Lilias feared death. She had seen it, once, in the eyes of a young man to whom her father would have betrothed her. He was a duke’s son, well made and gently spoken, but she had seen in his eyes the inevitability of her fate, old age and generations of children yet unborn, and she had heard the echo of Oronin’s Horn. Such was the lot of Arahila’s Children, and the mighty Chain of Being held her fast in its inescapable grip.

And so she had fled into the mountains. Up, she went, higher than any of her brothers had ever dared climb, scaling the height of Beshtanag Mountain and hiding herself in its caverns. It was there that she had encountered the dragon.

His name was Calandor, and he was immortal after his kind. If he had hungered, he might have swallowed her whole, but since he did not, he asked her instead why she wept.

Weeping, she told him.

Twin jets of smoke had risen from his nostrils, for such was the laughter of dragons. And it was there that he gave a great treasure into her keeping: One of the lost Soumanië, Ardrath’s gem that had been missing for many centuries. It had been plucked from the battlefield by a simple soldier who thought it a mere ruby. From thence its trail was lost until it ended in the hoard of a dragon, who made it a gift to a mortal woman who did not wish to die.

Such was the caprice of dragons, whose knowledge was vast and unfathomable. Calandor taught her many things, the first of which was how to use the Soumanië to stretch the Chain of Being, keeping mortality at bay.

She was no longer afraid.

It had been a long time ago. Lilias’ family was long dead, her lineage forgotten. She was the Sorceress of the East and possessed great power, which she used with neither great wisdom nor folly. She allowed Oronin’s Children, the Were, to hunt freely in the forests of Beshtanag, though elsewhere they were reviled for aiding Satoris the Sunderer in the last great war. The regents of Pelmar feared her and left her in peace, which was her sole desire.

And, until now, the Six Shapers had done the same.

Lilias regarded the red star on the horizon and felt uneasiness stir in her soul for the first time in many centuries. Dergail’s Soumanië had risen, and change was afoot. Behind her in the mammoth darkness a vast shadow loomed.

“What does it mean, Calandor?” she asked in a low voice.