Rachel looked around. She almost didn’t want to ask. “What about Ferrin?”

“Ferrin found the mine for us in the depths of the lake. After he explored it and shared the specifics with Tark, Naman, unbeknownst to me, took him captive to ensure he would stay out of the way.”

Hot anger welled up inside of Rachel. “Where is he?”

“Ferrin promptly escaped,” Galloran said. “He has not been seen since. He may have fled into the wilderness, but I suspect he went to the mine. If so, our future is in his hands as much as in Tark’s. I still have a piece of his neck. If the mountain erupts, we’ll know whether he was there.”

“In the mine?” Rachel repeated numbly. “I can’t lose him, Galloran. We’ve lost too many people. It’s too much. Send a lurker. Send a lurker to retrieve him.”

Galloran gave a nod.

Rachel sensed the king mentally communicating with one of the three lurkers. He made sure the dark figure knew who Ferrin was, then asked the torivor to fetch him.

Before the torivor could leave, the rumbling began, a brisk series of distant, mounting explosions. By the end of the thunderous crescendo, everyone had clamped their hands over their ears. A white flash seared the sky. Rachel heard the blast wave as it swooshed past, bringing the odor of scorched minerals, but the stony bluff prevented her from feeling the brunt of it.

The bluff also blocked Felrook from view. After the blast wave it was not long before rocks came hailing from above, ranging in size from marbles to houses. A meteoric boulder the size of a garbage truck shook the ground when it landed a couple of hundred yards away. The thumping patter of falling material persisted for many seconds.

By the time Rachel and Galloran had scrambled around the side of the bluff, Felrook and the soaring cliffs where it had rested were gone, replaced by an immense, charred crater, its dimensions larger than the former boundaries of the vaporized lake. While escaping, Rachel had viewed the armies occupying the keeps and assembling on the plains around Lake Fellion. Now it was like they had never existed. Everything near Felrook had been devastated—the keeps, the ferry town, the vegetation, the enemy armies. That part of the valley had instantly become a scorched wasteland. As Rachel stood silently beside Galloran, overwhelmed by the bleak sight, the sooty cloud overhead kept unfolding, creating a premature twilight.

Rachel became aware of people around her—drinlings, seedfolk, human soldiers—all with their eyes glued to the desolation left by the explosion. They moved like sleepwalkers, stunned, disbelieving. Some were injured. Most looked disheveled.

Rachel realized that most of the fleeing soldiers would not have known that Galloran had a plan to take down Felrook. They thought they were running from a vast army that would pursue and slay them. At best they might have hoped Galloran had some evasive maneuvers in mind that would lead their enemies on a long chase.

Now, without explanation, Felrook was gone, along with the enemy armies. In one inexplicable moment the war was over. Defeat had turned to victory as if by magic.

A trio of drinlings let out a cheer. Their enthusiastic outburst sparked other reactions. Rachel scanned what should have been a battlefield. Men threw down their weapons and raised their arms. A pair of seedwomen stood side by side, bows over their shoulders, one with a slender arm around the other, eyes wide and sparkling. A group of shouting drinlings dog-piled on top of one another, laughing raucously.

Everywhere she looked, Rachel found relief and jubilation. She witnessed celebrations great and small, demonstrative and quiet. These people had expected to die, but now they would live. They had come here hoping to free their homes from tyranny, and they had succeeded.

“He is gone,” Galloran said softly. “I felt Maldor’s Edomic right up until the blast. Now, nothing. Not a whisper of him.”

Sighing, Rachel leaned against a boulder. She could hardly believe Maldor was gone. Could it really be true? Had they really stopped him? As she contemplated the miracle of their success, she felt profound relief. She tried not to think about Ferrin and Tark. She tried not to dwell on all she had lost. She smiled when she saw a husky, bearded man running along with his arms flung wide, as if he were a soaring bird. She watched him grab a smaller man, perhaps a relative, and heave him over his shoulder. They had to be related. There was a resemblance, and a deep familiarity. Brothers, maybe. Or cousins. The bearded man spun, and the smaller man laughed, raising a fist.

Galloran came and leaned against the rock beside Rachel. His arm encircled her shoulders. His free hand stroked her hair. She leaned into him and wept.

* * *

Many miles away, Jason was hiking out of the Fuming Waste with Aram and Corinne. Something in his pocket felt cold and wet. He gingerly retrieved Ferrin’s ear. It was clearly no longer connected to the displacer.

EPILOGUE

HOMEWARD BOUND

Rachel sat alone in an airy, striped tent. More than five years ago, the oracle of Mianamon had informed her of a certain day when she could return to her proper time. As was inevitable with such deadlines, that day had finally arrived.

She wore a nondescript dress of coarse gray fabric. It was not identifiable as coming from another world. Even soaked and dirty, it should hold up well.

A word spoken mentally brought a hand mirror across the room to her. Rachel tried to remember what she had looked like at age thirteen. Her eyes were the same, but her cheeks and chin were more sculpted. She was a couple of inches taller. Her parents would recognize her, but she was no longer their little girl. She would be nineteen soon.

A muttered word brought an empty glass to her hand. A casual phrase filled it with water from the air. As she drank, she wondered how she would feel to speak Edomic and get no response. It was hard to imagine. Edomic had become as natural as breathing.

During the past four months, Rachel had studied at the Celestine Library. She had made three other prolonged visits to the library since the fall of Felrook. In that time she had mastered hundreds of new commands and read about thousands more. With tutoring from Farfalee, Rachel had learned to decipher the two most popular forms of Edomic shorthand that scribes had employed over the years.

Farfalee had been reborn with her left leg paralyzed. She was optimistic that her next rebirth from her new, undamaged seed would fully restore her. Farfalee had insisted that there was currently too much to learn and do for her to lose another three months in the ground. But Rachel felt certain that part of Farfalee’s reluctance came from worry about learning for sure whether the paralyzed leg would be part of life for the rest of her existence.