“Mother?” he said. His voice caught in his throat; he rose to his feet and stepped away from the shrine. The glowing figure did not turn toward him but held still for a moment.

He had to know. He took a step, another … carefully, almost as if the figure were a wild thing that might take flight. It moved, but languidly now, circling around the glade away from the side where his tent stood. Deeper into the trees, deeper. Slowly, its glow spread, lighting his way through the denser trees, but more like a mist than the light the Lady had shed with the elvenhome or Paksenarrion’s clear and brilliant light. It blurred the details of the figure, but his certainty that it was elven in origin—alive or not—drew him on.

“Who are you?” he asked, pitching his voice to reach the figure.

“Who do you want me to be?” came the answer.

Kieri shut his mouth but felt the wish pour out of him as if the figure had opened a door in his heart. Mother.

A soft sigh reached him and then a gentle chuckle and an indistinct murmur. For an instant he felt it as soothing, as her hand on his brow, but then a chill ran down his back. He looked around, startled. He had come farther into the trees than he’d realized, out of sight of the shrine, the clearing, the tent where his Squires slept. His mother’s ring glowed brighter on his heart-thumb; the tiny dragon figure writhed. Around his neck, his mother’s torc warmed. Did it move a little? He wasn’t sure. He realized he had stopped walking; he stood half-mazed, feeling coils of power wrap him round.

White mist swirled toward him, faster than the figure had ever moved. “She’s dead,” a voice said, its sweetness cloying. He had heard that voice before. He struggled to remember, though it seemed fog filled his mind as well as the forest. “Poor little boy … you still miss her…”

Kieri’s hand found his sword hilt before he thought of moving; the green jewel in it blazed. His mind cleared; the power clinging to him lessened. As he drew it a few fingerwidths, his own light rose, holding back the other’s misty tendrils. Now he could see, within the mist, the figure running toward him. For the first time he recognized—

“You,” he said. The elf-maid who had sought him out, who claimed to be his mother’s friend, whose proposal had chilled his loins. Understanding came in a rush, before she said a word: here was the traitor. He had only a moment to thank Falk that Arian had not drunk the potion she’d brought, before he saw that she wore elven mail and carried a sword of her own. On her head she wore jewels he remembered on the Lady’s head.