“I doubt that last,” Arianya said. She passed through the entrance and into the main vault of the High Lord’s Hall. Esea’s Hall it had been in Gird’s time; Esea’s window lit the eastern end. Now light splintered through the window, cut by the blue and clear glass into streaks of silvery sunlight and blue like flame that patterned the floor. Far up, near the altar, she saw a cluster of tall figures that glowed with a different light, a softer silver.

Before she could speak to them, one turned. In that silvery light—elf-light, as she knew—the shape of face proved beyond doubt this was an elf.

“Marshal-General of Gird,” the elf said. “We are met at great need.”

Their need or hers? she wondered.

The others turned to her now, stepping away from one who stood with his back to the window. The elf wore a crown; the jewels seemed made of light itself. Despite the light from the window streaming past him, she could see his face clearly. Power, majesty, wisdom … an elf king, it must be. Arianya felt her knees loosening and consciously fought the impulse to kneel. This was her place, not theirs.

“What is your need?” she forced herself to say even as the glamour beat on her will. She glanced down just for an instant: she stood on Gird’s own stone and in that moment felt the pressure lift.

“It is not ours alone but yours,” the elf said. “I am Master of the Kingsforest.”

“The Kingsforest …?”

“In the far western mountains. North of the land you know as Kolobia.”

“Ah … and what is this need you speak of?”

“You must leave.”

“Leave … here?” She hoped they did not mean that, for she would have to refuse, and then … She did not want to contemplate what might come of her refusal.

“No. There. The west. Leave entirely.”

“Did you make Luap leave?” Arianya asked.

“He … broke his word.”

“I do not think I understand,” she said. “We were surprised, you know, to find records of his time there. We had not known—”

“You were not supposed to go there,” the elf said. “All were to leave after his treachery. We sealed the patterns.”

Arianya had realized for the past several years that local archives and the writings of Luap in the west did not agree, but was that what the elf meant by treachery? She asked.