“Forgive me.” The Ellyl took a graceful step backward, raising his slender hands; Peldras, one of Malthus’ Companions. The one with the damnable shadow of sorrow and compassion in his gaze. “I meant only to bring comfort.”

Lilias laughed, a sound as harsh as the calling of gulls. Her mouth was parched and foul. She pushed strands of dark hair, sticky with bile, out of her face. “Oh, comfort, is it? Can you undo what is done, Ellyl? Can you restore Calandor to life?”

“You know that such a thing cannot be.” The Ellyl did not flinch, and the sorrow in his gaze only deepened. “Lady Sorceress, I regret the deaths at Beshtanag. Even, yes, perhaps even that of the Eldest. It grieves me to have come too late. Believe me, if I could have prevented them, I assure you, I would have. I did seek to do so.”

“So.” Lilias shrugged and glanced across the deck toward where Aracus Altorus bent his head, listening to the Dwarf captain, who was the picture of ease upon the pitching decks, with his short stature and his root-gnarled legs astraddle. She was unsure how or why Yrinna’s Children had stood ready at Port Eurus to ferry Haomane’s Allies over the waters. “You failed.”

“Yes.” Peldras bowed his head, fair, gleaming hair falling to curtain his somber brow. “Lady Sorceress,” he said softly, “I do not think your heart is as black as it has been painted. I would speak to you of one I met, Carfax of Staccia, an agent of the Sunderer’s will who by Arahila’s mercy became a Companion in truth at the end—”

“No.” Gritting her teeth and swallowing hard, Lilias pushed past him. “I don’t want to hear it, Ellyl. I don’t want your cursed pity. Do you understand?”

He took another step backward; avoiding her foul breath, no doubt. Once, even one of the Rivenlost would have stood awed in her presence. Now, there was nothing to her but bile and decay. This foulness, this mortality, it rotted her from the inside out. The stench of it bothered her own nostrils. “Forgive me, Sorceress,” he breathed, still reaching out toward her with one pale, perfect hand. “I did not mean to offend, but only to offer comfort, for even the least of us are deserving. Arahila’s mercy—”

“—is not something I seek,” Lilias finished brusquely. “And what did Arahila the Fair know of dragons?”

It was something, to see one of the Ellylon at a loss for words. She took the image with her as she stumbled toward the cabin in which she had been allotted space. Haomane’s Children, scions of the Lord-of-Thought. Oh, it gave them such pleasure to imagine themselves wiser than all other races, than all of the Lesser Shapers.