His boots on the stairs made a sound similar to someone knocking on a door. He came off the landing to the second floor and saw her waiting for him at the door to her room, leaning against the frame with her hands behind her, a sly smile resting on her lips that-had this been only minutes before-would have excited him beyond belief at the possibilities.

Now he only wanted to ask questions.

He walked toward her, all thought of her posture gone, the memory of the kisses they'd shared far out of his mind. He brushed past her, eliciting a look of confusion as he strode into the room and stood at the window. "What?" she asked.

He did not look back. "Were you listening?"

"I am not so rude as my mother," she said, creeping up behind him and placing a hand upon his back. "It takes concentration to eavesdrop; I chose not to."

"I see," he said, quiet. "Your father reminisced about the day you were born. Except he didn't say born, because he couldn't remember it; he used the elvish word, trying to bring its human counterpart to mind." Even through his armor, he felt the pressure from her hand increase subtly. "Shelas'akur," he said with a mirthless laugh. "I had it all wrong."

She pulled away. "Not entirely."

"You had to be laughing when I said it the first time," he said, shaking his head. "I was so sure it was 'last hope'."

"It is," she said, "and I did not laugh at you because of it. Not only because we were in no position to be laughing at the time, with Niamh dead just moments before, but because you were close-too close-to the truth of it."

Cyrus felt his hand reach up and grasped at a piece of the window frame, plucking a splinter from it. "How was I close?"

She walked the length of the room, back to the chair she had been in the day before when they had talked. "It's a funny trick of language," she said, hands curled up in her lap. "Thirty or so years ago, the meaning of 'shelas' was 'born'. And then, suddenly, on the day of my birth, it was 'hope' and has been ever after." She let go the trace of a smile. "It's a funny thing."

He turned to her. "There are no more elven children, are there?"

"I am the last," she said in a ghostly voice, hollow. "The last of the pure-blood elves; the shelas'akur. The last born."

"It's what keeps bothering me about this city; there are almost no kids playing in the streets! That's why there are so few children in Termina," Cyrus said. "It's why all the ones I've seen have been half-elves."

"Yes," she said in the same voice. "Humans have become the most popular mating choice for elven women, since elven men can no longer produce children."

"How..." His mouth was filled with the dry dust of the revelation. "How is that?"

She placed her hands on the arm of the chair and used her grip to pull herself to her feet. "No one is sure, but I can say for certain that the Elven Kingdom has not produced a viable generation in over a thousand years. There were fewer and fewer births over the last millennium, until, after my sister's generation-about 1500 children spread out over the course of 300 years-they stopped entirely." She held her chin high. "There was a 250 year gap with no births, not a single one-and then, mysteriously, thirty years ago..."

"You were born." His hand was on his chin, and he was deep in thought. "But why the secret? Why hide this from everyone? Perhaps the humans or someone else could help?"

She laughed at him, but there was no joy in it. "They are the reason we did not tell anyone, the other races. Our lack of ability in breeding puts us at a dreadful disadvantage, wouldn't you say? For every elf killed in a war, we cannot replace them. In a thousand years," she said with doom, "we will have no army-and no Kingdom left because all who remain will be too old to defend it."

"But I've seen children," he said. "Hybrids. Can't they help carry on for your people?"

"Don't say that in front of my mother," she said with a wistful smile. "It may come to that, but let us face it-children of two worlds, humans and elves, for example, do not live as long and they have just as much blood tying them to Reikonos as to Pharesia. That's to say nothing of the complete and utter desperation it has produced in elven men. Even with human women they are infertile; thus it falls to the elven women to propagate what is left of the species-well." She grimaced. "Almost."

"Almost?" He shook his head, staggered at all he had learned in the last half-hour.

"I am the last hope." Her bearing was straight and regal. "There has been a great deal of interest-and pressure-on me."

Cyrus felt a tingle across his scalp as the full weight of what she said hit him. "They want you to...uh..."

She stared at him with grim amusement. "You've got the right of it. My mother would have me, the last born of the elven race, mate with a good pure blood elf as soon as I reach the age of elven maturity, if not sooner." A sneer of disgust drove her beauty away for a flash. "And gods know, there have certainly been enough offers, for when the time comes; high born, low born, royals. 'Just lay back and think of Pharesia,' is my mother's advice." Clouds darkened her face. "I had other intentions for my life, which is why I left."

