She swayed; he gripped her tightly.

“But one way⁠—you and I must go⁠—together⁠—into its embrace! Yea, we must pass within it⁠—loving each other, loving the world, realizing to the full all that we sacrifice and sacrificing all, our love, our lives, perhaps even that you call soul, O loved one; must give ourselves all to the Shining One⁠—gladly, freely, our love for each other flaming high within us⁠—that this curse shall pass away! For if we do this, pledge the Three, then shall that power of love we carry into it weaken for a time all that evil which the Shining One has become⁠—and in that time the Three can strike and slay!”