"I love you, Elle," he said, and slit her throat.

The blood poured out of her throat, not red, but black and stinking of decay. Elle did not move.

"I love you," Gerak said, as the blood flowed. "I love you."

In the last moments, fading pulses of blood oozed from the gash in her throat. Gerak stood and closed her eyes with his hand. His eyes were open but Vasen could see that he saw nothing. The light had gone out of him. He turned, dropped the knife, and walked away from the campsite.

"Gerak," Vasen called.

Gerak slowed but did not turn.

"Can you . . . see to her?" Gerak called back. "I can't. I can't, Vasen."

"I . . . of course," Vasen said.

Gerak nodded and walked off. Sembia's darkness swallowed him. "He should not be out there alone," Orsin said to Vasen.

"He's alone wherever he is," Vasen said.

"He is now," Orsin said. He scribed a line in the ground, circling Elle's body. "An end," Vasen asked.

"A sad one," Orsin acknowledged.

"Will you help me with her?"

"Of course."

Out in the darkness, they heard Gerak begin to wail, prolonged gasps of hopelessness and despair and anger that haunted Vasen while he and Orsin gathered wood for Elle's pyre. They stacked it away from the campsite, and when they had enough, they lifted Elle's body atop it and used embers from the fire to ignite it. The wood caught quickly. Thick black smoke curled into the sky and was lost among Sembia's dark shroud.

The two men stood in the light of the fire paying their respect to a woman they'd never known, to a child who would never be born. Vasen offered a prayer, although the words seemed too small for the occasion. Orsin played his flute.

In time Gerak emerged from the plains. He stood beside them in the fire's light. They all three watched Elle's body burn.

"Dawn and light follow the darkest night," Vasen said to Gerak.

"I'm not one of your faithful," Gerak said. "Spare me platitudes. Light and darkness have been gone from this realm for a long time, and now both are gone from my life."

"I'm sorry," Vasen said.

"I know," Gerak said, more softly, his head hanging. "You have my gratitude for trying to save her."

Vasen said nothing, simply stood beside Gerak.

"I brought food," Gerak said. He held up two coneys he must have taken while out on the plains.

"First we have to move," Vasen said. "The pyre may attract attention."

They broke camp and moved off into the night. After about two hours, Vasen called a halt. In silence, Gerak made another small fire in a pit, expertly gutted the coneys, stuck them with makeshift spits, and soon had them roasting. While they ate, Orsin spoke of his belief in past lives, that people close to one another meet again and again through time.

"Then . . . I could see Elle again?" Gerak asked. "In another life?"

"Yes," Orsin said. "Strong bonds stretch across many lives." His eyes went to Vasen.

"Would I know her?" Gerak asked. "Would she know me?"

Orsin smiled, walked around the fire, pulled Gerak close and kissed the top of his head. "I think you would, Gerak of Fairelm. Hold to that hope. But for now we walk this world, we three. Together. Yes?"

Gerak stared into the fire. "Yes."

After Orsin retook his seat, Gerak said, "I need to kill the men who did this."

"Yes," Vasen answered. "Yes, you do."

Riven sat cross-legged on the floor, his sabers unsheathed and resting across his legs. His girls sat beside him, the warmth of their bodies a comfort. Again and again he replayed in his mind all that he knew, all that he thought he knew, and still he felt as if he'd didn't know enough, that he was missing something.

But it was too late for second-guessing. Everything was in motion. Either he'd played matters correctly or he'd doomed them all.

He felt the shadows around him, the shadows in the plains outside that extended for miles. He felt the undead native to the Shadowfell, shadows and wraiths and specters and ghosts in the thousands, lurking in the darkness around the citadel. They, too, knew what was coming.

His girls sensed it at the same time he did. He felt the portals come into existence on the plains below the citadel, scores of them, each a flash of pressure in his mind. He felt his enemies step through and assemble in the plains in their multitudes.

Mephistopheles had finally lost the battle with his impatience. Or maybe Asmodeus had finally grown impatient with Mephistopheles, forcing the Lord of the Eighth's hand.

His girls stood up, hackles raised, and offered growls from deep in their chests. He patted them both as he stood.

"It'll be fine, girls," he said, and hoped he was right. "You're both staying inside, though."

They licked his hands, whined with concern.

"Get a move on, Vasen Cale," he muttered.

Outside, the blare of horns rang out over the plains, hundreds of them, followed by the combined shout of thousands of devils, the collective roar like a roll of thunder. His dogs howled in answer, crowded close to him. The horns blew a second blast, a third, as the armies of Mephistopheles arranged themselves to face him and his forces.

"Damn you and your horns," he said and walked to the nearest window to look out on what had come.

Telemont leaned on his magical staff and looked out the glassteel window of his tower library. The shadow-fogged air allowed only filtered starlight through its canopy, but Telemont could see well enough. The city of Shade extended before him, the dense jumble of its towers and domes and tiled roofs blanketed in night. It was his city, and he'd fought and schemed for centuries to preserve it and its people, along the way compromising . . . many things.

"Something's changed, Hadrhune," he said. "The world shifts under my feet."

Behind him, his most trusted counselor cleared his throat. "Most High?"

Telemont gestured with one hand, the shadows from his skin forming a wake behind the movement. "There's power in the air, odd stirrings in the currents of the world. It's troubled me for months. The gods are maneuvering, to what end I don't know."

"Most High, that's why-"

Telemont nodded impatiently. "Yes, yes, that's why I collect the Chosen. I search for them and when I find them I put them in cages, question them while I try to read the story of the changing world. And yet the question remains, and I still have no answers."