"Do you still?" His words were quiet, but almost accusatory. "Have other plans?"

"Yes," she replied, just above a whisper. He heard the soft ruffle of her dress as she moved closer to him. "A bit...worse for the wear of late, but I still have...hopes...dreams...things I would like to accomplish. I think..." Her hands found his breastplate and laid there. "...I may find some fight left in me, once I get past this trial." She looked up at him, and though some of the despair had returned, there was hope in her eyes as well. She kissed him again, this time gentle and short. "I am somewhat vulnerable right now, as you pointed out. I hope you find it acceptable to...take things slowly."

Ignoring that his body called out for her, cried for him to sweep her up in his arms and carry to her to the bed, he answered, "That's fine. We can take things as slow as you want."

"Thank you," she said, taking his hands with her own. "I would not have what I hope to be pleasant thoughts and memories of our time together compromised by all the disasters currently upon us."

Our time together. He froze, thinking of the fact that their time together, however long it lasted, would be limited by his lifespan, not hers. He put it aside. She has enough on her mind. Let's not bring any more doubts and fears to add to the pile.

"I'm going to go speak with my father," she said. "Will you wait for me?"

"Of course." He bowed to her, exaggerated, and she laughed.

"Do you mock me, sir?"

He tried to contain his smile, but failed. "Must I stop? Because I doubt you'll keep from making witticisms at my expense."

She laughed again. "Do you like the sound of my voice?"

"I do; it's like a pleasant ringing of bells or the tinkling of a windchime."

"If you like the sound of it that much, I must continue to make fun of you, else I'd seldom speak." She grinned wickedly.

"You were named for Vidara, weren't you?" He stared down at her; even though she was tall, he was mountainous.

"Aye. Because of the 'miracle' of my birth, they gave thanks to the Goddess of Life."

"Perhaps they should have named you after Terrgendan, God of Mischief."

She slapped him on his shoulder. "The Trickster! He's hideous. What are you trying to say?"

He caught her hand as she raised it to smack him again. "That you're mischievous, that's all."

She drew her hand away and turned to walk out the door, halting after opening it. "Wait for me. I'll be back shortly."

"I've been waiting for you for two years; I doubt another hour or two will make much difference."

She smiled, wicked again. "Perhaps, once this is all over with, we can give you a chance to get all that obsessive staring at feminine nakedness out of your system." She walked away, and beneath the folds of her dress, he watched her hips move with a sway that was much more difficult to notice in armor.

When he emerged from the room a few moments later, the sitting room was empty. I wonder when we'll get these windows fixed, he thought, shivering from the cold. He heard a squeak and a door opened behind him; Isabelle's door. The healer slid into the room, sly smile on her face. She looked at him and shook her head as if to say, See? "You were right," he said.

"Of course," she said, smug.

"I damn you both, your rightness and all else." Chirenya stood at the staircase, fury cloaking her.

Cyrus held his place by the door to Vara's room, unmoving, and unsure which was colder; the anger coming off the woman or the blustery wind coming through the broken windows behind him. "When you thought I was sexually gratifying your daughter you were insulting and demeaning, but not pissed off like this."

"Because then you were but an ignorant ox, unaware of the import of her destiny, of the vital nature of her future." It seemed to Cyrus that a winter storm had swept into the room during the conversation and was swirling around the woman, chilling the air to the coldest he'd felt since he arrived in Termina. "Now you know what's at stake-you know, and you have chosen to act selfishly, all while she's emotionally vulnerable."

"As much as you elves hate to admit it," Cyrus said, grinding out his words with a rough satisfaction, desirous of bursting her arrogance as though it were a full wineskin, "she is a grown woman, capable and mature-"

"By the standards of your child-race," Chirenya snapped back. "You may breed like rabbits in six weeks, but not us. Not elvendom."

"As I understand it, at this point you don't breed at all," Cyrus said. He saw Isabelle cringe at his slight; Chirenya, for her part, simply grew more furious. "Placing the survival of the elven race on her shoulders is hardly fair," he said, pre-empting Vara's mother before she could respond to his jab.

