When sunset approached and she was awake again and at least marginally rested, she rose and ate and drank from her small supply of provisions. She had come prepared to spend more than a single day in her efforts to summon one among the dead who would help her. That it was Allanon who had appeared had given her hope and raised her expectations that her needs were recognized and embraced. It was only in the unsettling aftermath of their talk that she wondered if she had been mistaken.

But she resumed her place at the water’s edge and waited as he had commanded, hopeful that this time she might gain more from their meeting. If he reappeared at all, she added, her doubts nudging at her like a rock in her boot pressing into her sole. The sun slipped below the horizon and a scattering of stars came out. Khyber settled herself to wait, recounting over and over what she knew about Aleia Omarosian and the theft of the Stones.

Doubts plagued her, and for the first time a sense of inadequacy took root. She was Ard Rhys and a proven leader with years of life experience in the study and use of magic. She had survived much during those years and had guided the Druid order with a steady hand. But her followers were few and mostly untested. They were brave and they were committed, but they were also young. Pleysia, at thirty-six, was the oldest, and that was not old at all. Even if Khyber found a way to go and was given a map to follow, how dangerous would it be to make the journey, and how prepared were her Druids to undertake it? She did not feel easy in her heart at the thought of it; she did not think them much prepared at all.

But then others before her had undertaken equally dangerous challenges and completed them. Others had faced terrible risks and overcome them—many much younger even than Aphenglow. She shouldn’t assume it would be different this time. She shouldn’t be too quick to think that her followers were unequal to what might be demanded of them. They couldn’t know what they were capable of until they were actually tested. None of them.

One day soon, they would find out, and she wasn’t particularly eager for that day to come.