Wendonai did nothing. Still bending over the prostrate Cavatina, he continued to torment her, savoring her anguish.

Halisstra straightened from her crouch. It took her several moments to work up her courage, but at last she dared try something. A song, whispered so faintly it was nearly lost amid the wind that eternally scoured this vast, empty plain. She didn't expect her charm to work-Wendonai was a powerful demon, his mind strong as a fortress wall-but she did expect a reaction. Rage, that she would even dare try. Retribution, for her insolence.

Wendonai ignored her.

Or… did he?

He'd told Cavatina he could hear her thoughts. Halisstra had assumed the same held true for her. But if that was so, the demon must have known, when Halisstra first suggested Cavatina as a substitute, that the Darksong Knight had killed a demigod. Either Wendonai had been arrogant enough not to care or…

He'd lied.

Halisstra smiled. He couldn't hear her thoughts, and stupidly, he'd told her why. Her ancestors had been Miyeritari. She didn't bear his taint. That didn't make her weak. It made her strong.

Strong enough to resist him.

Tingling with hope, she glanced around, looking for a way out. The pile of skulls Wendonai used as his throne had burned down to blackened lumps. The wind blew past the skulls, teasing a wisp of ash from the pile.

No, not ash. The streamer of black was coming out of a single eye socket.

Keeping a wary eye on Wendonai, Halisstra eased toward the twisting spiral of ash and touched it with a fingertip. Her flesh paled to gray. The fingertip felt not just cold, but drained of all sensation, all life. The part that was within the tendril of black seemed to shrink, as if Halisstra was viewing it through the wrong side of a lens. The blackness pulled at it, stretching it thinner and thinner and…

Halisstra yanked her finger out. Had she not, the darkness would have drawn her irrevocably into itself. Into the void that was the skull's empty eye socket. She knew what the tendril of darkness was: raw negative energy. Seeping out of… nowhere. Drawing everything it touched into oblivion.

What bliss that would be.

The wind shifted. In order to reach the tendril of ash, Halisstra would have to move to a spot where Wendonai might see her. At the moment, his attention was wholly focused on Cavatina. He crouched over her, his quivering nostrils savoring her weakness. Demons, however, weren't stupid. Not always. The moment he spotted movement behind him, Halisstra's chance at escape would be extinguished.

She'd have to make sure he didn't spot her, then.

Softly, she began to sing. When her song ended, she was as invisible as the wind. Then she began a second song, one that would provide a distraction.

Before she could complete it, a voice pealed out. It was Cavatina, her voice raised in joyous song, "I… am… redeemed!"

Wendonai rocked back, astonished. An anguished howl tore itself from his throat.

Snarling out the final word of her song, Halisstra conjured up an image of herself and sent it hurtling toward Wendonai. The illusionary attack would buy her only an instant, but an instant was all she needed. As the false image hurled itself at Wendonai, claws raking and teeth bared, Halisstra dived for the stream of black and plunged both hands into it. The darkness seized them in its icy grip and wrenched her body inside.

Utter cold gripped Halisstra. Her body felt thin and fragile as paper as the negative energy teased it into an impossible length. Thinner, thinner, until it was a ragged flutter. Nothingness loomed, a vacant eye socket that led down into still, cold darkness.

Then oblivion claimed her.

Cavatina's eyes widened in surprise as Halisstra hurled herself at Wendonai. The demon snarled, but made no move to battle Halisstra. Instead he twisted around, staring intently at the pile of skulls.

Halisstra struck him-and disappeared.

An illusion!

Something odd was happening to Cavatina. A brilliant white light poured from her body, illuminating the demon from below and throwing a harsh shadow across the ground behind him. White as the moon, the light sang from Cavatina's pores. A crackling square of darkness drifted down through this light, settling upon Cavatina's face with a velvet-soft touch, then disappearing. The demon, inside her mind a moment ago, was shut out. Peace filled Cavatina's mind, gentle as a mother's lullaby, even as the searing white moonlight poured from her skin with the rage of a mother's wrath.

"Eilistraee!" Cavatina cried.

Wendonai reared to his feet, his leathery wings flapping. He staggered backward, wincing, as if pummeled by invisible blows. He shot Cavatina a look of anguished rage.

"No!" he howled. He shook a blood-red fist at the sky. "I will not be denied her!"

Flames erupted on his crimson skin and crawled across it in white-hot waves, licking at the wound in his abdomen. He forced himself, stomp by stomp, toward Cavatina. Bulling his way in through the protective shield that Eilistraee had thrown up around her.

Cavatina threw herself to the side. She rolled onto her stomach, her bound hands scrabbling against the gritty soil. An instant later, her holy symbol was in her hands. Clutching it, she forced herself to her knees. She sang out an urgent note, and the blackened singing sword rose into the air behind Wendonai. Soot exploded from the blade, revealing gleaming steel. Then the sword began to sing.

Wendonai whirled to face it.

Too late. Cavatina yanked her bound hands toward her chest, urging the sword forward. Its point plunged into the demon's chest, finding his heart. The sword's peal of triumph drowned out the demon's anguished roar and the angry howl of the rising wind. Wendonai staggered, clutching the hilt that was rammed tight against his chest. A bloodied length of steel protruded from his back, quivering in its victory dance.

Before the demon could heal himself, Cavatina sang out another prayer. This time, her voice was funereal and low. The dirge she sang resonated through the blade in the balor's chest and vibrated through his blood with each pulse of his massive heart. He staggered, his cloven feet scuffing furrows in the salt-crusted earth. His wings snapped erect and fluttered stiffly, and his eyes blazed. Even as the dirge forced him to his knees, Wendonai shook his massive horned head.

"This… is not finished," he gasped. "You cannot… kill me."

Another lie. Wendonai had made one terrible, fatal mistake. Had this battle taken place anywhere else, Cavatina would have been unable to kill him. The demon's essence would have fallen back into the raw chaos of the Abyss, there to be reborn. But in the Abyss, he was as mortal as she was.

Cavatina braced herself. When Wendonai died, the resulting void would tear at the fabric of the Abyss, rupturing it in a tremendous explosion. She, too, would die.

That didn't matter. Her soul would join Eilistraee's eternal dance, and Cavatina would have her victory.

Cavatina was on her knees, still at bound at ankle and wrist with the smoldering remains of the demon's whip. But Eilistraee's symbol was in her hands. Tiny and dull though the ceremonial blade might be, it would be Wendonai's downfall.

She ended her dirge with two droning words: "Die, Wendonai."

The balor's eyes rolled back in its head. He groaned-long and low as tortured metal twisting apart. Then he began to tilt to one side. The wind howled, tearing at Cavatina's hair and driving sharp granules of salt into her bare skin. The demon's hands clawed at the air, as if he were desperately trying to prop himself upright, but to no avail.

With a crash that rattled the ground on which Cavatina knelt, Wendonai fell.