"Too true," Isabelle said. "It's an unfair assumption to think she is immune to the infertility that plagues the rest of our race simply because she's the only elf born in two hundred years."

"It may be unfair, but she could at least try!" Chirenya's words came out as more of screech than a coherent sentence. "You did!"

"With my husband, when I was married, yes. With how many men would you have her try?" Isabelle said, expression laced with irony. "Fifty? One hundred? One thousand?"

"As many as it takes!" Chirenya's eyes were wide with rage, the fury of someone in absolute fear. "As many as it takes to save our race-our way of life-from extinction!"

"Should she bed them all at once, or would it be acceptable to wait a while between attempts?" Isabelle had a tired look, like someone who had had this discussion many times before.

"What do you think, Cyrus?" Vara looked down at them from the stairwell, eyes narrowed. "Being human, your culture has a somewhat different norm, but have you ever before heard of a mother attempt to convince her daughter to become a whore?"

"The situation is grave." Chirenya was quiet now, her eyes lowered. "We stand no chance of survival; you are our-"

"Last hope? Sounds somewhat familiar, as though the words had been repeated so often as to lose all meaning." She trod the stairs, her steps quick, dress whipping behind her. "But being the shelas'akur, perhaps I have a somewhat unique perspective; the men of our race can no longer have children. Not with elven women, not with any race. The women are still fertile, and have babies with humans, dark elves, even a dwarf or gnome, should they be so inclined. Therefore it follows that I am likely fertile, just as the other women of our race are.

"Everyone shouts the name shelas'akur without thinking of the true implications," she went on. "Because if the men are the problem, the only way I'd be a genuine hope to you is if I were a man and fertile."

"You are a symbol," Chirenya said, stepping toward her youngest daughter. "You are something that people can believe in when times are dark. You haven't been here in the last years, you don't know; a people without children, without babies, they have no hope. They watch their friends and neighbors grow old and infirm around them and see no youth and vitality springing up to replace it!"

"I have no desire to be a false symbol." Vara took the last steps to the bottom of the stairs. "I have even less interest in doing so whilst giving up my own freedom of choice. If I want to bed a human man," she pointed at Cyrus, "I shall, and to the hells with anyone who dislikes it. If I someday choose to marry and have children with a human, a dark elf or even a troll-"

"Vaste would be pleased to hear you say that," Cyrus said.

"-then I will do so," she finished. "False hope is worse than none at all, and to believe that I am some miracle that will save the pure-blood elves from this calamity is cruel-to them and to me." She looked to Cyrus. "Would you wait for me outside? I'm in the mood for a walk but I'd like to change first." She brushed past him gently and closed the door to her room. He wordlessly walked past Isabelle, who followed him, and Chirenya, who said nothing, lost in her own thoughts.

When they reached the cellar, Isabelle stopped on the stair above him, causing Cyrus to look back when he heard her footsteps halt. "It's time for me to leave. When you come back, I'll be gone. I wanted to wish you good luck, and..." She stopped, as though unsure of what to say.

The dark pervaded the cellar, but he saw the glint of her hair in the daylight coming from the door, open above them. "I'll protect her," he said.

"You'd better." Her eyes blazed in the dark and he saw her clench her fist. "She's worth fighting for."

He took a step up. "So is Reikonos. Keep her safe for me, will you?"

A cocky smile appeared on her lips. "The dark elves haven't faced the 'Big Three' before. I doubt their armies will know what hit them. We'll send them scurrying back to their mysterious Sovereign so brutally that they'll swear Quinneria herself was leading the Confederation armies again."

"I have no doubt."

She turned but paused, as if she wanted to say something else. Her face was a mixture of regret and sadness. "Please...with Vara, just...be careful."

"With the assassins or with...uh..."

"With both," Isabelle said. Her grace was evident, and she looked statuesque staring down at him, the very picture of elvenly grace. "She still bears the scars of Archenous, and to proceed unduly might...inflame them. Be slow and gentle."

"As much as a simple warrior can muster, m'lady." He nodded to her in respect.

