"Aye," came the chorus, just as weary.

"Aye as well," Ryin said, looking a little put out. "But we could have voted first, that's all I'm trying to say."

"We could also string you up by that high beam there," Vaste said, pointing his staff toward a piece of wood that extended out of a broken structure, "by your feet, so you were just a few feet above the ground, and then we could take turns thumping you with this," he brandished the white staff, "or something suitably blunt, until you stopped being so G.o.ds-d.a.m.ned contentious all the time. It could take a while, I'll be the first to admit, but I think we'll all agree it's worth it once it's done-and perhaps during every single satisfying whack of the wood against your thick gourd-"

"That's about enough of that," Cyrus said, waving a hand to cut him off. "We'll garrison the pa.s.s, help King Danay move his soldiers down to reinforce us, and-" He paused as a dark elven man in a white robe approached, his hands pushed inside his heavy sleeves. Cyrus squinted, trying to recognize the fellow, but he was utterly unfamiliar. "Yes? I'm sorry, we're in the middle of an officer meeting at present-"

"I don't mean to interrupt," he said, and his face was long as he pushed back his hood. Cyrus heard a squeal of surprise and turned to see Erith smiling broadly at the dark elf. "I only came to speak to Administrator Tiernan."

"Dahveed Thalless," Cattrine said with subtle bow. "What brings you to Emerald Fields on ..." Her gaze ran over the smoking wreckage around them; the fires had mostly burned out or been put out by this point. "Well, now?"

"I come with the condolences of the Sovereign," the healer said, bowing deeply. His accent was unusual. "As one of your chief trading partners-" Cyrus stiffened at that, "-he directs me to offer you skilled carpenters as well as whatever other aid you might need from the Sovereignty."

"Terian-wait-what?" Cyrus shook his head. He rubbed at his forehead with a bare hand and it came back smudged with dried blood and ash. "You trade with-" Cyrus stared at Cattrine, who looked back at him flatly. "You hate him." He spun to look at Curatio, who was standing, quite still, just across the circle. "I'm not-am I losing my mind? She hated him, didn't she?"

"Many things have changed since our days in Luukessia, Guildmaster," Cattrine said, still without a hint of emotion. "The Sovereign of Saekaj and Sovar bought a considerable amount of our first harvest of the season only a few months back."

Cyrus turned to say something to Vara, but her ears were red enough at the tips that he stopped himself before he did. She knows something of this. His eyes narrowed and flitted to Curatio. So does he. He turned to look at Vaste and found the troll already shrugging with a plainly feigned innocence. "We'll discuss this later," Cyrus said and quickly dropped the subject.

"Is there anything we can do for you immediately?" the healer, Dahveed Thalless asked. He spoke with a slow cadence, and his eyes found Erith mid-sentence and offered a smile of his own, something rea.s.suring and laced with a kindness that Cyrus did not immediately a.s.sociate with dark elves, save perhaps J'anda.

"We have need of strong hands," Cattrine said. "To help clear the rubble and build anew, to help harvest more lumber in the east, and ..." Her voice drifted off, and for a moment Cyrus was certain she would fall over on her feet, she looked so dazed and tired.

"We will send help immediately," Dahveed said with a bow. "We have many eager to work from Sovar, and with our first seed planted above Saekaj and Sovar for the season, plenty of hands to send in aid. The first will begin to arrive in hours." With that, he bowed once more, met Cyrus's eyes for only a second, offering an enigmatic smile, and then moved away from the circle. Cyrus watched him walking back to a curious-looking man who seemed like some sort of druid, perhaps. His long hair was pulled back in a queue that hung to his belt, and he sat on air, a Falcon's Essence spell keeping him aloft. Dahveed spoke to him in low tones for a moment, and the man nodded, then disappeared in the light of a return spell.

"You look like you wish to say something, Lord Davidon." Cattrine's voice nudged him out of his observation of the dark elven healer.

"I have nothing to add of note," Cyrus said, shaking his head. "You'll need help, as much as you can get, and our army is hardly of great use in rebuilding. At destroying, perhaps, but not rebuilding." He let his gaze drift to Erith, who broke away from the circle of officers and moved toward Dahveed, leaving them behind without so much as a word. She, too, looked tired from the night's exertions, from their efforts at bringing back the dead and healing the wounded. She fell into conversation with the dark elven man so easily that Cyrus knew there was some long a.s.sociation there. "All I have left are only questions I'm too tired to ask at present, and that you're not obligated to answer in any case," Cyrus finished.

"Yes," Cattrine said. Her voice expressed weariness and choked desperation, but she was strong enough and skilled enough at hiding it that she smothered it before even another breath of it came out. "We will need help. Again."

