"All who enter will be judged." The tall one who had spoken earlier took Ellie's face in her hands. "You will submit," she commanded, and Ellie went instantly and utterly still.

The woman flung back her veil, revealing a face of devastating beauty and eyes that burned like firebrands. All around, the other shei'dalins followed suit. Their power—nothing like the gentle care Marissya had always shown her—invaded her, relentless and unyielding.

Her own consciousness fought back instinctively, strengthening her protective inner weaves, trying desperately to barricade her mind against them. But they were too many, and the pressure too great. Their insistence beat at her as if the weight of all the oceans of the world were bearing down upon her, battering her shields like wild waves battering a seawall.

"Do not fight us," commanded the one who had spoken before. "You cannot win. In the end, we will have what we seek."

"Nei!" Only to Rain had she ever confessed the terrible, frightening, dark thoughts that sometimes consumed her. And she would not—could not—fling open those black, violent places to these shei'dalins. She was terrified of what they would find. Terrified of what might happen—to her, to them, to Rain—if they unleashed the wild, angry power that lived inside her.

"Surrender to us," the woman insisted.

The pressure grew, multiplied, became unbearable. Within Ellie's mind, the internal protective weaves Bel had helped her to rebuild—barriers to keep her thoughts private from even intentional Fey intrusion—stretched and grew thin. Behind them, the tairen shifted and hissed a warning.

"Surrender," all the shei'dalins commanded. "Submit and be judged." There were dozens of them, too many, and their magic was braided in a multi-ply weave of staggering power.

The first thread in Ellie's barriers snapped. The remaining threads stretched and shrieked beneath the relentless push of the shei'dalins' insistent will.

"Stop! Stop! You don't know what you're doing! Rain!" She screamed his name in a desperate cry.

Her internal barriers shattered.

Merciless shei'dalin minds poured in through the breach.

The howl of battle swept around Rain like a maelstrom, battering his senses. Screams and shrieks of the dead and dying, hot gouts of blood splashing over his face, fire, smoke, the burn of sel'dor peppering his flesh. His swords flashed—bright steel, stained with blood, spinning in lethal arcs. Eld, Merellians, Feraz: All fell beneath the merciless onslaught of his blades.

With sword, with fang, with claw and fiery tairen breath, he killed and killed, and with each death, a layer of heavy coldness fell upon him. Layer after layer until he was encased in ice. Still, his blades slashed and his fire burned. Still, he slaughtered.

Then it wasn't only enemies falling beneath his rain of death, but allies as well. Celierians, Elves, Danae. His own brother Fey. He saw their faces, the shock and betrayal, the disbelief. The pleas for mercy that never came.

All around, amid the gore and violence, stood the pale gray shadows of the dead, watching him with unblinking black eyes. Their bloodless mouths were open and moving, lips forming sluggish words. Mottled arms lifted. Dead fingers pointed. At him.

And then he heard the whispers. A murmur of sound cutting across the howl of battle, a low hum vibrating across his senses, felt more than heard.

Murderer. Destroyer. Thief of life.

Bringer of destruction.

He howled a denial, and the fields of accusing dead winked out.

When he could see again, he was flying over a barren, scorched land. Below him, the city of Dharsa lay in ruins, its gleaming white towers and golden spires heaps of smoldering rubble. He spun away, raced back across the sky, heading northeast to the great volcanic mountain of Fey'Bahren, home to the last living tairen pride. But when he reached it, he found fiery, glowing rivers of molten lava pouring down the mountain's sides like great fountains of blood gushing from a mortal wound. The nesting lair—the networked maze of caverns and tunnels that had been his home for most of the last thousand years—was destroyed.

Desperate, disbelieving, he flew from one end of the Fading Lands to another. Nothing living remained. Not a single blade of grass, not the smallest twig, not even the tiniest insect had survived. The Fading Lands were dead, as were the tairen and the Fey who had called this once-beautiful part of the world home.

"It's your fault, you know," a soft voice accused.

His eyes closed. He recognized that voice. He turned slowly, knowing who stood behind him, fearing what image from her life or death the beings of the Mists might have chosen to torment him with.

Sariel stood before him, slender, luminous, clad in a translucent gown of delicate dusky blue. She was so beautiful. Even among the exquisite comeliness of other Fey women, she had always been a flower beyond compare. Ebony hair spilled over her shoulders like skeins of silk, and eyes of deep, drowning blue watched him with sorrow and regret.

The sight of her didn't rip at his heart the way it always had before Ellysetta. Now, her image only filled him with sadness for the beautiful Fey maiden whose millennia of life had been cut so short. He had loved her with every fiber of his youthful being, but that love owned his heart no longer. Rain, the mate of Sariel, had died a thousand years ago on a bloody battlefield just north of Teleon. A different Rain had risen from the ashes, born the day Ellysetta Baristani's soul had called out and his had answered. From that moment on, no other—not even the woman for whom he'd once scorched the world—could lay claim to any portion of Rain's heart or soul.