«Then spin the weave, shei'tani. Around Steli as well as us.»

Ellysetta nodded and reached once more into the well of power that lay within her. Lavender Spirit, the mystic magic of consciousness, thought, and illusion, surged up in a rush and she wove the dense threads of energy in a pattern Gaelen vel Serranis had taught the Fey only a few months ago. She flung the weave out like a net, first around Steli—who promptly winked out of sight—then around herself and Rain, rendering them invisible to both mortal and magic eyes.

The other tairen had left the waters of Veil Lake and padded over to the plaza. They leapt into the air seconds before Rain crouched down on his haunches and sprang skyward, and their presence provided cover for the rush of wind that might have betrayed Rain and Steli's otherwise invisible launch

Ringed by the pride and sheathed by invisibility, Rain, Ellysetta, and Steli soared high over the Rhakis mountaintops into the thin, crisp chill of the autumn sky. A dusting of snow capped the high, jagged peaks to the north. Below, just across the Heras River, the southwest corner of Eld still smoldered from the fiery aftermath of the recent battle. What had two weeks ago been a fortified village was now a scorched plain, razed to the ground, every living and dead thing in a twenty-mile radius reduced to ash. Yet still, the Eld came to battle the legions of Orest with relentless determination, wearing them down bit by bit, then retreating back into the dense forests of Eld, where, thanks to the batteries of bowcannon trained on the skies, not even the tairen could follow.

To the west, the billowing wall of mist that marked the borders of the Fading Lands rose up from the mountaintops. Rain flew close enough that Ellysetta could feel the tingle of magic from the Mists, and her fingers tightened on the pommel.

From the valley floor, the Mists looked like a line of thunderclouds hugging the crests of the Rhakis mountains. From the sky, however, they looked more beautiful than foreboding, like a radiant veil of shifting rainbows that stretched upward as far as the eye could see.

Ominous thunderheads or shimmering veil, Ellysetta recognized the Faering Mists for what they truly were: a deadly magical barrier meant to keep the enemies of the Fey from entering the Fading Lands.

Fey-made, the Mists would never intentionally harm an innocent, and so Celierian lore was filled with tales of those who had wandered by accident into the Mists, only to emerge again, decades later, unharmed, not aged a day, carrying tales of being feted by the Fair Folk in misty forest palaces. To the not-so-innocent, the Mists were far less kind. Entire armies had been swallowed up, never to be seen again.

Ellysetta's body tensed with remembered pain. She knew, firsthand, the torments that lay within those shifting clouds. Thanks to the four Mage Marks she bore, the Mists were now more dangerous to her than the Well of Souls, and the last time she'd entered, she'd very nearly not made it back out again alive.

If it were otherwise, she would not be here in Orest, weaving her magic to save lives. She would be in the Mists, searching every gods-cursed fingerspan of the magical barrier, tearing it apart thread by scorching thread if she had to.

Because somewhere in that veil of shifting mist, the last members of her family had been trapped; and she could not reach them... or even tell if they were still alive.

The Faering Mists

"Lorelle! Papa! Can you hear me? Where are you?" Lillis Baristani's voice was hoarse from shouting, and the ocean of tears she'd shed had left her eyes swollen and burning.

She turned in circles and squinted in a vain effort to pierce the suffocating veil of shifting whiteness around her. She'd been in the Mists a long time-—bells, certainly, maybe even a day or more, though it was hard to tell time when the vapor was eternally lit by its own magical glow. In any event, she'd not seen or heard another living being since the moment the mountain had shuddered like a wild, angry beast and she'd lost her footing and fallen back into the Faering Mists.

Never in all her life had she been so alone. Always, someone had been with her. Lorelle or Mama or Papa or Ellie.

Alone was frightening. Almost more frightening than the terrible, monstrous darrokken or the evil Eld soldiers that had attacked Teleon. Almost more frightening than the sight of Kieran screaming as he disappeared beneath an avalanche of dirt, rock, and toppling trees.

"Kieran?” she cried. "Kiel? Anybody?"

There was still no answer.

Lillis blinked back tears and clutched her small kitten to her chest. They're not coming, Snowfoot. I don't think anyone's coming." In the sling tied around her neck, her black-and-white kitten mewed and squirmed and sank its tiny sharp claws into the wool jacket covering Lillis's pinafore.

Papa had always told Lillis, "If ever you get lost, kitling, stay right where you are. Your mama and I will come to find you." But Mama was dead—killed by the same evil people who had attacked Teleon—and Lillis had waited long enough in the white blindness of the Mists to know that either no one was still alive to find her or they were looking in the wrong place.

Either way, she couldn't stay here.

She stroked Snowfoot's soft fur and hummed a little song Ellie had always sung to Lillis and Lorelle when they were frightened or upset. The tune didn't soothe Lillis like it did when Ellie sang it, but Snowfoot stopped his anxious mewing.

"I’ll bet you're getting hungry and thirsty, aren't you?" Lillis murmured to the kitten. "I know I am." She wrapped her thin arms around the tiny feline, cuddling it closer and pressing her face to the soft fur at the top of its head. "Come on, Snowfoot," she said. "Let's go find Papa and Lorelle."