When I said Cendrion was a mouthpiece for the darkness inside me, I meant the quiet darkness—the rueful shadow that floats behind you, reminding you of your dreams and how you failed to catch them.
Zalor, on the other hand, is a mouthpiece for the loud and violent darkness. The darkness that roars in your ear when you’re alone at night. The darkness that keeps you awake with its screams, listing a litany of your greatest failures, turning you against yourself thought by poisoned thought.
Poisonous he may be, yet for all his evil deeds, Zalor’s never been a mindless killer. He wants his subjects alive, wants to rule the world and make its creatures his subservient thralls. He would have allowed mortals to live under his thumb, but the mortals didn’t think much of his plan.
That’s why we’
