She had been a sorceress, once; the Sorceress of the East. It was the Soumanië that had lent her power, but the art of using it she had mastered on her own merit, guided by Calandor’s long, patient teaching.

It could not be Aracus Altorus who had fallen. Surely, she would sense it through the faint echo of the bond that remained, binding her to the Soumanië he bore. What victory had Haomane’s Allies won, and at what cost?

A longing to know suffused her. Lilias clenched her fists, lifting her head to stare out the window. Below her the Aven River flowed, serene and unheeding. Around the tower, the sea-eagles circled on tilted wings, mocking her with their freedom. She hated them, hated her prison, hated the rotting mortal confines of the body in which she was trapped, bound tight in the Chain of Being.

Closing her eyes, Lilias whispered words of power, words in the First Tongue, the Shapers’ Tongue, the language of dragons.

For a heartbeat, for an exhilarating span of heartbeats, her spirit slipped the coil of flesh to which it was bound. She was aware, briefly, of the Soumanië—Ardrath’s Soumanië, her Soumanië—set in the pommel of Aracus Altorus’ sword, the hilt clenched tight in his fist. She saw, briefly, through his eyes.

Blaise, dead.

The Helm of Shadows, broken.

And war; carnage and chaos and war, Men and Fjel and Ellylon swirling and fighting, and in the midst of it Tanaros Blacksword, Tanaros Kingslayer, the Soldier, looming larger than life, coming for Aracus astride a black horse, carrying a black blade dripping with Blaise’s blood, a blade capable of shearing metal as easily as flesh.

No longer did it last, then Lilias was back, huddled on the floor, exhausted and sickened, trapped in her own flesh and weary to the bone. She saw again Blaise Caveros’ body, limp and bloodied; felt Aracus’ terror and determination, the desperate love that drove him. She remembered how Blaise had told her to look away when they passed what remained of Calandor, how he had forbidden the Pelmarans to desecrate the dragon’s corpse. How Aracus had shown her Meronin’s Children aboard the Dwarf-ship and treated her as an equal.

It was hard, in the end, to hate them.

“Calandor,” she whispered. “Will you not guide me once more?”

There was no answer; there would never be an answer ever again. Only the echo, soft and faint, of her memory. All things musst be as they are, little sssister.

All thingsss.