Lillis backed away. “No! No! I won’t stay here. This isn’t what I want.” Her wild, tear-filled gaze fixed on Mama, standing in the doorway, watching Lillis. She was the only one who didn’t say anything, the only one who didn’t try to convince Lillis to stay. She simply stood there, watching Lillis with wise and watchful eyes. It’s better to choke on a bitter truth than savor a honey-cake lie. Mama’s admonition rang in Lillis’s ears.

Lillis squeezed her eyes shut and clutched Snowfoot to her chest. “Go away!” she cried. “Go away, all of you! This isn’t what I want! I want the truth! Show me the truth!”

A hot tingling sensation flashed through her body. The burbling splash of the village fountain and the whisper of the wind rustling through the treetops faded. The pleading voices of Papa, Kieran, Kiel, and Lorelle died away and the world fell into utter silence.

Pain intruded. It started as a dull ache, then accelerated to burning, throbbing spikes of pain jabbing her like knives.

Lillis cried out, and her eyes flew open.

The village in the misty valley was gone. Lorelle, Papa, Kieran, Kiel—Mama—all were gone. She lay buried in a pile of rubble. The world was dark except for a tiny shaft of pale light that illuminated the prison of rocks and dirt and broken tree limbs that lay heaped over her body.

She couldn’t move. Could hardly breathe. Something heavy pressed down on her chest. She tried to move her hand, then cried out when bones grated and a sharp pain lanced up her arm.

She coughed, then cried out again. Her chest was on fire. Each breath felt like the stab of a knife. She had no sensation at all below her chest, and she had a terrible feeling she knew why.

Just two years ago, Tomy Sorris’s older brother had fallen from the roof of his family home while trying to sneak out his bedroom window and get into mischief with his friends. They said his back was broken and that he couldn’t move his arms or legs. His injuries had been too grave for the local hearth witch, and he’d died before a more powerful healer could come.

Was that why the Mists had created that illusion of Mama and Papa and the beautiful city in the valley? Had whatever magic lived here in the Mists been trying to make her last bells as happy and peaceful as possible?

Lillis closed her eyes and let the tears welling in her eyes spill down into her hair. “Mama… Papa…” This bit of hard truth wasn’t just bitter, it was the most awful torment she’d ever known.

She was dying.

She’d thought she was going to die before, when war had broken out at Teleon and she’d seen the darrokken racing up the mountainside towards her, but now she knew it for certain. Death was crouching patiently, just beyond what she could see. She could feel its cold nearness in each painful, struggling gasp of breath. Soon it would pounce, just like Snowfoot pouncing on a jingle ball.

Frightened, she tried to call out, but her throat was too dry, her lungs too short of breath to do more than croak raggedly. “Papa? Lorelle?”

No answer.

“Kieran? Kiel? Anyone?” Her weak, raspy call fell like a coin into a bottomless wishing well, swallowed quickly by silence and darkness.

Her head fell back. More frightened, desolate tears spilled from her eyes, and her broken ribs sent jolts of pain radiating through her with each small, ragged sob she couldn’t manage to hold back.

For the first time in her life, Lillis was all alone.

And she knew, if someone didn’t find her soon, she would die here, lost in the Faering Mists, trapped in the rubble of a shattered mountain.

Eld ~ Boura Fell

A knock sounded at Vadim Maur’s office door.

“Enter.”

The door pushed inward, and Primage Zev stood on the threshold. “Generals Corag, Grosh, and Daemor are in position, Most High.”

“Excellent. And our Celierian friends?”

“Awaiting your command, Master Maur. The Tairen Soul is approaching Primage Fen’s position.”

Vadim leaned back and touched his steepled fingers to the underside of his chin. “Tell Fen to spring the trap.”

Celieria ~ Northern Border

The missile struck without warning.

It came from behind and plowed into Rain’s hind leg just below his left hip, detonating an explosion of raw pain. He roared and wrapped Ellysetta in an instinctive buffer of magic as he careened through the air and fought to regain control. Instantly, a new agony seared him, worse than weapon’s initial bite. Needles of white-hot pain shot through his veins and stabbed behind his eyes. A familiar bitter tang filled the back of his mouth.

Sel’dor.

«Ellysetta, hang on! We’re under fire!» Despite the pain, he maintained his protective weave around her.

A moment later, the sky before them turned black with a barrage of bowcannon spears flying faster and higher than any he’d ever encountered. Rain reared back. A second bolt pierced his chest, near his foreleg, while a third skimmed by so close it tore the edge of his right wing. He roared and banked with desperate speed as a fourth bolt scored his ribs and tore a hole through his left wing, leaving splinters of sel’dor behind. With Ellysetta on his back, he could not Change to avoid the missiles.

«Rain! To your left!» Ellysetta spun a dense pattern of Air and slammed it into the volley of spears, batting them away bare moments before they pierced Rain’s heart.

«Hold on. Keep low.» His wings flapped wildly as he fought to retain his balance and keep them aloft while he scanned the ground below for the source of the weapons fire. A Celierian Border Lord’s castle hugged the bend of the Heras River, and he spied the bowcannon on its ramparts just as they spat a fresh volley of sel’dor-tipped missiles.