Power surged through him, ancient and strong. Great power, laced with shadows that made him grit his teeth. The crystal had belonged to a dahl'reisen, and not one who'd gone easily to the dark. Not a stranger either.

With a quiet gasp, he returned Lord Barrial's pendant to him. "It is the sorreisu kiyr of Dural vel Serranis," Rain said. "Gaelen and Marissya's cousin who never returned from the Mage Wars." He met Lord Barrial's shocked gaze. "Elvish may not be the only magical blood that runs in your family, Cannevar Barrial. It's possible you're also kin to the Dark Lord”

He lay in the stench of a rultshart's den, the remains of the den's previous inhabitants piled in charred heaps near the cave's small opening.

His breathing was labored, his vision swimming. The Fire he'd called to empty the den had sent him into spasms of agony. He'd managed to drag himself into the cave before losing his senses, and it was only now-almost a whole day later, judging by the amount of light shining in-that he'd roused again with enough strength to put coherent thoughts together.

On the dirt beside him, two sorreisu kiyr gleamed in the dim light. Next to them lay a wavy black sel'dor dagger. The dark gemstone in the Mage blade's hilt glowed with hints of ruby light as it lay in the muddy mix of blood and dirt.

The Hells-flamed dagger liked the taste of his blood.

Gaelen vel Serranis laughed low and without humor. The dagger was the first thing in centuries that had warmed to him in any way.

Evil called to evil, or so they said, and Gaelen was certainly in a position to know. After all, he was the soul-damned dahl'reisen known as the Dark Lord, bogeyman of the Fey. He was the dread warrior who had willingly given himself into the shadowy, death-thralled existence of the dahl'reisen in order to wreak bloody vengeance on the Eld and spark the wars that had nearly ended the world. He was well and truly soul-lost, unredeemable. Evil.

But despite having more than earned the dark crown of the dahl'reisen, he still had a ways to go before he matched the unmitigated evil of the Mages, thank the gods for what meager blessings they still saw fit to bestow upon him. There still remained some stubborn, unquenchable flicker of Fey honor deep within him, and he clung to its faint light with all the strength of his blighted soul. Even now, though he would never again set foot on Fey soil, that honor demanded he protect his homeland.

Several days ago, Gaelen's network of spies had told him of the presence of two Fey traveling north towards Norban. He'd come to investigate, only to discover that a party of Eld apparently had the same idea. Gaelen had tracked them to the forest, to the hut of the woodsman Brind Palwyn. The Eld had killed the woodsman after torturing him for information, but in his rush to stop the Fey from reporting their news, the junior Mage-barely more than an apprentice, or he would have known better-had foolishly left the body intact.

Gaelen had used Azrahn to call Palwyn's soul from the dead, questioned him, then cremated his body so no other could do the same. Though the Fey had eradicated Palwyn's memories, his soul still remembered his subsequent brutal questioning at the hands of the Eld, and Gaelen had drawn those intact memories from him.

The High Mage of Eld had a daughter.

A red-haired, green-eyed daughter like the Celierian girl who'd called Rain Tairen Soul from the sky, lost in the woods of Norban more than two decades earlier.

When he'd first learned of the Tairen Soul's truemate, Gaelen had envied Rainier vel'En Daris the gods' apparent forgiveness, but now he realized the gods had forgiven vel'En Daris nothing. They'd only devised a new, more grievous torture for him-and a new, more deadly threat for the Fey.

Gaelen touched the two sorreisu kiyr that had belonged to the Fey warriors Sian vel Sendaris and Torel vel Carlian. He drew the names from the crystals, then traced a sign in the air over them, an ancient warrior's symbol to wish the dead Fey's souls speedy passage into a peaceful next life.

He had not known the two Fey, but he would have saved them if he could. He'd been too late, though. Again. He'd seen the last one fall, bravely and with honor as a Fey warrior should. Gaelen had slain the remaining handful of their attackers, including the apprentice Mage, but he'd taken numerous barbed sel'dor arrows in the process and three of the Eld had laid his flesh open with their swords before he'd managed to strike them down.

Despite the pain it caused him to call Fire with sel'dor piercing his flesh, he'd cremated the Fey warriors' bodies. He hadn't attempted to call their souls from the dead to learn what they'd reported to the Fey, though he could have woven Azrahn with minimal pain despite being sel'dor pierced. It would have surprised most Fey, including all but a handful of dahl'reisen, to witness his restraint. Even now there were still a few crimes the Dark Lord would not commit. Calling a Fey soul back from the dead was one of those.

The Eld he'd burned without soul-summoning as well, because their souls were already bound to their master and calling them would have alerted the High Mage to Gaelen's presence. Not a wise course of action when he was sel'dor pierced and bleeding his remaining strength into the dust at a fairly alarming rate.

He'd stumbled his way deeper into the forest until he found the rultshart's den. He'd burned out the den's inhabitants and dragged himself into the small, dank shelter before losing consciousness.

So here he was, wounded, weak, and lying in the foul stench of a rultshart's lair as he tried to summon the energy necessary to save himself. Part of him wanted to just close his eyes and bleed his life out. But another, stronger part of him fought the urge with a tairen's fierceness, all fang and claw and wild instinct to survive. That was the part that had kept him alive even after a thousand years as a dahl'reisen, banished forever from the beauty of the Fading Lands and the warmth of the Fey.