As the twilight deepened and night set in, she prepared herself for the long wait until the hour just before sunrise, when she assumed the Shade of Allanon would come—if it were coming at all. So she was surprised when in the first hour of true night, the waters of the Hadeshorn abruptly began to boil and steam, and the familiar sluggish swirling began its slow, clockwise motion. The voices of the dead lifted and intensified, filling the air and blanketing the valley in a harsh cacophony. The waters heaved in response, and hundreds of white forms rose through the surface and into the air, circling like birds.

She sat up quickly and clambered to her feet, shocked by the unexpectedness of it, wondering why Allanon was coming so soon.

Then his shade was there, a knife blade skimming the waters in a smooth, clean motion, a two-dimensional form that quickly broadened into something more substantial. Soon he dwarfed her once more, grown into a giant, gliding to a halt before her, hanging just above the waters, his black-cloaked form motionless. She could see his dark face and the strange glimmer of his eyes as they fixed on her, and she felt her heart go cold. The eyes held her pinned against the valley’s obsidian floor, and even if she had tried she could not have moved away.

–Ard Rhys. I have spoken with Aleia Omarosian. She hides much from me and what she tells me cannot be entirely trusted. But I will tell it to you anyway. You will judge for yourself and do what you feel you must–

She waited, breathless. The shade seemed to be considering what it would say.

–What was written in the diary is true. It happened as she wrote it. She left the diary for her parents to find, after she was gone. She would not say where she had gone or why. But her early death suggests she knew her life was almost over. She was leaving, and she did not want to leave without telling her parents what she had done–

So it was real. Khyber was strangely exhilarated. “Did she know anything of where the Elfstones were? Or what happened to them after the Darkling boy took them?”

–She said they were lost to people like herself–

“To the dead?”

The shade seemed to hesitate, as if uncertain.

–No. She meant something else–

“Are they destroyed?” She found herself pressing for an answer. “What did she mean by ‘lost’? Lost in what way?”

The waters hissed as if echoing the dark emotions of the shade, and she could see anger and impatience reflected in its face.

–I am telling you what I know, Ard Rhys. It is for you to discover the rest. I will not put words in your mouth or thoughts in your mind that you have not conjured up yourself–