When Leesil looked at Magiere, he thought of the wedding to come… someday. He would swear fealty to her before their friends and, he hoped, her aunt Bieja. Shouldn'this own mother be present as well?

"You must continue," Nein'a said. "The ancestors will guide you. Do not let anything sway you when the path becomes clear."

It never occurred to Leesil before how much she was like her people, down to their fanatical superstitions. He'd seen the ghosts at the naked tree beyond the serpent and heard them call him by a name he didn't want. But he'd seen a ghost or two in his own life. Most were somewhere between an annoyance and a threat to be banished. They weren't worth this kind of blind faith.

Leesil saw how much Gleann's offer meant to her. Perhaps she would be safe and could come back to herself-to the woman he preferred her to be, his mother.

"All right," he said. "Come back to Crijheaiche with us, and we'll talk."

"Crijheaiche?" she repeated.

"Be at ease," Gleann said. "You will not see anyone you do not wish to."

Sgaile stepped forward, stripping off his cloak. "Put this on and over your head."

Of all the things Sgaile had done, for this Leesil felt most grateful.

"Do you have things to gather?" Wynn asked in her sensible way. "Anything here you wish to bring?"

Nein'a looked about the clearing, and her eyes sparked with the smoldering anger Leesil remembered so well.

"Only what once belonged to me," she said, and turned away into the tree.

When she reemerged, she held the bundled cloth with the skulls of Gavril and Eillean.

Leesil breathed in with difficulty, as Nein'a took her first faltering steps toward the ferns. He walked beside Magiere, not knowing what more to say. She linked her arm with his as they began the journey back.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The return to Crijheaiche left them all exhausted, even Nein'a, who looked wary of her surroundings. Sgaile settled her in a small domicile tree by the river, close to Gleann and Leanalham. When he offered to sit in vigil for Nein'a, Leesil insisted upon doing this himself.

Magiere understood, and so she took Wynn and Chap backto their own quarters.

Chap had been behaving strangely since the end of the trial-from the moment he and Leesil went for a final word with Most Aged Father. His crystal blue eyes shifted continually. Magiere suspected that the strain of the past days affected him as much as any of them.

In all honesty, she'd have much preferred to sit with Leesil, but if Nein'a wished to speak to him, they would need time alone. Poor Wynn looked quite a mess with her swollen jaw and tangled hair. The young woman had been abused too much over their travels.

"You sleep now," she said, guiding Wynn to a cushioned bed ledge inside the elm. "Save the bath for when you wake up."

Chap whined loudly.

Some might think it difficult to read a canine's face. Not so for Magiere, after all the time she'd spent with him. She could read his agitation in the bristled fur and twitch of his jowls. He prowled toward Wynn in halting steps.

Wynn rolled over on the bed ledge to sit up. With dark circles under her eyes, she glared at Chap.

"Not until I am ready!" she grumbled. "Get that through your thick head!"

Lately, her temper had grown shorter, but this was perhaps for the best.

"What now?" Magiere asked.

"He wants to talk to you," Wynn said tiredly. "As if that is all I am good for anymore. Chap, just go to sleep, and let me do the same!"

Chap stalked closer to the sage, his eyes locked into hers. Wynn let out a sigh and slid off the ledge to the chamber floor.

"He says he is afraid… of showing me something, but you have to know the truth, and this is the only way."

She wavered, looking small and young to Magiere.

Too many times Chap had revealed something that made Magiere wish she had a way to speak alone with the dog. Wynn might have grown hardened in the last two seasons, but there were still things the sage was not prepared to face. Things that Magiere herself didn't care to think on, and it made her dread what Chap might pass to her through Wynn.

Magiere sank down, the three of them in a huddle, and ran a hand over Chap's silver-gray ear.

"What is it?" she whispered.

The dog glanced with concern at Wynn, but then fixed his eyes on Magiere. She stared back, growing more unsettled by the moment.Until Wynn whimpered.

The sage pulled up her knees, hiding her face in her hands, and began to sob.

"Wynn?" Magiere's fear sharpened. "Chap, whatever you're doing, stop it now!"

As she reached for Wynn, the sage cringed away, then clutched Magiere's wrist tightly.

"Once we leave elven land," she said, her voice low, "never come back… you must never set foot here again!"

As much concern as Magiere had for Wynn, she glared at Chap. He dipped his muzzle, flinching under her watchful eyes. Whatever he said to the sage, he didn't stop. Wynn's fingers tightened on Magiere's wrist, and the sage began to whisper Chap's words.

The longer Chap spoke through Wynn, themore numb Magiere became, until all she felt was the same shudder in her flesh that grew each time she stepped within a domicile tree.

"You were made to breach these lands… to breach any last refuge of the living," was the last thing Wynn said.

Magiere's mind rolled in a tangled mess as Wynn crawled back into bed, hiding her face.

Magiere sat upon the chamber floor with Chap.

She kept hearing words in her head spoken in pieces. Some from the last memory Chap had stolen from Most Aged Father. And more from what she'd heard others say. The worst was the missing piece from Chap's delusion spawned by sorcery.

No undead existed… before the lost war of the Forgotten History.

No undead rose… but humans.

No undead walked elven lands… but her.

In theforestofPudurlatsat, far south in Droevinka, Chap had fallen prey to a phantasm cast by the undead sorcerer Vordana. Magiere and Leesil had suffered the same, each experiencing a delusion fed by their worst fears-and perhaps something more hidden within each of them.

Chap had never told Magiere or anyone of his delusion until now.

He had seen her with an army, its ranks filled with creatures and beasts driven by madness for slaughter. She stood at the head of those forces in black-scaled armor, fully feral with her dhampir nature cut loose. Among the horde were the shadowed and gleaming-eyed figures, as in Magiere's own delusion and nightmares. The undead waited for her to lead them into a thriving forest. Everything died in her wake… under their hunger.

In Most Aged Father's memory, the undead horde hadn't breached the elven forest. Those who fled to that final refuge huddled together, listening to the sounds of starving undead legions tearing each other apart.

Magiere cowered on the elm's chamber floor. She had been imbued… infected with the nature of a Noble Dead, and yet was still a living thing. This had been accomplished with the blood of the five races, the Uirishg. By their blood used in her conception, and the life within her, Magiere could go wherever she wished.

The undead could not breach First Glade or the forest it touched. Not until the war came again to cover the world-and Magiere was born.

This was the reason she had been made.

Chap's understanding of all these pieces, much of it hidden or stolen by his kin, was the worst thing he could have done to her.

That wasn't the end of what was grinding Magiere down. Chap knew what Leesil's strange name meant. He heard the name of the female elder in Most Aged Father's memory, the one called Leshiara-Sorrow-Tear.

Leesil… Leshil… Leshiarelaohk…Sorrow-Tear's Champion.