<u>1</u>


    Through loops of causality, spindrifts of chance, everything happened at once. As dawn warmed the eastern horizon, a mithral spear and a black, dwarf-forged arrow struck Skyland. Hit that crazily laughing demon square in his fiery skull face. Alfea''s diamond spearhead shattered Skyland’s jaw, creating a murder of glittering ifrits. Fired upward, More-than-she-seems buried herself in the demon’s triangular nose-hole, driving straight through his fetid and poisonous brain. A spray of bat-winged serpents burst from the back of Skyland’s cracked skull along with the sharpened wood point of Cinda''s arrow.


    “Ah!” crooned the demon, repairing its damage with power from seventy burning-cold hells. “Well struck… for a feathered doxy and a cast-off whore. Now, it is <u>my</u> turn, and now you will scream for death through eternity, while my ‘lord’ and his enemies dance to the music, forever!”


    Down below, on that twitching and writhing stone pillar, a ring of magical flame closed tighter ''round Zara, Faleena and Bean. Trying to help, fighting to get there, Sandor, Kellen and Arien stomped and battered the fiery ring. But that inferno would not go out and burnt nothing at all but its targets: Filimar’s mother, Valerian’s niece and his baby daughter.


    A host of fey-lights had gathered. They surrounded Bean, fanning their tiny wings to lift her and drive off the flame, but Arvendahl’s magic was terribly powerful; fueled by hatred and anguish.


    Some yards away, a blood-spattered elf-lord poured all that he had into saving his mortal wife. Bea had nearly been skewered by a cursed, demonic blade, piercing body and soul, together. He wasn’t a healer… but Tormun had skill. The Arvendahl ship captain leapt from a floating rock to Lerendar’s side, Skyland forgotten.


    “I’ve got her, Tarandahl,” he promised, dropping down to one knee by his friend. “Go! Rescue my wife and your daughter!”


    He could hear them screaming. <u>Both</u> of them could, and Beatriz, too. Twisting upward a bit, keeping enough of her soul intact to focus on Lerendar, the alchemist pressed a glass bottle into his hand and kissed him.


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    “Flame-away,” she gasped. “From the Kitchen Kreations. Save our baby, Ren, hurry! Please… please hurry…”


    Heartsick and torn, her husband gathered her close, whispering,


    “Bee…”


    “I’ve got her,” Tormun repeated. The raven-haired captain inscribed a shield-spell as battle erupted above them, adding, “My life for hers, Lando. My oath on it.”


    Lerendar nodded. Kissed his wife’s bloodied face and then handed her over. Clasped hands with Tormun, briefly, sealing the vow. Then he sprang to his feet, glowing with furious power. Once again, Lerendar ported; not ending up <u>by</u> that fiery ring, but inside of it.


    “Papa!” shrieked Zara, as Lerendar scooped all three of them up in his arms.


    On shore, atop a high cliff, Lord Arvendahl’s blade had pierced time and space, as well as armor and flesh. Only, the weapon was Grassfire, not the Destroyer. His lordship was pinned in a massive stone fist, clenched from the waist down by unyielding rock, unable to use all his force. His thrust had gone true, but it wasn’t enough.


    The Tarandahl cur reeled backward and fell, losing his concentration and levitate spell. Took Grassfire with him, its blade still trapped by split bone and magical armor. At nearly the same time, a terrible, beautiful, deeply alluring song filled the air, along with the cloying odor of death. <u>His</u> death, not the traitor’s.


    Very well. So be it… but he wasn’t going alone.


    “Kill them all!” Falco snarled at the assassins, when they appeared on his clenched, rocky prison. A banshee and vampyre; stripped of disguise or illusion or whisper of breath. Bringers of terrible death.


    “You first, Milord,” said the pallid, hollow-eyed vampyre. “For, one greater than you has decreed it. Die.”


    Fallon’s life-drain, Mandor’s paralyzing gaze and command struck hard, bit deep. But his lordship was not to be balked.


    “No!” raged Arvendahl. “I will not fall to you, unavenged! My death-curse on His Majesty and all of his works! With my last breath and heartbeat, I seal it: Death to the emperor! So may it be! Hear me, all powers below and above!”


    And so, it was.


    As for Valerian… Miche… Pilot… Grassfire’s point had crashed through armor, flesh and bone, driving straight for the laboring heart underneath. But the sword fell short, as it had to. For just an instant, all three of the shattered elf''s pieces were pinned together, reeling in sudden hot pain and deep shock. For a nano-tick, they hovered above, alongside, in some direction that made no physical sense at all, in terrible danger of dissolving like bread in very hot water.


    Saw… <u>everything</u>. All of it. The entire huge, moving tapestry. Just couldn’t process or hope to describe what they’d seen. Next, they came whirling apart again. Back to a rumbling, wave-hammered cliff… to a blood-soaked ridge… to a cockpit that rang with piercing alarms. Once more apart.


    But alive, and very much not alone.