“I know.”

“And you know that there is no easy road back to your land from here.”

“I know.”

Mór stared directly into his eyes for a long time, long enough that it grew hard for him to return her gaze. Dariel felt his eyes moisten, but he did not blink or break the exchange. “It may be that you and I are both realists. Dreamers, too, I think. But realists as well. You cannot go to your land right now. I cannot accomplish the single greatest thing I hope to right now either. I’ll tell you this, though. If the day comes that our work here is done, I will go with you to your lands. I will hunt until each and every Auldek is dead. And if I have my way, I’ll be able to look into my brother’s eyes before he fades from life. That’s a dream of mine.”

She broke the stare as if it were nothing. “Come then,” the woman said matter-of-factly. She showed him her back, and began to descend the granite slope.

Dariel watched her go for a moment, and then lifted his gaze and looked toward the setting sun, across the crowns of trees, verdant green, gilded beneath a flaming sky. He had the impulse to turn and look back over the route they had traveled, or make eye contact with Tunnel or Skylene, but for some reason he felt the need to look only forward. He began walking, feeling the slope of the stone under his feet. He followed Mór in search of her beautiful land, populated by wild things and free people.

C HAPTER
F IFTY-ONE

The night before she rose to attempt the greatest works of sorcery she had ever tried, Corinn had a dream. She awoke feeling it heavy with import, dripping with guilt. She had relived an afternoon earlier that spring, when she and Aaden had ridden together in a carriage bringing them down from Calfa Ven. The boy, as often happened, became sick from the jostling of the wheels over the rough stones. His face went pale and he sat for a time, percolating the stew that, as if on cue, erupted from him as they started down one particularly steep section of switchbacks.

Corinn hated the scent of vomit. It filled her nostrils like a taint of something poisonous. She had never been able to deal with this type of sickness, and she had not on the day she dreamed of. Instead, she got out of the carriage at the first opportunity, leaving maids to care for her son as she walked for a while in the mountain air, clearing her lungs.

That much of the dream was just a version of events that actually had happened, a small and inconsequential event one afternoon in the mountains. What happened next had not happened in actual life. It couldn’t. The players had not all been alive on that day.