The Master of Chambers bowed. "Of course, Your Majesty. I will see to it personally."

Three bells later, she and half the court stood waiting in the courtyard as the royal carriage carrying Lord Hewen and Lady Montevero rolled across the paving stones and came to a halt at the foot of the stairs.

Her skin mottled, her blue eyes dazed with pain, Jiarine Montevero clung to Lord Hewen's strong arm as she made her trembling descent from the carriage to the courtyard.

"Lady Montevero!" Annoura swept across the remaining distance, her arms outstretched. "You poor dear. I sent the release the moment I heard." She had intended to clasp Jiarine's hand, but seeing the mangled state of her fingers, Annoura chose to grip the lady's face instead and deliver a light kiss upon her cheeks.

"Good gods!" a rich, masculine voice declared. "What's happened to her?"

Annoura's heart stilled for a moment. She turned her head to see the familiar, stunningly handsome nobleman standing beside the open door of a second coach she hadn't noticed coming in after the first. Her eyes drank in the long-missed sight of his face, his eyes, the careless tousle of his hair as it fell across his brow.

“Your Majesty," Lord Hewen murmured, "we need to get Lady Montevero inside. In her current weakened state, she could easily catch her death of cold."

The admonishment snapped her back to her senses. "Of course." Turning to the courtiers, she waved two of her current favorites to her side. "Come quickly. Help Lady Montevero to her rooms. You there ..." She caught sight of the dim-skull Dazzle. "Mairi, have the servants stoke the fire. Tell cook to send hot tea and keflee—and something warm and nourishing for the lady to eat. Quickly!"

As the courtiers carried Jiarine Montevero inside, Annoura turned to the unexpected new arrival to court, the handsome, too-long-absent Favorite who had occupied her thoughts far more than was prudent. "Ser Vale." He still had the power to make her pulse pound when he fixed his gaze so intently upon her. He looked at her as if she were the center of his universe.

"Your Majesty." He bowed deeply and lifted his eyes to smile in that slow, seductive way of his that made her heart leap into her throat. "Your beauty, my queen, still shines as brilliant as the sun, and I am but a poor, withered bloom too long absent from your radiance."

From any other courtier, such effusive, overblown compliments would sound ridiculous. But Vale spoke with such a ring of sincerity, the words fell like beautiful poetry from his lips. It was all she could do to maintain her composure and say, "We are glad you are returned to us, Ser," in a modulated voice when what she wanted to do was leap and shout for joy, as giddy as a schoolgirl deep in the throes of her first crush.

Vale was back.

Elvia ~ Deep Woods

Six days after leaving the Dreamer River, the Fey approached the heart of Deep Woods. Close-knit stands of trees vying for sunlight and rich soil gave way to fewer, much older trees, massive arboreal giants that soared so high Ellysetta thought their treetops might just pierce the clouds.

She glanced back at Rain as he rode through a shaft of sunlight, and for a moment, she saw him differently, as if a second image were superimposed atop him. Rain, but not Rain, His hair a deep bronze rather than black, his muscular body encased in gleaming silver armor, not golden war steel. The image reminded her of the man she'd seen in that strange vision she'd had in the Dreamer. The vision she and Rain had both shared.

Ellysetta was convinced they'd seen a glimpse of the life of Fellana the Bright—the tairen who had transformed herself into a Fey woman to be with the Fey king she loved. But when she'd asked Fanor about it, all he'd said was that the Dreamer showed what it liked. The vision could have been the past or the future or possibly a vision born of their own dilemma that had never truly existed, nor ever would. The point was to find meaning in the vision that they could apply to their current situation.

She blinked, and the image of the bronze-haired Fey king disappeared. What meaning was she supposed to have gained? Was she supposed to accept that her tairen would never find its wings? That she and Rain had lived before—or would again? That love was a choice and she just needed to accept it to complete their bond!

Fanor had said the Dreamer River would enlighten them, but all it had done was confuse her more.

Ellysetta ducked her head to miss a low-hanging branch that was as big around as the trunk of a hundred-year-old fire-oak. These trees are incredible," she said to Rain as they rode past the massive trunk of the colossus. They remind me of the Sentinels outside of Dharsa, only much, much larger." The Fey and the Elves were riding single file down a narrow trail that wound through the ferns carpeting the forest floor. Beams of sunlight filtered down from the canopy overhead, illuminating the rich, vivid green hues of the undergrowth and the golden tones of the smooth tree trunks so that the forest seemed to glow with radiant light.

"These are Sentinels," Rain said. "The ones in Dharsa came from the Elves, a gift long ago, when our two races lived as one. But these are much older even than those." His body swayed to the leisurely walking pace of his ba'houda mount.

"They are the watchers of the wood," Fanor said "Nothing escapes their notice—or their memory—and they live for a very long time."

"How long?" Ellysetta asked.

"Longer than any Elf or Fey." The Elf leaned left in his saddle and patted a nearby tree whose trunk was at least a full tairen length wide. He murmured a stream of lyrical Elvish to it, and the tree's branches fluttered in response. This Sentinel, for instance, has lived since the dawn of the Third Age. He is a fine young tree."