The Dark Queen stood in the center of her guard, her scarlet hair piled high and threaded with ropes of black, selkahr jewels, her lips bloodred, her eyes death black, her skin white as milk. Her fell beauty dazzled the senses, an enthralling illusion that drew men to their deaths and masked the true horror of her Lightless soul. She was the Corrupter, the Light Eater, the Consumer of Souls, and in her wake red flowers bloomed like a trail of blood. Selgoroth, the flower of death, antithesis of the starry white Amarynth that bloomed in the steps of Fey women bearing young. Clusters of poison thorns hid amidst the Selgoroth’s scarlet petals, and the flowers’ black hearts exuded a noxious miasma of decay. Where Selgoroth bloomed, all other life withered and died.

Before the Dark Army, the last defenders of Light had assembled. Elves and Fey, shining silver and gold. With them stood the few mortals who still remained unenslaved—those who possessed enough immortal blood in their veins to resist the deadly pull of the Dark Queen’s consuming power. The shimmering amber and green and silvery blue bodies of Danae forest and water sprites. Aquilines and Shadar. And the last pride of the tairen—Steli and Sybharukai, Corus, Fahreeta, and Torasul, even the kitlings, so young their pelts were still plump with the soft, fluffy down of their hatching-fur.

The Dark Queen raised her arms and shouted a command that boomed like thunder across the field. Her army gave an echoing cry, and the earth trembled as they began to march.

The Queen spread her arms wide and leapt into the sky, shifting into a cloud of boiling black mist from which emerged a nightmarish creature. A tairen, or rather what should have been a tairen—just as a darrokken should have been a wolf. Furless, scabrous skin the color of dried blood stretched across the creature’s massive form. Eyes of whirling flame glared over a snarling muzzle, and black acid dripped from its razor-sharp fangs.

The monster screamed a challenge, and the tairen leapt into the sky to answer her.

«Elan, shei’tani. Ve leiliath.» Awaken, beloved. You are dreaming.

Ellysetta woke in a strange room, lying in a strange bed. The first gray light of dawn filtered in through a large skylight overhead. Linen sheets were draped over her bare skin, and a soft linen pillow stuffed with some fragrant herb cushioned her head.

Rain lay spooned against her back, one arm and one leg thrown possessively over her. His long, lean body radiated warmth, and one large hand cupped her breast. A broad, warm hand stroked down her side, smoothing over her arm, pulling her close. She turned her head to find Rain’s eyes half-opened, the irises gleaming a soft lavender behind their thick veil of black lashes.

“Another nightmare?”

“Vision,” she corrected. “I can’t decide which is worse—seeing the terrible things I could become, or realizing the visions don’t terrify me like they used to.”

Magic hummed in his flesh, and as they lay there, skin to skin, body to body, she realized the faint vibration of her own magic had altered to match his, forming a subtle harmonic balance, a completeness she’d never noticed before. It was as if the energy of his magic flowed into hers, and hers flowed into his in a natural communion. Even their heartbeats and their breathing had settled into a synchronous rhythm.

As the haze of sleep faded, memories flooded in. The missiles that had shot Rain from the sky, their race for escape, the Mages with their sel’dor, death so near… She rolled over to face Rain and found him awake and watching her, no sign of injury on him.

“Rain, what happened to us? Your wounds…” She laid her palms on his chest, sending her senses inward, but if there was a single grain of sel’dor powder still left in his body, she could not find it.

His laid his hands over hers. “Gone, shei’tani. There is a hearth witch here with strong healing talents. She tended us both.”

“Where is ‘here’?”

“In the dahl’reisen village in the Verlaine. Do you not remember? “

“Vaguely.” She recalled only snatches of last night, hazy images of scarred dahl’reisen, children, and a woman with white hair. “If we’re in a dahl’reisen village, why don’t I feel them?”

“There’s a weave around this little house to shield you. A six-fold weave. They used Azrahn. They must have spun it when we were unconscious.” That statement ended with a distinct rumble of unease.

“Are we prisoners? “

“I don’t know. Their intentions are a mystery, but they claim Gaelen sent them to rescue us from the Eld.”

“Have you tried to reach him to confirm that?”

“Of course, but the six-fold weave blocked me.” He smoothed his hands over her hair. “Half of me wants to burn this village down about their ears. The other half wants to thank them. All the sel’dor is gone from both of us. Our steel is not here, but I could break through that six-fold weave without half trying. They have to know that. I don’t think they mean us harm.” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “And I can hardly believe I’m hearing myself say that. But why would they have rescued us from the Eld, removed the sel’dor in both of us, and healed us?”

“I don’t know.”

A knock sounded on the cabin door and Ellysetta barely had time to pull the linen sheet up around herself and Rain before the door opened to admit the white-haired woman Ellysetta remembered from last night.

She held Rain’s armor and Ellysetta’s leathers in her arms, and two other village women followed on her heels, carrying trays of food and drink. The women deposited the food on a table beside the door, sneaking furtive looks at Rain and Ellysetta before exiting the room and closing the door behind them.