Brendel shook his head wearily. “I could not hear their words. Black Avaia took her north. Could I have stayed her flight, I would have died to do so. Oh, believe me,” the lios alfar’s voice faltered. “Your grief is mine, and mine may tear the fabric of my soul apart. Twenty of my people have died, and it is in my heart that they are not the last. We are the Children of Light, and the Dark is rising. I must return to Daniloth. But,” and now his voice grew strong again, “an oath I will swear before you now. She was in my care. I shall find her, or avenge her, or die in the attempt.” And Brendel cried then, so that the Great Hall echoed to the sound: “We shall fight them as we did before! As we always have!”

The words rang among them like a stern bell of defiance, and in Kevin Laine they lit a fire he did not know lay within him.

“Not alone!” he cried, his own voice pitched to carry. “If you share my grief, I will share yours. And others here will, too, I think.”

“Aye!” boomed Matt Sören beside him.

“All of us!” cried Diarmuid, Prince of Brennin. “When the lios are slain in Brennin, the High Kingdom goes to war!”

A mighty roar exploded at those words. Building and building in a wave of fury it climbed to the highest windows of Delevan and resounded through the hall.

It drowned, quite completely, the despairing words of the High King.

“Oh, Mörnir,” whispered Ailell, clutching his hands together in his lap. “What have I done? Where is Loren? What have I done?”

There had been light, now there was not. One measured time in such ways. There were stars in the space above the trees; no moon yet, and only a thin one later, for tomorrow would be the night of the new moon.

His last night, if he lived through this one.

The Tree was a part of him now, another name, a summoning. He almost heard a meaning in the breathing of the forest all around him, but his mind was stretched and flattened, he could not reach to it, he could only endure, and hold the wall of memory as best he might.

One more night. After which there would be no music to be laid open by, no highways to forget, no rain, no sirens, none, no Rachel. One more night at most, for he wasn’t sure he could survive another day like the last.

Though truly he would try: for the old King, and the slain farmer, and the faces he’d seen on the roads. Better to die for a reason, and with what one could retain of pride. Better, surely, though he could not say why.