«Lost?» Her voice trembled. «Papa and the twins? Kieran and Kiel?» Her voice caught on a sob, and silence fell between them. A moment later, in a firmer voice, she said, «Nei. Nei, if they were gone, I would know it. Half my heart would be dead, but it is not. They are not gone. They cannot be. I will not believe it. Nei.» He could almost see the tilt of her chin, the spark of defiance lighting her eyes. «Someone saw them running for the Mists. That's where they must be. We just have to wait until they make it through, just as you and I did.»

If they found their way out at all. If they did not fall from a cliffand break their necks. If they weren't already captives of the High Mage of Eld. He left the possibilities unspoken. What Fey would rob his mate of hope? «May the gods will it so, shei'tani.»

Bel, Gaelen, and Dev were wolfing down a quick meal and poring over a map Dev had produced. The sounds of battle were growing louder and the calls across the Warriors' Path more numerous. Without him in the sky, the Eld were on the march again, and gaining ground. «I must go.»

«Light keep you safe, shei'tan, and please…please, Rain…wait for the tairen. Give them two more bells.»

He would not make a vow he could not keep, so instead he gave her the vow he would never break. «Ver reisa ku'chae. Kem surah, shei'tani.»

By the time Rain and the others returned to the fight, Lower Orest was black with thousands of Eld troops. In just the brief half bell he'd taken to rest and restore his strength, trebuchets had been positioned in a semicircle around the lower levels of Maiden's Gate, each protected by half a dozen bowcannon aimed at the sky. The Fey had thrown up five-fold shields to protect the defenders, but sel'dor rained down in a ceaseless barrage, and their shields had begun to fail. The trebuchets launched massive hunks of rock and exploding mortars into each breach.

Protected by airborne missiles and magic shields, an entire company of Mages lobbed sphere after enormous sphere of Mage Fire at the defenders. Hundreds vaporized in instants. Half of the first three levels simply disappeared, as if scooped out of the mountainside by the hand of a god.

«Fey!» Rain cried on the Warriors' Path. «Twenty-five-fold weaves! Hold off that Mage Fire.»

He took to the air, twisting and turning as the air around him went black with sel'dor arrows and great barbed spears catapulted from the bowcannon. The arrows were a nuisance.

The massive spears, however, were tairen killers.

«Rain! Bank left! Left!» Bel's scream tore through his mind. Instinctive trust in his oldest friend sent him rolling left, and the bowcannon spear that would have ripped through his chest tore a gaping hole in one wing instead. He barely made it back to Maiden's Gate before his ripped wing gave out. He fell from the sky, crashing right into the center of an Eld attack force.

Fortunately, tairen didn't need wings to breathe flame. The entire level went up in a boiling sea of fire. Screaming Eld leaped from the walls and fell, burning, to their deaths.

Rain Changed and finished off those left with his swords, fighting with delirious fury and roaring in triumph as blood filled the air like hot scarlet rain. His teeth flashed in a savage grin. Bloodlust rose high. Tairen Souls killed with fire at a distance. But this close, intimate dance of death brought the savage predator in him screaming to the surface.

Dead allies were scattered like leaves across the ruins of Orest. Too many of them wore Fey faces. Friends' faces. This battle must stop. Here and now. No matter what.

He Changed again—his wings re-forming whole and untorn—and leapt back into the sky. This time when he dove for the Mages and sel'dor filled the air, he didn't try to dodge the missiles. This time he simply Changed into formless mist and let the spears and arrows fly through him.

The burn still hurt. Some sentient part of Rain scattered to the rainbowed gray cloud of the Change felt the acid brush of sel 'dor against each tiny droplet of his being, but the foul black metal passed through him without doing harm.

When it was gone, he Changed back into the midnight black tairen with death in his eyes, and dove towards the knot of Elden Mages, spewing a furious jet of flame that incinerated everything in its path. The Mages' shields lasted a scant three chimes before crumpling like seared kindling, leaving the hot, fierce licks of tairen fire to consume the vulnerable red- and blue-robed sorcerers beneath. He screamed in triumph, put on a burst of speed, and raced into the sky.

Rain used the same tactic to destroy three of the trebuchets and their flanking bowcannon, but when he swooped down upon the fourth, the Eld had adapted to his attack. Their sel'dor barrage came in a continuous stream rather than a single, dense burst, so that he emerged from the Change into a stream of arrows and took a dozen of the barbed missiles in one side. His flame burned the rest, but as he dove to set fire to the trebuchet, portals opened on every side, revealing bowcannon targeted directly at him.

His body twisted, and four sel'dor spears raked deep cuts in his side as he swept by. Sel'dor nets fired from another two portals, and the weighted wire mesh wrapped tight around him and dropped him to the ground. His attempt to Change to escape the net ended in writhing agony as dozens more sel'dor arrows thunked into his side.

Eld surrounded him, brandishing black metal pikes and barbed blades.

A deafening roar drowned out the cacophony of battle. Bright, boiling clouds of flame burst from the Faering Mists, heralding the arrival of eight great tairen. With screams of fury, they dove towards the battlefield of Lower Orest. Steli led the way, white and fierce, and on her back she carried a slender, shining figure clad in studded scarlet leathers.