Thus ended Lenora’s journey from Noreela as a Krote of the Mages, and began her time on Dana’Man as one of their lieutenants. The time of the Cataclysmic War was over, and the beginning of their three-hundred-year exile was beginning. Magic had gone, though sorcerers like the Mages always had something about them. Chemicala, some said, tricks available only to those with the knowledge. But Lenora always believed that they had held on to some of the effects of magic, at least. They had been too wrapped up in it—and it in them—for all effects to vanish in that one instant.

Angel had given her endless life, after all.

DRIFTING DOWN TO sea level, spying the faint haze of Noreela on the horizon, Lenora thought only fleetingly of her three hundred years on Dana’Man: finding the old civilizations there; the slaughter and enslavery; the eventual changing of each tribe to live the way of the Krote. That seemed more like ancient history than even their rout from Noreela beforehand, a brief, motionless interval in the long story of the Mages. A story in which she had become a major part.

As she led the first assault on the giant land of Noreela, and a new age began, she heard a shadowy voice at the back of her mind. As yet she could not make out what it had to say. But there was plenty of time.

LUCIEN MALINI LEFT Pavisse on the fastest horse he could steal.

Behind him, the remaining Red Monks spread north and east from the town out across hills, through valleys, scouring forests and ravines, hamlets and farmsteads, searching desperately for the fleeing boy. They knew that if he and his band reached Noreela City they would be lost; they could go to ground there and remain hidden for weeks, and in that time the boy’s curse would be working its way out, filling him and spilling eventually to offer itself up again for abuse. Common folk of Noreela would welcome the magic back into their hands, but so would the Mages. And this time—Noreela’s armies too weak to fight, its people apathetic—the Mages would have their way. There would be no rout. There would be no repeat of the Cataclysmic War. There would be true cataclysm.