Behind Sol's spectacles, his brown eyes glistened with answering tears. "Oh, Ellie-girl, if that's selfish, then I must confess the same sin, for I would keep you by my side if I thought you could ever be safe or happy there." He embraced her. As his arms enfolded her, the love that had been her anchor all her life flowed into her once more, filling her with its warm reassurance and strength. He cupped her face in his hands, then hugged her tight once more before stepping back. "Go, daughter. Find the happiness you deserve. And may the Light always shine on your path and shelter you from harm."

"Teleos." Rain clasped the Celierian great lord's forearm. "You guard our gates—both here and at the Veil—and you guard three treasures very precious to my mate." He inclined his head towards the twins and Sol Baristani. "Your assistance is much appreciated."

"It is the great honor of House Teleos to be of service to the Fey," Lord Teleos replied.

"The first thousand blades I promised Dorian leave the Fading Lands within the week. I'll bring reinforcements to Orest by month's end, along with that Fey steel I promised you for your own men. And, Dev?"

"Aiyah?"

Rain held the younger man's Fey gaze steadily. "My friend Shanis would have been proud to call you kin."

The great lord blinked in surprise, then said in a low voice, "Beylah vo, Rain. I only wish I could have known him."

"You do, Dev. You are much like him." They clasped arms again in a warrior's gesture of respect and friendship; then Rain turned to Ellysetta's family. "Master Baristani. Lillis and Lorelle." Rain shook the woodcarver's hand, then knelt and opened his arms to the twins, who threw themselves into his embrace with as much weeping regret as they'd shown Ellysetta.

"Here now, kitlings," he protested when their tears would not stop. "This is not good-bye. This is just farewell until we meet again." When they pulled back, he smiled and thumbed away their tears. "Be good, hmm? Listen to Kieran and Kiel, and try to stay out of trouble."

The twins nodded. "We will."

Ellysetta put her hand on Rain's wrist. As he led her away, down the steps towards Marissya and Dax and the waiting Fey, she kept looking back over her shoulder and waving at her father and the twins, and at Kieran and Kiel standing guard beside them.

"Promise me you'll keep them safe," she begged Kiel and Kieran one final time as Rain stepped away to summon the Change.

"We will protect them with our lives," Kieran vowed. "You have our solemn oath."

The wild, rich scent of the tairen swept over her. She closed her eyes and breathed it in, then turned to take her place on Rain's back. A series of thick leather straps lashed her into place—in case she were to have another seizure while flying through the Mists. Rain leapt into the sky, and her beloved family grew smaller and smaller as he bore her away. She twisted in the saddle and watched even when she could no longer make them out.

«You will see them again, shei'tani,» Rain assured her.

Would she? Ellysetta cast one final glance back at the shrinking silvery blue towers and ramparts of Teleon. Then why did she have such a terrible, sinking feeling that this was the last time she and her family would ever be together?

Rain circled on an updraft as the Fey below approached the Faering Mists. With growing concern, Ellysetta regarded the bright glow of magic that danced in undulating flows along the mountaintops and filled the pass between the Rhakis and Silvermist ranges.

«I thought we might be able to fly over the Mists,» she said.

His wings dipped and he circled in the opposite direction. «Nei, the Fey who made the Mists safeguarded against that. If you wish to enter the Fading Lands, there is no way to bypass the Mists, no matter how high you fly or how deep you tunnel.»

«So we have no choice but to go through.»

«Aiyah.»

«What's it like?»

«I don't know. I've only passed through it myself once, to come to Celieria to find you. The magic of the Mists cares only who enters the Fading Lands, not who leaves.»

«Celierians tell tales about hunters and shepherds who wandered into them on a foggy day and disappeared, only to reappear months or even years later carrying tales about meeting the Shining Folk inside the Mists. Are those tales true?» There were hundreds of such stories, each one more fantastical than the last. Some adventurers claimed to have joined ancient Fey in a wild hunt through misty forests; others spoke of sharing an intoxicating meal in a crystalline hall filled with music and Fey maidens so beautiful even the stoniest heart would break to cast eyes upon them. To accept such invitations, folk claimed, was to bid farewell to the life one knew, for time passed at a different pace for those fêted by the Fey, and the deeper in the mist one wandered, the swifter time passed in the world.

«I suspect there may be some truth to those tales,» Rain answered. «The ones who built the Mists would not have wanted to hurt innocents—but neither would they have wanted to allow those innocents to be used against the Fey.»

But what of not-so-innocents? Shepherds and hunters might escape with lost time the only price for their transgression, but others were not so fortunate. She'd heard of entire armies that had disappeared into the Mists, never to be seen again.

Below, the marching Fey narrowed to a column ten abreast, and the first rows of warriors plunged without hesitation into the shining mist. Another few chimes and it would be Rain and Ellie's turn.