Tanaros took a deep breath, touching the sword that hung at his side. His branded heart throbbed, answering to the touch, to the echo of Godslayer’s fire and his Lordship’s blood. He thought, with deep longing, of Darkhaven’s encompassing walls. He tried not to think about the fact that she was there. A small voice whispered a name in his thoughts, insinuating a tendril into his heart, as delicate and fragile as the shudder of a mortexigus flower. With an effort, he squelched it. “We are ready, cousin.”

“Good,” Ushahin said simply. He lifted one hand, and a cloud of ravens rose swirling from the fields, gathering and grouping. The blood-bay stallion shifted beneath his weight, hide shivering, gathering. The road, which was at once like and unlike the road upon which they stood, beckoned in a silvery path. “Then let us ride.”

Home!

The blood-bay leapt and the ravens swept forward. Behind them ran the grey and the black. The world lurched and the stars blurred; all save one, the blood-red star that sat on the western horizon. Now three rode astride, and two were of the Three. The beating of the ravens’ wings melted into the drumming sound of hoofbeats and the swift, steady pad of the Gulnagel’s taloned feet.

And somewhere to the north, a lone Rider veered into the Unknown Desert.

In the farmsteads and villages, Midlanders tossed in their sleep, plagued by nightmares. The color of their dreams changed. Where they had seen a horse as white as foam, they saw three; smoke and pitch and blood.

Where they had seen a venerable figure—a Man, or something like one—with a gem as clear as water on his breast, they saw a shadowy face, averted, and a rough stone clenched in a child’s fist, the crunch of bone and a splash of blood.

Over and over, it rose and fell.

Onward, they rode.

LILIAS WAS SEASICK.

She leaned over the railing of the dwarf ship Yrinna’s Bounty and spewed her guts into the surging waves. When the contents of her belly had been purged to emptiness, her guts continued to churn. There was no surcease upon these lurching decks, this infernal swell. The waves rose and fell, rose and fell, a constant reminder that the world she knew had vanished. Lilias retched and brought up bile until her very flesh burned with dry, bitter heat. It was no wonder she failed to hear the approach of the Ellyl behind her.

“Pray, steady yourself, Sorceress.” A cool hand soothed her brow, and there was comfort and sweet ease in the touch. “’Tis but Meronin’s waves that do disturb those accustomed to the solid ground of Uru-Alat.”

“Get away!” Lilias, straightening, shoved him. “Leave me alone.”