“Peace?” Cytherea grins with bloody teeth. “You think I want peace? Do you think I would have returned to this horror show of a castle on this decrepit planet for peace? That I would have killed that girl and dragged the body of her idiotic cavalier all the way here because I thought peace was possible? What I want is the King Undying, the Necrolord Prime, the Resurrector, my lord and master. I want him to watch as I shatter his houses one by one, and I want to find out how many of them it takes before he breaks and crosses over.”

“What I want is revenge.”

“That makes two of us,” Palamedes says quietly—so quietly that he almost cannot be heard.