"I know you will. Farewell, Cyrus Davidon." She raised her hand. "I suspect we shall meet again 'ere too long."

"I sincerely hope." He found he meant every word of it; the healer was truly one of the most shrewd and yet sweet persons he had met. I wonder if that comes from being old enough that you're wiser than humans and yet young enough in elven terms to not lose your youthful vitality?

She left him, closing the door as he continued into the cellar. A rough, rumbling laugh greeted him when he stepped through the hole into the other house. "Ice Princess kisses, huh?" Fortin's rocky face could hardly be described as expressive, yet the giant seemed to be leering at him. "Knew you'd get around to it someday. Or was she controlling you with those fleshy mounds on her chest?"

"Someday you'll learn that those fleshy mounds damn near rule Arkaria," Cyrus said, turning his back on the rock giant. "Those and the gods, and I'm honestly not sure which holds more sway."

He reached the street and thought about walking across the street to the other house, to check preparations. No, he told himself. For once I will back off and trust to let the others handle this duty. I will simply...wait.

And he did, the minutes passing as sound came from the broken windows above; argument of some kind, muffled enough that it was not obvious what was being said, just that voices were raised. A slamming door could be heard, and then silence.

Cyrus waited on the walk, the wind swirling around him. He had grabbed his traveling cloak from where he'd hung it by the door on the way out of the house, and it helped. The metal of his armor was growing chill, even through the clothes he wore beneath it. The trees on the street maintained some leaf, though he saw some ice forming in the gutters. He stamped his feet, trying to get warm as he watched his breath fog the air in front of him.

I can't believe I kissed her, he thought, feeling like a young warrior again. I can't believe she kissed me back. I should have done that years ago. The thought warmed him, and then he shivered as he remembered the first time he kissed his wife. This time, things will be different. She's an adventurer, after all. Or at least she was.

The door opened and out Vara stepped, her hair bound once more behind her in a tight knot, the dress gone and replaced with the shining silver breastplate and armor, which sparkled in the light, drawing his attention to her chest. "And still is," he said under his breath.

"Perhaps, eventually, we'll break you of that staring," she said with a smile. "Though hopefully not anytime soon." She held out a mailed hand to him. "Come along then."

He took her hand and fell into step beside her. They walked to the corner of the street, where Thad was positioned, looking toward the Entaras'iliarad with great interest. When Cyrus called out to him, he looked back, then did a double take when he saw Vara's hand conjoined with Cyrus's. "What news, Thad?"

The warrior in the red armor shook his head. "Not sure. Heavy movement down the main thoroughfare to the bridge." He chucked a thumb over his shoulder. "Looks like the citizenry are heading toward the river for some reason."

Cyrus saw, even from blocks away, that there was indeed a massing crowd heading east along the main avenue. Other elves were stepping out of their homes all around and walking in small clusters toward the Entaras'iliarad, talking in hushed voices.

"Any idea what it is?" Cyrus looked around, trying to overhear conversations, but none were audible. He turned to Vara, whose head was cocked in concentration. "What?"

"Shhh." She held a finger up to his lips. He looked to Thad, who nodded approval. A smell of acridness wafted past him, something foul and unpleasant that filled his nostrils, faintly at first, then growing in strength until he could almost taste it, a bitter, burnt flavor in his mouth. Vara continued to listen, her eyes slitted in deep concentration. Chatter of a thousand voices and a far-off tumult to the east were all he could hear, but her finger remained on his lips, pressing softly against them.

After another moment, Vara's head snapped back and she looked stricken as the blood drained from her face. She hesitated then started to say something to him and stopped, her eyes wide.

"What?" He grasped at her arm, holding her as lightly as he could. "What is it?"

When she recovered, she took a deep breath before meeting his gaze. "The dark elves have an army across the river right now." She was nearly breathless from the news, and her eyes conveyed regret for having to tell them. "They're sacking Santir as we speak."

Chapter 29.

"Dammit." Cyrus tried to look east down the cross street they stood on, but it ended in a row of houses on the next road. Small pillars of black smoke hung in the sky above. "It must be the same army that burned Prehorta; the one that's been cutting off the Confederation from the Plains of Perdamun."