The terror wrenching in the pit of her stomach dissipated and, with it, the swirling blackness threatening to overwhelm her. Slumped on the floor at his feet, she gaped up at the Dark One in dumbstruck silence, every incantation of protection she had ever learned dissolving into nothingness like the fear inside her. What had he done? The words tumbled over and over in her mind as he stood over her quietly, his dark pinions pulled back from their formerly aggressive inclination, revealing his countenance more clearly.
In the bright, shimmering light pouring from the shattered mirror, she realized that her previously hasty examination of him had been tainted by fear. He was certainly a Dark One, there was no mistaking that truth; his hair was the oddest colour of silvery white, his clothes
