She trooped back through the trees and grasses, muttering to herself and thinking that they had all been ill served in the venture, starting with the questionable decision by the King of the Silver River to entrust the rescue of the Ard Rhys to Pen. Not that she doubted Pen’s courage, but he was only a boy, much younger even than she and totally lacking in skills or magic. That he was still alive at all after what had happened to them was something of a miracle. Look how many of their company had died instead, including the most talented and experienced of them all.

But it didn’t do her any good to think that way—to suggest that in some way Ahren Elessedil had died without reason—and she put the matter aside. Her doubts and fears could not be placed at the feet of others. If she was worried or afraid, she would have to find another way of dealing with it.

She thought it odd how things had changed since she had left Emberen. There, her chief concern had been in determining how and when to reveal to Ahren her theft of the Elfstones so that he wouldn’t take them back until she had learned to use them. Now that the Elfstones were hers to keep for as long as she chose, she wanted nothing more than to be able to give them back.

Thinking she might as well wish she could fly for all the good it would do her, she kicked at the earth as she walked. She was in until the end, which meant at least until Pen had returned to Paranor and gone into the Forbidding to find his aunt. Even then, she would not be free to go home again until Pen reappeared safely. Probably, she should go with him. After all, they only had the word of the King of the Silver River that she couldn’t, and there was good reason to question anything the Faerie creature had told them.

The sun slid down into the peaks, coloring the horizon in the wake of its passing, leaving the depthless bowl of the sky dark with night’s approach. She cast wary glances left and right as she walked, using her Druid skills to make certain she was not being tracked by anything unfriendly. The Urdas might have chosen to come around the walls at the front of the ruins in an effort to get at them from the sides.