She plucked idly at the ribbon she now wore as a sash and stared miserably out at the rain. Cold, clinging and constant, that was rain in Airlann. Rosheen recalled the days when it had not been so. Spring rains had been frequent and refreshing, bringing new life to an innocent world. In Summer, the sky did not often open, but when it did the drops were heavy and warm, sliding seductively down the skin, a wet end to hot days. Rosheen still remembered the dances and feasts and lovemaking of those lost Ages, but she no longer yearned for them as she once did. The ache in her loins had been replaced by pain in her heart as the isle slipped further and further towards a frozen death. Autumn had begun the day the warlocks made themselves masters of the goblin race, stealing the throne and sending the elves into hiding. Chill winds arose, sweeping leaves stained red to match the ceaseless bloodshed over the abandoned bastions of Fae-kind.

Word traveled quickly in those days. The dread news of Penda Blood Coin’s treachery was spread across the isle by fleet riders, the mind speech of mystics, sewn through ancient ley lines, whispered by the woodwose in the forests, and borne by the undine on the wind. Murder. Treason. War. All of Airlann knew within hours and still it had not been enough. The goblins were too many and their human leaders too powerful, swollen with ill-gotten Magic. Centuries of battle, slavery, injustice, starvation and depravity were to rule the isle.

And now will again.

There was no strength left to prevent it. Airlann had backslid into a pastoral wilderness. The human settlements were few and far between, the Fae driven away or in self-imposed isolation. The roads were ruined, the ley lines dissolved, and the woodwose slept. There was no one left to carry the news of the Red Cap uprising. The goblins would control the isle before any sizable resistance could be raised.

No matter. There are none left to fight.

They had such hope when Irial was returned to kingship, trusting that the bleakness so long remembered would be driven away by sun and warmth and song, but it was not to be. The might of the elves continued to wane, and the isle withered with them. The clouds did not lighten, and green did not return to the forests. Many said the death of Princess Aillila was to blame. The king’s grief for his only child was too much to bear, dooming the isle to these endless days of decline. Whatever the cause, the deterioration permeated the Fae peoples.