Lorenlasse of Valmaré stepped back, nodding, sorrow and a grave acceptance in his countenance. “So be it,” he said. “As I am Haomane’s Child, I fulfill his Prophecy. Son of Altorus, the Soumanië is yours.”

“Sorceress,” Aracus Altorus said simply, extending his hand.

He did not threaten. With a conquering army at his back, he didn’t need to.

“Take it, then!” With trembling fingers, Lilias lifted the fillet from her brow. The Soumanië was a dull red stone in its center. For a thousand years it had maintained contact with her unaging flesh. Even now, when she was spent beyond telling, when its power lay beyond her grasp, the Soumanië sustained her, maintaining the bond that stretched the Chain of Being to its uttermost limit. So it had done for a thousand years, since the Dragon of Beshtanag had divulged its secrets to a headstrong Pelmaran girl. Tears burning in her eyes, Lilias placed the fillet in Aracus Altorus’ outstretched palm and relinquished it. “Let the Shapers themselves bear witness, I do this against my will.”

He closed his hand upon the Soumanië and claimed it.

It was done. The bond was severed, a shock as sudden as icy water, and Lilias dwindled back toward mortality. The confines of her flesh closed in upon her, unexpected and suffocating. Her thoughts, that had extended to the boundaries of Beshtanag, became circumscribed by skin and bone. The dense forests, the harsh mountain crags; lost, all lost. Never again would she reach into the world beyond her fingers’ touch, not even toward the emptiness of Calandor’s absence. It was gone, all gone, and the sands of time that the Soumanië had held at bay began to trickle through the hourglass of her fate. Even now, she felt the slow decay of age creeping. Flesh would wither, bone would grow brittle.

The Sorceress of the East was no more.

In her place sat a mortal woman, a Pelmaran earl’s daughter, a vain and foolish woman who had lived beyond her allotted years and brought ruin upon herself and her people. In the face of her conquerors’ contempt, Lilias bowed her head, no longer able to meet their eyes. “Calandor,” she whispered to the empty space inside her. “Oh Calandor, I miss you!”

Somewhere in the distance, Oronin’s Horn was blowing.

STORMCLOUDS GATHERED OVER THE VALE of Gorgantum.

Seated in his deep-cantled saddle atop one of the horses of Darkhaven, Vorax frowned, watching the roiling skies blot out the faint red disk of the sun. The terminal half-light of the Vale grew ominous. Beneath his resplendent armor, the scar that branded his sturdy chest itched and burned. Over plain and forest and rising hills, from the cleft of the Defile to the outermost boundaries of the walls, clouds gathered, dense and heavy. On the training-field, the Fjel broke ranks to glance uneasily at the skies.

“A storm, do you reckon, sir?” Beside him, Hyrgolf squinted at the clouds.