As for Cyrus, he looked over the town all around, the smoking wreckage, at the h.e.l.l he had once more indirectly inflicted on these people, and as he caught Vara's eye he knew she saw the truth in his.

When will these days of war finally end?

Days pa.s.sed under sunny and cloudless skies. Cyrus spent the majority of them in the central tower of Sanctuary, in and out of Council meetings, and few enough actually out in the world, either at the Heia Pa.s.s or in the Emerald Fields aiding the reconstruction. He had been at the site twice in the last week, enough to satisfy himself that he had no skill to contribute, and once to the garrison in the pa.s.s to inspect the preparations. That was dull work, and when Martaina made her report to tell him that nothing had come through since the t.i.tans almost a fortnight ago, it was enough for him to gladly make his retreat back to the Tower of the Guildmaster.

Now he stood in the middle of the breezy s.p.a.ce, all four balconies open to the gusts from the Plains of Perdamun, and looked out onto the gra.s.slands below. There were still tents within the curtain wall, the last of the Emerald Fields refugees who had been evacuated after the attack seemingly content to shelter on the Sanctuary grounds. There were children, there were the aged and infirm, those who would not or could not fight. Whole divisions of the Luukessian cavalrymen were sweeping the southern end of the Elven Kingdom even now, making certain that not so much as a single t.i.tan remained north of the mountainous divide between the southern lands of their residence and the north, which desired them not.

"You sulk, still," Vara said as the door to the tower opened. The elf ascended up through the narrow slit that held the stairs. He did not turn to greet her, merely c.o.c.ked his head in response to her observation, letting the wind stir his hair as he stood with gauntlets clenched behind him.

"There's little else to do," Cyrus said, looking north and catching movement at the portal in the distance. A single figure, ahorse, rode south toward the Sanctuary gates, a traveling cloak billowing grandly behind them. It was blue, the color of the Torrid Sea off the sh.o.r.es before the tideturn where the currents grew rough, and it caught his eye as it moved against the dark green gra.s.ses of the plain.

"There is much to do, Guildmaster," she said, coming to stand just behind his shoulder. "Always so much to do, as well you know."

"There's little I want to do, then," Cyrus said, turning his head to regard her with his careful stare. Surely she knows what I want to do, truly.

"Oh, you're not back to that again, are you?" She eyed him. "Because we can, but I'd rather either wait until the fall of night and douse the lamps, or else close these doors and draw the curtains, because last time Vaste made the rudest comment after apparently overhearing us-"

"Not that," Cyrus said, waving her off in frustration. He paused. "Well ... maybe later," he conceded. "But I meant ..." He lowered his voice, ashamed, "... revenge."

"Ah, the p.r.i.c.kly path," Vara said, eyebrows arching even as her face fell a notch. "I had a.s.sumed you would bring it up before now."

"I a.s.sumed you'd a.s.sume it before now," Cyrus said, turning to look back over the plains. The figure on the horse was gone, in the shadow of the tower by this time. "In the past, you've never hesitated to think me certain to snap straight to vengeance."

"In the past, I was not sharing your bed," Vara said with enough crispness to remind him of a fall day, "and I had not seen you pa.s.s on nearly so many opportunities as you have in the past few years." Her voice softened. "Besides, I a.s.sumed you would consult the Council and perhaps myself before launching a full-scale invasion of Kortran."

"You knew I'd want to, though, didn't you?" He bowed his head slightly.

"You wouldn't be Cyrus Davidon if you didn't want to strike back at those who did harm to your own," she said quietly. She looked around, as though she were afraid someone were watching. "You wouldn't be the man I've come to care for if you didn't possess that finely honed protective instinct, as though all Arkaria were under your wing."

"It's not all Arkaria," he said. "But it is a people I feel a great obligation to." He strained as hot anger bubbled up. "They'd just become independent, just gotten their feet underneath them, and now-" He pulled his hand out of his gauntlet and wiped a sweaty palm over his upper lip, freshly shaven. "G.o.ds, the timing. Why now?"

"Because this was the moment the t.i.tans chose to be enormous jacka.s.ses, presumably."

"Who taught them magic?" Cyrus asked, turning to face her. "Something is amiss here. The t.i.tans are not a civilized people, they don't have Leagues, and they've never had magic instruction until now-"

"Something is amiss, I agree," Vara said, nodding. "But to a.s.sume some nefarious evil at the heart of this is ... well, it's a bit much, as such things go." She cracked the faintest smile. "I know it won't stop you from blaming yourself, but long before you came into the picture, the t.i.tans were more than happy to strike through the pa.s.s. In fact, if you recall-"

"Alaric lost his wife to Talikartin," Cyrus said, memory jarred loose by Vara's mere suggestion.

