases Elric to think that he is parted from Lukas for a good reason.

But his attention is quickly drawn back to Harok. Tobi wonders what else the Shard is doing to him. He has been watching Harok carefully, trying to see if there is any sign Diazuul is taking control. He knows the Shard is just a small fragment. And Harok fought the whole demon inside him for years. But the Shard sent his mother mad. His fears for Harok feel cold inside him.

Harok is his Irgorye. He is the most precious thing in Tobi’s life. The love he has for Harok and the love Harok returns, with his words and his body, is so precious and so new he feels on constant alert for anything that could threaten it.

Harok has taken the Shard inside him to help in the fight to destroy the demon. A fight that Tobi could have ended. He had so many chances to drive Demonica into Harok while he was possessed and he didn’t. He couldn’t. He failed.

Because the demon knew he could not do it. The demon knows men’s desires and exploits them.

He was meant to fail, but somehow that does not soothe away the knowledge that he did. And if they lose now — if Diazuul destroys the world — it will be Tobi’s fault.

This should be no surprise. Tobi is no warrior. Not built for this. Not like Damon and Kerik. He can see their use in battle. Damon is called One Man Army. And Kerik is not only a fighter, he has magical power that is growing every day. What use is Tobi compared to that?

His name, in all of this, is The Fool.

He has already been foolish. Refusing to kill Harok and save the world for the sake of love.

He was the man who could have killed Ur-Durik and didn’t.

And if he is no use in the coming fight, perhaps he should leave. Take his mother and his Irgorye and return to the forest. If he did so, would that be so bad?

Outside the dining room windows heavy snow is still falling. It has been snowing for days and this morning it seems heavier than ever. Snow is not unusual for Northern Azuria during Fris moon. But these snows seem endless, accompanied by icy winds. Tobi has never seen weather like it.

He looks at the arca cards before him on the dining room’s long wooden table. The twelve pointed star pattern is meant to represent the moons of the year, but he sees nothing clear in the cards. Against Fris he sees frustration, against Mar and Mulce, discord among brothers. The rest are just confusing. As if the year ahead is barely mapped. He takes them up and returns them to the deck.

Harok touches Tobi’s hand. “Bad mariandcards, Sweet Suskara?” he says in Ambolk.

Tobi looks into Harok’s dark eyes, buried with exhaustion in his pale face. “Just confusing.”