“Aye, my Lord.” Rising to his feet, Tanaros bowed and made to take his leave.

“Tanaros.” The whisper stopped him.

“My Lord?”

Beneath the Helm, the Shaper’s shadowed features shifted. “Teach the Dreamspinner to hold a blade,” he said softly. “He may have need of the knowledge before the end.”

TWELVE

TWELVE

DAYS PASSED IN MERONIL.

One, Lilias discovered, was much like the other. Sometimes the days were clear and the sun outside her tall windows sparkled on the Aven River far below. Betimes it rained; a gentle rain, silvery-grey, dappling the river’s surface.

Little else changed.

There was no news; or if there was, no one did her the courtesy of telling her. Still, she did not think there was. It was too soon. Somewhere to the north, Haomane’s Allies would be converging, gathering to march across the plains of Curonan and wage their great war. But in the west, the red star still rose in the evenings, a harbinger unfulfilled. It seemed so very long ago that she had watched it rise for the first time.

What does it mean, Calandor?

Trouble.

She had been afraid, then, and for a long time afterward. No longer. Everything she had feared, every private terror, had come to pass. Now there was only waiting, and the slow march of mortality.

She wondered what would happen in the north, but it was a distant, impersonal curiosity. Perhaps Satoris Banewreaker would prevail; perhaps he would restore her to Beshtanag. After all, she had kept their bargain. Perhaps he would even return into her keeping the Soumanië that she had wielded for so long, although she suspected not. No, he would not give such a gift lightly into mortal hands.

It didn’t matter. None of it mattered without Calandor.

How was it that in Beshtanag, days had passed so swiftly? Days had blended into weeks, weeks into months, months into years. A decade might pass in what seemed, in hindsight, like the blink of an eye. Ah, but it was a dragon’s eye, slow-lidded and amused, filled with amusement born of fathomless knowledge, gathered since before Shapers strode the earth.

Here, the days passed slowly.

Meronil was filled with women. There were a few men of the Rivenlost; an honor guard, rudimentary and sparse. Lilias watched them from her window as they passed, riding astride without need for saddle or reins. They looked stern and lovely in their bright armor. She wondered at their being left behind; wondered if they had volunteered, if they had been injured in previous battles. Perhaps they were reckoned too young to be on the front lines of a dire war; it was hard to gauge their age.

Mostly, though, there were women.