"Yes," Vara said, her voice suddenly ghostly in its reduction to near-whisper. "He did."

Cyrus stared down at her, their difference in height somehow all the more striking in this moment. "I fear it, you know."

"You don't have a wife," she said, playfully, an impish smile returning to her features, but still somehow less cheerful than it might have been a few moments before.

"Yet," he said, and smiled back at her. "I-" A knock sounded at the door, causing him to frown. "Yes?" he called.

The door at the base of the stairs clicked open a crack to reveal a ranger, a human, thin and wiry with dark hair. "There's an envoy to see you, sir," she said, breathless from the ascent.

"From where?" Cyrus asked, frowning. He glanced at Vara, but she maintained her distance.

"Amti, sir."

"I'll be down in a few minutes," Cyrus said, pondering that one, "a.s.semble the-"

"Orders already went out, sir," the ranger said. "The envoy asked to meet with all of you."

Cyrus felt his eyebrow rise. "Did they? How ... presumptuous of them." Giving orders already? I can't imagine what sort of arrogant prig this elf must be- "The order to a.s.semble came from Lord Curatio, sir," the ranger said. "He and Larana are speaking to the envoy even now." The ranger lowered her voice, like she was pa.s.sing on some form of forbidden knowledge. "They seem to know this lady envoy quite well, if I may say so."

"What?" Cyrus blinked and looked at Vara, who held a look of undisguised curiosity of her own. "And yes, you may say so, along with anything else you know that might shed light on this mysterious envoy before I meet them face to face. What's your name, young lady?"

The lady ranger paused for a moment, slipping just a little further inside the door. "Carisse Sevoux, m'lord. Of the Riverlands."

Cyrus watched her, could see the bubbling excitement beneath her youthful facade. It was not well hidden. "Spill it, Carisse Sevoux. Who am I dealing with?"

"Only caught her name, sir," Sevoux said with a hint of pride. "Said it was Cora."

It took Cyrus a moment more to get there than it did Vara, who stiffened immediately. He started to reach out for her, but the elven paladin was already in motion, sprinting toward the stairs. Carisse Sevoux scarcely had time to dodge out of the way, flattening against the wall of the stairway trench before Vara shot past, her armored boots clanging hard with every step.

"It would appear Lady Vara knows this envoy as well," Sevoux said as she pulled herself off the wall, lithe figure balancing on the tips of her toes, silent.

"She should," Cyrus said, taking a breath as he moved toward the stairs himself. "I feel like I know her as well, though we've never met."

Sevoux looked up at him, tanned face perplexed. "Sir?"

"Cora is the last surviving founder of Sanctuary," Cyrus said, making his way down the stairs and opening the door for Carisse Sevoux, whose mouth opened just a hint in surprise. Can't say I'm not surprised either, Cyrus thought as he let the ranger walk through the door first before stepping through and pulling it shut behind him. "And as far as I know, this is the first time she's set foot in this place in ... years."

Cyrus decided he liked Cora immediately, though it would have been hard not to. She was an elf, of course, but with hair that was a l.u.s.trous auburn, an unusual shade for elves in Cyrus's experience. It reminded him of autumn foliage in the north for some reason, and her handshake was firm, her eyes clear and hazel when he looked into them. There was also a hint of familiarity about her in that regal bearing, the august presence he'd come to expect from elves. The dark blue cloak that she wore drawn about her shoulders hid spell caster vestments from his sight, hinting only that they were there by the small bit that stuck out of the collar.

"It is good to be back in this place," Cora said in a light voice, less serious than many of the elves he'd met. They stood in the Council Chamber, around the table, with an extra chair pulled up to accommodate their guest. "Though it has changed considerably since last I was here." She looked around the room with an appraising eye. "The table was smaller then, I think."

"Same table," Cyrus said, settling back in his enormously high-backed chair. Suddenly he felt the pressure of the Guildmaster medallion strung round his neck, and felt self-conscious about the chair he was inhabiting. When she was an officer of this guild, I was not even a member. Now I am the Master of Sanctuary and she is not even a member. Sometimes I forget the history of this place predates me by some considerable margin. "We haven't replaced it."

"Indeed?" Cora looked it over again. "Memory is a most malleable thing, I suppose, making days that were a struggle seem like halcyon stuff after a sufficient distance of years. Merely shrinking a Council Chamber seems an easy task compared to that." She forced a smile. "I am sad to say that I recognize few enough of the faces around me."

