Chased and chivvied and harried, they are scattered like pigeons by the falcon as it stoops to strike. With wildfire word spreading of the warriors killed by magework, warriors of Vharne and Iringa sharpen swords and spears and join the hunt. Every hand is raised against Dorana’s mages. No kindness, no mercy, no impulse to forgive. They have proven themselves the enemy. Nothing Doranen can be trusted. The only good mage is a dead mage… and mages can die.

In the weeks that follow, Dorana’s homeless are hunted out of the lands that once welcomed their magework and paid good coin for the privilege of its possession. The weakest perish, the strong survive. They are a proud people reduced to beggary, to the startlement of rabbits. They are hunted into Benbarsk, where the princes and potentates fear to tread. Benbarsk is a harsh land, as deadly as any sword or spear. Its reclusive people are unfriendly, suspicious of the outside world. Vharne and Iringa know better than to rile them.

So the princes and potentates reach an agreement: warriors of every nation will line the Benbarsk border, keeping the hated mages safely penned. Let Benbarsk finish what they were forced to start. Let Dorana die there, in that strange, brutal land.

Let it be forgotten… and good riddance.

One by one, in the brutal aftermath of flight, the trapped mages of Dorana find each other in Benbarsk’s wilderness. Thin and ragged, they come together to count the cost of their flight. So many left behind. So many dead. But they have their magework and their memories. Not all is lost.

They look to Venette Martain, Barl Lindin, her brother Remmie and Dreen Brislyn for leadership. They despair of ever seeing Dorana again. They look around them at the rich emptiness that is Benbarsk, and wonder. Could this be their new home? Could Dorana be reborn here?

And then Barl has a dream…

Snared in his beloved’s perfidy, trapped by her poisoned love, Morgan pursues his escape with a bitter, dogged patience. Though he is trapped, cocooned in magic, bound and bound again, still there are tears in him. Still he can weep. He weeps when he’s not screaming. He screams when he can no longer weep.

You left me. You left me. Barl, my love, how could you? You bitch, you slut, you treacherous whore.

He can feel her, of course. There is nowhere beneath the sun that she can run to where he’ll not feel her. Won’t find her. Will fail to know. And when he breaks free of her binding… when he is once more a man…

You will say you’re sorry. You will… apologise… to me.