"Most High, Prince Brennus, with his unmatched skill in divination, could-"

Telemont's irritated gesture put a knife through the rest of Hadrhune's sentence, and it died in silence.

"Prince Brennus," Telemont said. "Is . . . unfocused of late."

He watched a patrol of veserab-mounted Shadovar knights cut through the shrouded air above the city, the undulating flight of the serpentine veserabs swirling the shadowed air with each beat of their membranous wings.

"Perhaps you should put this mystery from your mind, Most High? All of the Chosen we've captured can be killed within an hour. You need only give the word and I can inform the camp commanders-"

"To kill them now would be premature. Many of them don't even know what they are. Those who do don't understand what role they're to play. No, we keep them alive for the moment and learn what we can. Matters must clarify eventually."

"Most High, if I may be forward . . . "

Hadrhune paused, awaiting Telemont's permission for candor.

"Continue," Telemont said.

"Is it possible that the focus on the Chosen distracts from more worldly matters? The battle for the Dales goes well, but Cormyr and Myth Drannor must still be dealt with."

"Oh, war with Cormyr and the elves is coming," Telemont said. "Yder clamors for it. Our forces are prepared for them, but the Dales need to be pacified completely first. But this matter of the gods and the Chosen, this is something else, something . . . bigger. I need to understand it before events outrun me."

"Shall I state the obvious, Most High?"

Telemont said nothing, but he knew what was coming.

"There is one Chosen you have not imprisoned or questioned."

"Rivalen," Telemont said, and a cloud of shadows swirled around him.

"Yes," Hadrhune said, his velvety voice treading carefully. "You sent for him, but he did not respond. Yet."

"He will come," Telemont said, thinking of his son, the son he no longer trusted, the son he no longer understood.

"As you say, Most High. When he comes, perhaps with his newfound power . . . "

"His stolen divinity, you mean," Telemont interrupted.

Again, shadows churned.

"As you say, Most High," Hadrhune repeated, the doubt palpable in his voice. "In any event, if the prince is a godling, perhaps he has insight into what's happening."

"I think not, Hadrhune. The prince no longer thinks like a man."

Nor did he think like a Lord of Shade. He was lost in the nihilism of his faith. Telemont had scried him many times. Rivalen would stare into Shar's eye, unmoving for days at a time.

"Most High," Hadrhune said, "I concede that Prince Rivalen is unstable but . . . "

Telemont felt Rivalen's presence manifest in the room as a sudden weight on his consciousness, a density in the air, as if the room's dimensions changed shape to accommodate him. Hadrhune must have sensed it, too, for he gasped.

Rivalen said, "You speak of me as if I cannot hear every word you say, child." "Child!" Hadrhune said, and sputtered in rage.

"You requested my presence," Rivalen said, ignoring Hadrhune, his statement directed at Telemont.

"No," Telemont said, still not turning, still staring out over Thultanthar. "I sent for you."

Rivalen became still more present in the room, weightier. The darkness deepened, thickened somehow. Telemont resisted the impulse to mentally run through the wards and spells that guarded his person.

"You don't send for me anymore, father," Rivalen said. "You request my presence. And I come if I will it."

Hadrhune recovered himself enough to say, "You will refer to him as the Most High, Prince Rivalen."

"And you will say nothing more or I will kill you where you stand."

Hadrhune gasped again to be so addressed, but he heeded Rivalen's admonition and said nothing more.

Telemont made his face a mask and turned to face his son.

By now, Rivalen loomed large in the room. Hadrhune, standing near him, indeed looked like a child. Rivalen's golden eyes glowed out of his sharpfeatured face. He'd inherited the features from Telemont, but father and son shared very little else anymore.

"Divinity has made you ill-mannered," Telemont said.

"Prince Rivalen was never known for his grace," Hadrhune said.

Rivalen turned on Hadrhune, arm upraised as if to smack him. A sizzling mass of black energy gathered on his palm.

Hadrhune's eyes flared. He blanched, retreated a step, and held his staff defensively before him. Veins of blue light lit the crystal atop the staff.

"Rivalen!" Telemont shouted, and slammed the butt of his own staff on the tiled floor, causing a roll of thunder. "Violence is prohibited in these chambers!"

Rivalen froze, his narrow eyes fixed on Hadrhune, the annihilating ball of power crackling in his palm. "Your prohibitions no longer concern me, father. You couldn't stop me. Not anymore."

Telemont let his own power gather. Tendrils of shadows formed in the air, snaked around his hands, his staff.

"You're mistaken, child," he said, but wondered if Rivalen spoke the truth. He sensed the power in his son. Telemont had no doubt that he could hurt Rivalen, but he doubted he could kill him.

"He goes too far, Most High," Hadrhune said, his voice high-pitched, his breathing heavy and fast. He did not lower his staff, did not release the defensive spell burgeoning in its crystal cap.

"Run along, lapdog," Rivalen said. The ball of energy in his palm dissipated into nothingness.

"Most High-" Hadrhune began.

Rivalen clenched his fist and the crystal atop Hadrhune's staff shattered with a pop, raining pieces onto the floor. Shadows bled from the tip of the wounded staff. Hadrhune cursed, wide-eyed.

"I said leave," Rivalen said to him. "You aren't needed here."

Hadrhune's eyes burned, but he ignored Rivalen. "Most High?"

"You may go, Hadrhune," Telemont said, his eyes on his son.

The counselor bowed to Telemont, pointedly ignored Rivalen, and exited the chamber. Telemont knew Hadrhune would remain just outside the room with a group of elite Shadovar warriors, ready should they be needed.