"But a few of us recognize yours," J'anda said with a smile of his own, warm, sincere and genuine.

"Oh, J'anda," Cora said with a tinge of regret. "It does my heart ill to see you this way."

"You would have outlived me in any case," J'anda said, but now his smile was tinged with sadness. "Such is the fate of you elder elves."

Curatio cleared his throat. "Who are you calling elder, exactly?"

Cora glanced over at him. "Did that finally come out, then, oh, ageless healer?"

Curatio looked chastened for a moment. "Indeed. It was quite dramatic in the way it did."

Cyrus watched the interplay between the two of them and felt a faint aura of suspicion. She knew he was one of the Old Ones? That was a closely guarded secret until just three years ago. Cora's eyes met his, cool, composed, and he wondered not for the first time what exactly he faced in this elven woman. How many secrets did the founding members of this guild know that even I am not aware of?

And how many did-does-Alaric keep still, wherever he may be?

"I apologize for coming to you in this manner, and at this hour," Cora said. She dropped her gaze to the table and ran her fingers over the smooth grains of the wood.

"The dinner hour is always a poor time for a meeting," Vaste agreed. "Second only to the breakfast hour and just behind the lunching one, or on the afternoon occasions when Larana decides to bake fresh fruit pies-"

"Vaste," Cyrus said, taking up the Guildmaster's sworn duty to rope the troll back on topic.

"The smell of tart apples, sugar and pastry crust fill the air in the foyer, like magic wafting off the fingers of an expert caster-"

"Vaste," Curatio said, somewhat more sternly.

"I'm hungry," the troll said, more than a little plaintively. He sulked for a few seconds then looked to Cora. "Oh, fine, then, proceed. I'll just sit here, starving. Ignore my stomach's rumblings."

"Just as easily as I ignore the rumblings of the rest of you," Cora said a bit playfully, poking at the troll. "As I was saying ... the timing is poor for my approach, and yet necessary. Word of what happened in your protectorate of Emerald Fields has reached our ears in Amti-"

"I'm sorry," Samwen Longwell said, and Cyrus detected a hint of danger lurking behind the dragoon's eyes, "but I can't recall hearing of this 'Amti' place that you represent. It's not on the maps of Arkaria that I've studied."

"Amti is a colony of elves in the southern lands, beyond the Heia Pa.s.s," Odellan said, leaning forward, his winged helm gleaming upon the table and his blond hair in perfect order this day. "They were founded roughly a century ago to exploit some of the resources discovered in the Jungle of Vidara-"

"What sort of resources?" Longwell asked.

"I'd be curious to know that, myself," Ryin added, casting a look around the table. "Especially as they're not terribly far from Kortran, and I'd imagine the t.i.tans give them some considerable amount of trouble."

"Considerable is understating it," Cora said, leaning back in her seat, her cloak spilling open to reveal robes of the deepest blue, more cerulean than her dark cloak. "What resources we harvest are sent back to the Heia Pa.s.s in convoys that only made it roughly one out of five times, until recently."

"Good G.o.ds," J'anda murmured.

"Why keep sending them, then?" Vaste asked.

"Because they have to pay their taxes," Nyad said, drawing every eye in the room. "They're a protectorate of the Elven Kingdom. It is required."

"They don't sound terribly protected," Vaste said.

"We're not," Cora agreed, looking quite comfortable where she sat. "We live under constant threat. The only reason the t.i.tans have not destroyed us utterly is that the town of Amti remains safely hidden." She drew a sharp breath then let it out in a hiss. "But I do not believe it will remain so for much longer."

"You have traitors," Cyrus said, and she snapped around to look at him.

Cora watched him carefully, as though she could read his thoughts. "Know that, do you?"

"The last time I was in Kortran," Cyrus said, "we caught an elf named Erart there. He claimed to be a prisoner."

"Good memory, remembering his name like that," Vaste said. "I confess I'm surprised; as many times as you've died and been resurrected, I'm surprised you didn't lose that trivial bit of knowledge."

Cyrus felt a sudden tightness in his chest. "It doesn't seem to be the trivial bits of knowledge that are lost in resurrection." He shifted his gaze back to Cora. "Have there been others?"

"Probably," she said. "Captives from the caravans we send that are ambushed, desperately seeking to survive in any way they can. Frustrated outcasts searching out favor they will never find from the t.i.tans."

"How have they not betrayed you yet?" Cyrus asked. "Being in Kortran, as prisoners or traitors-it would seem they'd have to give away your secret."

"No," she said, looking just a bit proud, though it was mixed with a coyness that Cyrus found strangely compelling. "They can't."