It was a radical thought. One that reframed everything Damien had assumed about his power.
"The Church would say that's demonic thinking. Rejecting established truth in favor of comfortable lies."
"The Church has a vested interest in maintaining their narrative," Lyristae countered. "They built their entire authority structure on being the sole arbiters of what's holy versus what's corrupt. Admitting shadow magic could be neutral would undermine that authority."
"So you're suggesting there's no inherent good and evil. Just power and how we choose to use it."
"I'm suggesting the world is more complicated than light versus darkness. That maybe the real danger isn't the shadows we wield, but the binary thinking that insists we have to be monsters because of what we are." She closed the book carefully. "I've been thinking about this a lot lately. About how much of what we believe is actually true versus just convenient for maintaining existing power structures."
