Sgaile began the litany once again, this time in words Leshil could understand.

"Father of Poison…"

He waited in tense silence for Leshil to repeat it.

"Father of… Poison…" Leshil whispered.

Sgaile took a quick breath. "Who washes away our enemies with Death…"

Leshil echoed him again.

"Let me pass by to my ancestors, first of my blood. Give me leave to touch the Seed of Sanctuary."

As Leshil repeated his words, the serpent's breath faded from Sgaile's face, and he waited long in silence.

He heard coils grating upon the earth… and then the softer wet sound of mulch beneath the trees somewhere ahead. Longer he waited with his eyes shut, until the sound nearly faded altogether.

Something dropped upon Sgaile's shoulder, and he opened his eyes, breathing so quickly he grew dizzy. He kept his eyes on the dark oaks ahead, afraid to catch even one more glimpse of Aharneiv.

It was gone.

Leshil's hand slipped off Sgaile's shoulder and fell limply at his side.

"We… are free… to go on," Sgaile whispered.

He almost did not believe the words as they came from his lips. Sgaile glanced sidelong at the half-blood-who had just changed his whole world, and perhaps that of Leanalham.

For more than two years, he and his grandfather had urged Leanalham to wait, to put off her name taking, though their arguments grew weaker with each passing moon. They feared that she would not return from this place, not with human blood in her.

Still, Leshil did not move.

"You have gained hallowed ground," Sgaile urged. "You are accepted as blood."

Leshil slowly turned his eyes toward Sgaile.

"I'm here for one reason," he snapped."For Magiere, caught among your kind because of me. I don't care how you or your ghosts see me."

Leshil stepped on toward the clearing. Sgaile hung back, stunned back into silence.

Human blood, by any degree, was a baffling thing.

Leesil stood before the tree at the bare clearing's center and stared up at its wild branches filling the air above him.

It wasn't shaped like the tall and straight ash trees he had seen. Stout branches sprouting from its thick trunk curved and wound and divided up into the night. A soft glow emanated from its fine-grained wood to dimly light the clearing.

Leafless and barkless-yet somehow alive.From its wide-reaching rootslumping the earth to its thick and naked pale-yellow body and limbs, its soft rippled surface glistened beneath its own glow.

"You must touch it," Sgaile whispered from behind. "Roise Charmune will know why you have come, and the ancestors will decide.

Leesil shivered. The night was only cool, but it had suddenly grown crisp within the clearing.

This was what he'd come for, but after passing the guardian serpent, he wavered at touching this tree. He quickly slapped his hand against its bare trunk, just to be done with it, and shivered again as the temperature dropped sharply.

"Sgaile…?" he said.

The man looked anxiously about and folded his hands under his arms against the mounting cold. Whether from fear or frigid temperature, he shook where he stood.

"I do not know," Sgaile whispered.

Someone stepped around the naked tree's far side.

The figure wore the gray-green of an Anmaglahk, cloak tied around its waist and cowl pulled forward. But it was short for an elf, no taller than Leesil himself.

Leesil began to pull back.

"Do not move!" Sgaile warned. "Do not take your hand from Roise Char-mune!"

Leesil didn't believe this was a vision. Surely one of Sgaile'scaste must have followed them.

The figure raised a hand and held it up before Leesil's eyes. In that closed fist was an Anmaglahk stiletto, silver-white blade pointed downward from its round, plain guard.

Leesil snatched the figure's wrist with his free hand.

The clearing lit up as if under a burning noon sun.

Where there had been cold, now sweltering heat choked the air in Leesil's lungs. Within the figure's cowl he saw a face… his face.

Leesil stared into his own reflection within that cowl.

There were the faint scars on his own cheek from where Ratboy had clawed him. His own amber eyes stared back at him, somewhat too small for an elf's, above a chin not quite tapered enough for a full-blood's.

His reflection looked older, somehow. And tears began running down his-its-face.

Leesil stood there, gripping the wrist of his reflection.

Heat made his double, his twin, or whatever it was ripple before his eyes. A shift in the land beyond the surrounding oaks tugged at his attention.

He thought he saw barren mountains beyond rolling tan hills that were too smooth and perfect. High peaks rippled in the distance as those hills radiated heat. Sgaile hissed out one word.

"Ancestors!"

Darkness filled the clearing. The cold bit again at Leesil as his gaze shifted back. His breath caught as one puff of vapor rushed from his lips.

He saw no reflection of himself anymore. His grip was closed on a slender translucent wrist that glowed like the naked ash. And he looked into… through… the transparent face of a tall elven male.

The man's eyes turned stern as he looked back at Leesil. His face was broader at the cheekbones than other elves'. An ugly scar slanted from his forehead to his right temple and another marred the left side of his jaw below his peaked ear. He had seen battle during his life; his hand around the stiletto appeared toughened and calloused.

No, not a stiletto… the elven warrior held a branch of naked pale wood like that of the ash tree. Long and straight overall, the wood showed gentle wavering throughout its length like any natural branch stripped of its bark.

Pale glimmers erupted in the darkness behind the branch's bearer.

Leesil remembered the ghost horde of the Apudalsat forest, all hideously wounded in the moment of their death. These were different.

They appeared as in life, dressed as they must have been long ago, though their transparent forms held no color but that of the ash tree's wood. A thirdwere male, the rest female, and not all appeared old. Leesil counted at least a dozen.

Their attire varied. Some were clothed no differently from the elves Leesil had seen around the council clearing. But others wore hauberks and bracers of hardened leather, either plain or covered in overlapping plates and scales of metal. Two wore helms of triple crests with scrollwork spirals engraved in their sides, as did the one Leesil still gripped.

They carried spears, some as long as pikes, and quivers and bows slung upon their backs. Not the short ones the Anmaglahk disassembled to hide away, but longbows capable of great range. One middle-aged female with scars down her left upper arm had thick triangular war daggers on her wide studded belt. They looked more like a human weapon than those Leesil had seen among elves. The spear in her grip was shorter than her height. Its thick shaft appeared to be metal instead of wood, and its head was wide-bladed and nearly as long as a short sword.

And that one, with wild eyes full of fury, smiled at him beneath narrowing eyes.

But there were none among the spirits dressed as Anmaglahk.

An elder woman in a robe approached behind the tall warrior holding the branch. Her face was slender and lightly lined with age. Long hair waved and floated as if she moved through water.

Take the limb of Roise Charmune… and guard it as it will guard you… as you will guard life, Leshiarelaohk.

Leesil heard her voice, though her lips never moved.

Tell Sorhkafare we wait for him.

A different voice.Male, tired but purposeful, like a sigh of relief after long burden.

Leesil turned his eyes back on the scarred and wide-cheeked warrior in his grip. The man's gaze shifted toward Sgaile then flickered once to Leesil. He seemed puzzled by something between the only two living people in the clearing. Then the spirit looked deep into Leesil's eyes.