Again and again, she called her twin, but Lorelle didn’t respond. It occurred to Lillis that perhaps Lorelle had not survived the destruction of the mountain—that she had perished as Lillis herself was so close to doing—but as quickly as that awful thought surfaced, she shoved it away, out of her mind. No, Lorelle was alive. She had to be. Maybe the magic of the Mists did something to silence their connection. Or maybe Lorelle was living in some happy illusion like the one that had nearly trapped Lillis.

She tried calling Papa, but that didn’t work either. She hadn’t really expected it to. If Lorelle couldn’t hear her, it was highly unlikely Papa would. Her call to Ellie met the same silence as all the others.

Finally, in desperation, she reached out to the last living person with whom she shared a connection: Kieran vel Solande. Surely, if anyone could break the power of the Faering Mists and find her, Kieran could.

Assuming he was still alive.

“You are alive,” she muttered. “I know you are. I know it.” Please, gods, let him still be alive. She clenched her jaw and gathered her strength, her last ounce of hope, and all the emotions she associated with Kieran: The way he made her feel so safe. The joy when he—or rather the illusion of him—had turned in that city in the valley of Mists and that familiar, dazzling smile had broken across his face. The love that blossomed in her heart whenever he was near.

Fusing those energies together, weaving them into her call the way she’d secretly spun magic all her life, she flung the cry out into the Mists, praying for the gods to grant it wings. Kieran! Help me. Pease, help me.

The effort was too much. Darkness closed in upon her. She was so weak. So tired. As if sensing Death creeping near, Snowfoot began to mew more loudly.

A clatter of pebbles sounded overhead, and dirt showered down upon her face. A weak, painful cough racked her frame.

“Lillis!”

A muffled voice echoed in her ears, tinny yet strangely familiar. Light turned the inside of her closed eyelids rosy. With effort, she cracked open her eyes. Images swirled slowly into focus. Faces hovered over her, surrounded by a glow of light. Blue eyes burning with fear and concern held her gaze as strong, familiar hands reached for her.

She breathed his name on a weary sigh as her lashes fell shut again, and the light faded. “Kieran.”

Eld ~ The Forests North of the Heras River

Ellysetta sat up and pressed both hands against her head. The world was spinning drunkenly, and she was so dizzy she could barely sit upright. Flung free of the saddle, she’d gone flying through the air and into the evergreen branches of a large conifer. She’d crashed and tumbled through the branches, losing all sense of balance and direction until the ground rose up to smack her in the face.

She spat out dirt and blood, then wiped the back of her hand against her mouth and took inventory of her injuries. Long, bleeding scratches scored the exposed skin of her hands and face, but her shielding weave and leathers had saved her from more serious wounds from the fall. Her hair bristled with leaves and splinters from broken tree limbs.

She started to draw her legs up in order to stand, but pain lanced up her left leg. She cried out and clutched her thigh. Her hand came away covered in blood. The arrows that had struck her thigh and back had been ripped out during the fall.

She held her hands over the gash in her leg and spun a healing weave to stop the bleeding, hissing as fragments of sel’dor burned beneath her skin. The barbs from the Elden arrows had broken off inside her leg, but there was nothing she could do about them now. She left the barbs in place and sealed the skin over them.

The instant the leg was healed enough to stand on, she got to her feet and sent out a narrow, questing thread of Spirit. «Rain?»

He didn’t answer, but his trail was plainly marked by the line of shattered trees and debris from his crashing descent. Pain shot up her leg as she took her first hobbling step towards him, but she gritted her teeth and forced herself to endure it.

She’d seen the Elden army as she and Rain had fallen out of the sky. She knew they weren’t far behind, and she knew that the Eld would already be combing the woods. Any chime now, they’d reach this very spot and follow the crash path directly to her mate.

She pressed her palm against her leg and hobbled faster. «Rain, I’m coming.» Desperation gave her the strength to ignore the pain and begin to run. She vaulted clumsily over small downed trees and ran around several larger ones.

When she finally caught sight of Rain, motionless, still tairen, covered by a blanket of yellow leaves, her breath stalled in her lungs.

“Rain!” Adrenaline shot through her. She covered the remaining distance between them at a full-out sprint and fell to her knees beside him. Her hands plunged into his thick fur at his neck, seeking a pulse. “Don’t be dead. Please, don’t be dead.”

A rattling breath wheezed out of him. «Not… dead… yet.» Pain accompanied the faltering thread of Spirit, muted but still sharp enough to make Ellysetta clench her teeth.

She smoothed her hands over him, trying desperately to hide her terror as her hands came away drenched in blood. Sel’dor-filled wounds didn’t bleed, but he’d taken enough glancing blows and external injuries from the crash that the ground beneath him was rapidly becoming a blood-soaked pool.

«Rain… can you Change?» She hated to ask. If he were so injured that a simple Spirit weave felt like knife blades on bone, the powerful, concentrated magic required by the Change would likely kill him. «I need to get you somewhere so I can get the sel’dor out of you and heal you, but we can’t hide while you remain tairen.»