Gaelen only half heard him. The mist was clearing, and before him lay a sight he'd thought he would never see again in this lifetime: the golden blaze of the Great Sun shining on the great twin war castles of the Fading Lands, Chatok and Chakai, the Mentor and the Champion, eternal guardians of the Garreval.

They had not changed in all this time. Jutting from the western foot of the Rhakis mountains, just beyond the last tendrils of the Mists, the great fortress of Chatok still stood, as proud and fierce and defiant as ever. Perfect and unchanged from his memory. Massive, hewn boulders of silver-blue granite formed concentric rings of crenellated walls and battlements surrounding a host of soaring central towers topped by gleaming steel-roofed turrets. To the south, the matching silvery white fortress of Chakai jutted out from the hewn cliffs of the Silvermist range. The mile-wide pass between the two fortresses, guarded by the great stone Warriors' Wall, was named Miora te Baloth'Liera, the Field of Joy and Sorrow, but most warriors called it by another name: Taloth'Liera, the killing field.

Before the Mists had been created, more than one terrible battle had watered the soil of Taloth'Liera with the blood of armies foolish enough to try invading the Fading Lands. Gaelen himself had wet his blades in this pass on three separate occasions.

His breath caught in his throat on a sudden surge of emotion. There, on Chatok's great forward tower called Lute'cha, Gaelen's cradle friend Lothien vel Din had died in his arms during their first battle together, pierced through the heart by a Merellian demon prince's poison spear. And there, on Chakai's ramparts, his beloved blade brother, Eilon vel Hantor, had shoved Gaelen out of the path of an Irdrhi axman's deathblow, only to fall, his spine cleaved in two, in Gaelen's stead.

And finally there, less than three tairen lengths from where he stood now—just beyond the massive steel gates at the center of the crenellated mile-long stone wall connecting Chatok to Chakai—Gaelen and six thousand of his brothers had thrust red Fey'cha in the bloody soil of Taloth'Liera and cried, "Bas desrali lor bas tirei!" We die where we stand! And to a Fey, they had stood and fought and held the pass when even stone walls and steel gates failed beneath the enemy's onslaught.

Those shining gates of the Fading Lands still stood, vast and glorious, tall as twenty Fey, and a tairen length wide. And now, as Gaelen and the others approached, the massive, gleaming panels moved slowly inward, parting to reveal a land he had dreamed of for a thousand years. The land he had forsaken. The land he had spent these last long centuries protecting, even though he believed he would die without ever catching a glimpse of her beloved paradise again.

The Fading Lands, home of the Fey.

His home.

He took one step past the towers flanking the gate, a second through the broad, graceful stone arch overhead. He looked up, into the faces of a dozen Fey warriors standing on the ramparts above, half expecting red Fey'cha to come showering down, knowing he would not summon even the thinnest shield if they did.

But death did not come.

Two more steps took him past the gate, and for the first time in a thousand years, Gaelen vel Serranis set down his booted foot on the soil of his homeland.

He had faced, unflinching, the countless battles of far too many bloody wars. He'd confronted terrifying magic, fearsome enemies, and even stood firm while forces that outnumbered his, hundreds to one, charged his position. Yet with that one step, as the sole of his boot made its first slight contact with Fey soil, his battle-hardened warrior's body began to tremble. His legs shook, his shoulders quaked, and all strength fled him.

With a cry of surrender, Gaelen vel Serranis fell to his knees on the land of his forefathers.

Marissya turned, her shei'dalin's radiance fully unshielded and glowing bright as a star. Love and joy and serenity caressed Gaelen's senses in lapping waves, and her smile was a balm on his soul. "Ke tamiora," she said. "Kem'jeto ruvel." I rejoice. My brother returns.

A hand touched his shoulder. He looked up to find Belliard vel Jelani at his side.

"Welcome home, Gaelen," he said softly.

"Beylah vo, my brother," he rasped, his voice thick with emotion. Tears welled in his eyes. He didn't try to wipe them away. He simply let them fall, and the soil of Miora te Baloth'Liera drank them up, just as it had drunk the blood he'd shed here so many times in the past.

Standing at Gaelen's side, Bel understood what the older Fey was feeling. When Bel had left this last time to accompany Rain and Marissya to Celieria City, he had been so close to becoming dahl'reisen himself that he truly had not known whether he would ever see the Fading Lands again. The Shadows had been so near, the weight of even a few more deaths on his soul could have tipped the balance and sent him plunging down the Dark Path or seeking the desperate solace of sheisan'dahlein, the honor death.

But Ellysetta had restored his soul, almost as completely as she'd restored Gaelen's.

The clatter of boot heels on stone made him look up. Two dozen warriors were rushing down the tower steps, blades drawn, their faces etched in stone.

"Hold!" Bel snapped. "Stay your blades."

"Your time in the world of mortals has addled your wits, vel Jelani." With blue eyes as cold as a winter dawn and a voice to match, Tajik vel Sibboreh, the auburn-haired general of the Fey's eastern armies, approached. "He is the Dark Lord."

"He was," Bel answered. "But now he is Fey once more, and he is welcome. He has passed through the Mists, and you will greet him as the brother he is."