Magiere fought to move her arms. If she didn't kill Ubad, what would become of Leesil and Wynn?

"Are you prepared to be rational?" Ubad asked.

Anger faded from her into numb loss. When she spoke, her mouth moved freely, teeth receded to their normal state.

"My companions… Leave them be… and I'll listen to anything you wish to say."

"How generous," he answered mockingly. "I will be your father, your teacher, your only family. You have no other. Vordana has finished your half-blood by now, and my other servants have fed on the sage."

Leesil's face filled Magiere's thoughts, and she grew cold inside.

Ubad lied. It had to be a lie.

Anger and hunger swelled in her as Ubad turned toward Chap.

"As for this mongrel puppet of the enemy, his meddling ends now."

Welstiel sensed Magiere's presence and followed her. Around him, the trees were strangely empty of movement. It was not Magiere that he saw first, but a blue-white light filtering through the forest. As he drew closer, it moved and grew. Welstiel hurried on as quickly as silence allowed, and what he saw almost made him bolt into the clearing.

Tendrils of blue-white light sprouted from the cracked earth, snaring both Magiere and Chap. She hung in the air, tangled within them. The tendrils had to be shaped from summoned or conjured elemental material, but their nature was unknown to Welstiel. Ubad had never shown this ability in the years Welstiel had suffered the man's presence and tutelege. Urgency made him take another step forward before he could stop himself.

Welstiel had no prepared tool or artifice to deal with this. Conjuring elementals of this magnitude was beyond anyone he had ever known.

He clenched his fist, frustration and panic eroding his self-control. As Magiere and Chap struggled, the tendrils shifted to grip them, responding to their movements. Ubad turned his attention toward the majay-hl, and the tendrils tightened around the animal.

Welstiel took another step, moving close behind a tree at the clearing's edge.

These tendrils were a mass of elemental matter, but without any will of their own. They responded to commands from the necromancer.

Sightless Ubad had no natural vision that Welstiel knew of behind that leather mask. He relied upon some arcane method to see the world around him. Welstiel had one possession that could deceive all detection but physical senses. He had created it long ago to escape with Magiere when she was a child.

Welstiel sat upon the ground, his legs crossed, as he stared at his ring of nothing.

It had been created to work passively upon the wearer, without the need for willful activation. It was all he had, and in this moment, he needed its influence to grow.

He removed the brass band, holding it level between his fingertips like a conjuring circle engraved in the air. As he murmured softly, he focused within the circle to pass his consumed life force into it. Exhaustion crept through him, but he held his concentration until it felt as if he had lingered there far too long.

Ubad had to sense Magiere's presence in order to assault her. Welstiel would hide that presence.

Fatigue sharpened suddenly, and Welstiel felt a ripple of tension in the air expand outward from the circle of brass.

Anger built inside Magiere, along with fear of loss. Leesil couldn't be dead. It was a lie.

When Ubad turned upon Chap, she meant to shout, but the words came out hoarse and low. 'Touch him, and I'm finished with you."

Ubad paused, one hand in the air.

"I'll tolerate your words," she said, "but you'll do as I say-or you can go find one of your corpses to chat with."

Ubad turned back to her. "You do not care for helplessness. What if I told you that freedom is yours to take?"

Magiere had no wish to play any more of these games. She had hope in Leesil's arms, in his eyes. If she lost him, there was nothing left but death and blood-and both would be Ubad's.

"Get to the point," she answered.

"I gave you the answer, if you had listened," Ubad said. "All existence is composed of the five elements, and life itself is no different. These tendrils that bind you are made from the element of Spirit summoned from the forest, and life clings most to that element. You can feed upon life. Freedom is yours, and you have but to consume it."

He stepped close enough mat when Magiere looked down at him, she saw the creases in his leather mask.

'Take the life from the tendrils. Consume it like the Noble Dead you are. With its pure form pressed to your flesh, you need only will it so… and be free."

Magiere grimaced as she looked at the glowing blue-white tendrils curled about her arm. She felt their slick warm touch upon her as if they were solid. To her eyes, they appeared no more material that the ghosts of the forest and cavern.

What Ubad asked sickened her.

To give in to hunger? To feed like the undead mat she and Leesil hunted and burned to ash? Whether by touch or blood down her throat, it meant becoming one of them. It meant becoming all that Ubad claimed she was rather than what she wished to be.

Only once had she ever done this. Leesil had been her willing victim, though she'd been unaware of his sacrifice until it was nearly too late. But if Ubad lied and Leesil still lived, he would be alone against this madman and his minions if she didn't get free.

Leesil's life… or the life she wanted to live?

Magiere let her hunger rise.

It spread through her whole flesh instead of just her throat and head. She felt it move like the black ribbons Wynn had seen with her mantic sight. Hunger coiled through her limbs toward the tingling life touching her skin through the tendrils.

And nothing more happened.

Magiere stared wide-eyed along her arm, torn inside between anguish and relief. Her body wouldn't consume the life it felt there. Perhaps it couldn't do so at all.

And she couldn't free herself to help Leesil.

Whatever she might be, Ubad didn't know as much of her true nature as the twisted mage thought. She looked down into his leather mask, unable to speak. What could she possibly say to him that would gain her anything?

A sudden tension in the air passed over her-through her-like a wind pushing at a dangling leaf.

Ubad stumbled back, and Magiere saw that he'd felt this strange sensation, as well. The staff slipped from his grip to thump heavily on the ground, and he slapped both hands over his mask. As he slid backward, he stumbled and fell hard, his arms flailing.

Magiere didn't know what had just happened, but with Ubad down, she thrashed to pull her right arm free, the falchion still in her grip. The tendrils held, but they didn't clench tight at her struggle.

"Dhampir?" Ubad whispered, an edge of fear in his voice. He crawled upon the ground, feeling along it with his hands for something, perhaps his lost staff.

Magiere watched in astonishment. Ubad was now truly blind.

The glow to the far right of the clearing brightened, and Magiere looked up.

Chap still hung in the air, but he wasn't the same. His fur appeared whiter. The brighter he grew, the more the tendrils' glow softened. Those cords of blue-white sagged until Chap's paws touched the earth. As he scrambled free of their touch, the glimmer in his coat faded, flowing back into the earth from where it had come, and he ran to Magiere.

At Chap's movement, Ubad rose on his knees. His masked face turned sharply toward the dog, and he raised a hand in the air.

Chap froze, and Magiere feared the old man had regained his sight.

Ubad turned back and forth as if still blind. He was following the sounds of the dog's movement. Chap crept toward Magiere.

She took a deep breath and blew a shrill whistle through her lips.

Ubad flinched, spinning toward her on the ground, but his head turned erratically as his outstretched hand came back to his ear. The piercing sound masked Chap's movement from his hearing.