There was a veneer of delicacy overlaying the appearance of the rooms to which she had been led. Tapestries in shades of rose, celadon and dove-grey hid the black stone walls; fretted lamps hung from the buttresses, their guttering light casting a patterned glow. These elements had been added, tacked atop the solid bulwark of the fortress in an effort to disguise the brooding mass of Darkhaven.

Cerelinde was not fooled.

This prison had been made for her.

She paced it, room by room, her feet sinking deep into the cloud-soft carpets that concealed the polished floor. What halls had they adorned? Cuilos Tuillenrad? A faint scent arose at her passage. Heart-grass, bruised and crushed by her feet. Oh, this was Ellylon craftsmanship, to be sure! Her kinfolk had woven it in ages past, with fingers more nimble than any son or daughter of Man could hope to emulate. The wool would have been culled from the first coats of yearling lamb, washed with an effusion of the delicate flowers of heart-grass that bloomed for three days only in the spring. Journeymen would have carded it, singing under the open skies, but the spinning, ah! That would have been done by Ellylon noblewomen, for they alone had the nicety of touch to spin wool thread as fine as silk.

Her own mother might have touched it …

Your mother was known to me.

Cerelinde closed her eyes. Unfair; oh, unfair!

It was not true. It could not be true. Time and time again, Malthus had said it: Satoris Banewreaker is cunning, he Shapes truth itself to his own ends. Her father … her father Celendril, she remembered well, for he had died in the Fourth Age of the Sundered World, slain upon the plains of Curonan amid the host of Numireth.

And left her alone.

No. That, too, was a lie; this place bred them like flies. Lord Ingolin had opened the gates of Meronil to all the Rivenlost who had fled the Sunderer’s wrath. Always her place there had been one of honor, even during the long centuries she had refused to hear their arguments. Malthus had been the first to say it, his wise old eyes heavy with grief at the death of his comrades. It is your duty and destiny, Cerelinde.

When a daughter of Elterrion weds a son of Altorus …

What a bitter irony it was!

At first, she had refused out of anger. It was a son of Altorus who had cost them dear on the plains of Curonan; Trachan Altorus, who received the news of Dergail’s defeat, who saw Ardrath the Counselor fall. Too soon he had sounded the retreat, and in that moment Satoris Banewreaker regained the dagger Godslayer and fled.