Lord Garan did not drop his gaze, and he did not stand any less proudly. "My lord king, we will not know until we try."

Robes rustled. From outside the hall came the quiet murmurings of servants in their goings and comings, a voice lifted in question, another laughing to answer. In the hall, silence sat upon all. Elaran glanced at Keilar. The weapon-smith kept still, his hands quiet. Only his eyes moved, darting from one to another, then to the king.

"Tell me this, Lord Garan, and speak truly: If you spend the rest of the season till winter and through to spring righting Phair Caron, can you win?"

Lord Garan's face flushed. His long eyes glittered. "My lord king-"

"Can you win, my old friend? Or will you stand beside me all winter long, each time I must turn away another refugee driven down from the northlands, from the midlands, from outside our very city? Will you stand and say, 'Forgive us, but we are choking on refugees now and we cannot feed ourselves. You may not enter here, but you may go out into the forest and die knowing how sorry we all feel about that.' Will you stand with me and say that?"

A silence settled in the great audience hall. Only breathing was heard.

The world is lost! Unless you heed!

The elf-king almost shouted those very words, the dictum of the orb. They beat in him like the rhythm of his own heart. He'd heard them over and again, waking and sleeping, and he found in them, curiously, not despair but hope. Unless you heed… The orb spoke of hope, and it spoke of power. It spoke of promise, and it spoke of a way to defeat the Highlord Phair Caron.

Not only her defeat did it promise. It promised the defeat of the Dark Queen herself, the ruin of Takhisis. O you sweet gods of Goodness and Light! How to measure that boon if it were granted?

The world is lost, unless you heed me! Come and take what I have for you. If you do otherwise, the world is lost!

Lorac rose from the Emerald Throne. Though the orb remained hidden beneath the white velvet shroud, in his heart, in his veins, in his very blood, he felt its light pulsing, a drumbeat calling him to action. He looked at his daughter, Alhana, white as marble, her eyes glittering as with fever. What he would say would not surprise her. He had formed his plan alone, but he had spoken of it to her, for Alhana would play a heavy part in it. A burden unasked for would fall upon her slender shoulders. She did not smile to encourage; she had been all the night protesting. No matter, no matter, he knew what must be done.

"Now hear me," he said to Lord Garan. "Listen," he said to Elaran and Keilar. "I will not play at gambling with the lives of my people. Plans have been laid against this day, and this is what will happen: You, my Lord Garan, will sent out your scouts and you will bid them go to every village and town and city where people yet live, and into the woods where the refugees wander. They will proclaim this message: 'Gamer up your families and go down to the sea. Go to Phalinost where every person will find a place made and waiting for him. Prepare for a sea journey, and know that you will return.' "

"Exile," Garan whispered, the terrible word like sentence of death. "Speaker, will you do that? Will you lead us all out of the land into exile while the foul armies of Takhisis flow into the kingdom and hold it forever against us?" In his eyes Lorac saw such pain as war-gotten wounds had never given him. "Tell me, Lorac Caladon: Have I failed you, then?"

Like an ache in the heart of the king, those words from the proud warrior.

"You have not failed me, my old friend." The Speaker of the Stars came down from the dais. He took Garan's hands in his, unconsciously shadowing the ritual blessing a king gives a new-made Wildrunner. So had these two stood, many years before, offering and accepting fealty. "No king has had better service than I have had from you, but I must ask you this one more time to serve me again in this cause of shepherding our people to safety. You will not be long gone from the kingdom, and when you and our people return, you will see that all has been done for the best."

"I will not be gone long. My lord king-what about you?"

Lorac turned from him, releasing his hands, and went back to his throne. It seemed to him that the steps to the dais had grown steeper in the moments since he'd descended, steeper and longer. When he reached the throne, his daughter took his hand. He looked into her eyes, the deep amethyst pools that so reminded him of her mother. There he saw fear, reckoning, and, above all other things, courage. He turned, and he looked down at the four gathered.

"I will remain," he said.

He let them gasp and murmur, and when his silence enjoined theirs, he said, "I will remain. 'As lives the land, so live the elves.' If you imagine that I am prepared to give up my kingdom-our Sylvan Lands!-to the darkness, you imagine wrongly.

"I have a magic to work," said the elf-king. With one swift twitch of long fingers, he whipped the white shroud from the orb, revealing the crystal globe grasped in the clawed talon. "Here is a dragon orb, and I don't expect that any of you will know what that is…" He let the words trail, waiting to see whether any would contradict him. None did. "No matter. I do know what it is, and I believe the magic I work in company with this orb will be strong enough to save us all. But I will not risk the lives of my people while my belief is tested. Thus, only I will stay, with a guard of Wildrunners to ward and watch. My daughter will lead the people out from the kingdom, just as it will be she who will lead you back."

Now he heard her breathe, his Alhana Starbreeze. He turned to look at her and saw that all the color had drained from her face. A marble princess, she stood with her hand upon her breast, her eyes widening. He thought for a moment-only a moment!-that she would refuse him, that she would demand to stay. She did neither thing. She was the daughter of kings, the child of queens. She would accept and discharge whatever duty he laid upon her, for his sake and, more importantly, for the sake of their embattled kingdom. She took a step toward him and she bowed her head, not a daughter to her father, but a subject to her king.

"With the help of Lord Garan, with the prayers of Lady Elaran, with the iron goodwill of Lord Keilar and each of the House Holders, I will do as you wish, my lord king."

So close did she stand to him that Lorac saw the first tear shining in her eyes. None other saw what he did, the pearl of her grief. They saw only a princess whose courage matched her beauty, Alhana Starbreeze whom they would follow anywhere, even into exile.

On the last day of the month of Autumn Twilight, the day elves named Gateway, the sky stretched out over the Cooshee Gulf, hard and bright and blue as ice. Winter prowled near, the wolfish season whose teeth were cruel, whose claws knew nothing about mercy. Gulls creaked in the sky, and wind hummed along the ratlines already skimming over with a thin coating of ice.

The deck beneath Dalamar's boots groaned, an aching sound as though the ship could not bear the thought of leaving the shore and must moan for the loss of sweet Silvanesti. Such moaning as this was heard all through the close-packed hold of King's Swan, the cries of the seasick and the weary and those who felt the strings of their hearts stretched tight to breaking. All around the ship other vessels bobbed, rising and falling with the sea, as one after another, captains set sail and left the bay to follow Wings of E'li, Lord Garan's flagship. King's Swan would have her turn soon.

Dalamar leaned his arms on the rail and looked out across the bay to Phalinost, gleaming in the last light of day. Gulls sailed around the tall towers, gray ghosts haunting the empty city. Dalamar imagined that no one lived there now but the rats and the gulls. What he thought was very nearly the truth.