She staggered when the Lady loosed her; staggered and caught herself, staring dumbfounded as the Lady went to the tapestry that concealed the hidden passage, drawing back its bolts. So she had done once before, saving Meara from certain discovery. A debt had been incurred, returning threefold. She had not wanted it, had not wanted any of it. And yet, still it was.

Cerelinde, Lady of the Ellylon, stood upright and tall, shining like a candle in the confines of Darkhaven. She breathed a single word; but all the pride, all the hope, all the terrible, yearning beauty of the Rivenlost lay behind it.

“Please.”

Stumbling and numb, wiping her nose, Meara went.

TWENTY

TWENTY

BEHIND THE LINES OF HAOMANE’S Allies, no one was paying attention to the abandoned piece of baggage that was Speros of Haimhault.

On the battlefield, a strange hiatus had occurred; the armies had fallen back, regrouping, their attention centered on a knot of disturbance at its core. What it was, Speros could not have said. He knew only that he was forgotten. There were wounded incoming; scores of them, hundreds. Men, Men like him, and women, too, injured and groaning, carried on makeshift stretchers wrought out of spears, carried over the shoulders of hale comrades. Arduan’s archers, limbs pulped by Fjel maces; Midlanders with crushed skulls, splintered ribs protruding from their pale flesh.

Such was war.

The sight made him sick and uneasy; and yet, and yet. War was war. Where did the true battlefield lie?

The smell of strawberries ripening in the sun …

He had promised the Lord General that he would not fail him again, and he believed he had kept his word. He had built the waterwheel, improved the furnaces, created the carefully balanced defenses above the Defile. General Tanaros had not asked him to do any of those things, but he had done them anyway and done them well. Still, he had failed anyway. Some enchantment had been at work that day in the tunnels. The Fjel had been right the first time around; the Bearer had been there.

He might still be there; or worse, seeking entry into Darkhaven.

Speros paced restlessly behind the lines, glancing over at Ghost. No one was paying her any heed, either. She met his gaze, her wicked eyes calm and bright. The picket stakes that held her were pounded loosely into the plains. A thought took shape in his mind. He drifted closer to her, waiting for one of his minders to shout at him, to order him back.

No one did.