Heilyn spoke for the first time. “He has made the winter then? This is known?”

“It is known,” Enroth replied. “And another thing is known. The Baelrath blazed two nights ago. Not in Fionavar, but it was on fire.”

They stirred at that. “The Seer?” Lyse ventured. “In her world?”

“So it would seem,” Enroth said. “Something new is threading across the Loom.”

“Or something very old,” Ra-Tenniel amended, and the Eldest bowed his head.

“Then why do we wait?” Galen cried. Her rich singer’s voice carried to the others on the slopes of Atronel. A murmur like a note of music came to the six of them by the throne.

“We do not, once we are agreed,” Ra-Tenniel replied. “Is it not bitterest irony that we who are named for Light should have been forced to cloak our land in shadow for this thousand years? Why should Daniloth be named the Shadowland? Would you not see the stars bright over Atronel, and send forth our own light in answer back to them?”

The music of agreement and desire was all about them on the mound. It carried even careful Lydan, and he, too, let his eyes reach crystal as Ra-Tenniel made the throne shine full bright, and, speaking the words necessary, he undid the spell Lathen Mistweaver had woven after the Bael Rangat. And the lios alfar, the Children of Light, sang then with one voice of praise to see the stars undimmed overhead, and to know that all over the northland of Fionavar the shining of Daniloth would illuminate the night for the first time in a thousand years.

It exposed them, of course, which was the gallant purpose of what they did. They made themselves a lure, the most tantalizing lure there could ever be, to draw Rakoth Maugrim down from Starkadh.

All night they stayed awake. No one would sleep, not with the stars to see, and then the waxing moon. And not with their borders open to the north, where they knew the Unraveller would be upon his towers among the Ice, seeing their taunting, iridescent glow. They sang in praise of the light, that their clear voices might reach him, too, and clearest of them all sang Ra-Tenniel, Lord of the lios alfar.

In the morning they put back the Mistweaver’s shadowing. Those sent to keep watch by the borders returned to Atronel to report that a mighty storm was howling southward over the bleak, empty Plain.

Light is swifter than wind. In the country south of Rienna the Dalrei saw the glow above Daniloth as soon as it went up. The newest storm would take some time to reach them.

Which is not to say it wasn’t cold enough on watch by the gates where Navon of the third tribe took his turn on guard. Being a Rider among the Dalrei was still a glorious thing for one who had seen his animal so recently, but there were less pleasant aspects to it for a fourteen-year-old, staring out into the white night for wolves while the wind tore at his eltor cloak, seeking the thin bones underneath.