"Goodness?" Ingolsol howled with laughter. "It's not goodness that made Beam who he is. You know nothing, woman. Do you think when he awoke, covered in his own blackened blood, with a toothless slaver hanging over him that goodness kept him going?"
"Do you think that when he felt his will escaping him, when his childhood shattered, and he felt the presence of something foreign in him – when he was walled by the confusion of those cursed by the Gods, do you think it was by being good that he managed to keep me at bay?"
The very notion seemed to reduce Ingolsol to tears of hilarity.
Claudia could say nothing, as she caught the claws that came searching for her. They chunked into the wood of her green arm, sending up a shower of splinters.
"He is not a good man," Ingolsol said firmly. "No, he is not. The evil in him runs deep. Far too deep. That is the only reason that he was able to contain me – because he was worse than me."
