Curse of the Mistwraith - Chapter Ten - Daon Ramon Barrens

[kalinara]

So last time, Arithon helped with a magic ritual and Lysaer got a clue, just in time for both of them to get screwed over by asshole sorcerers. Isn't that the way of it.



So we rejoin our intrepid heroes at Althain Tower. Dakar's awake, and in a very rare occurrence, he's not hungover. He barges into the half-brothers' room and shakes Lysaer awake. I rather like this description:

The assault on his person ended with a raw hoot of laughter. Lysaer faced around. He endured the ache until his eyes adjusted to the sudden fullness of light and made out the form of his tormentor. Bent double and gripping his belly as if he hurt, Dakar wore a shirt that needed washing, a leather tunic ripped ragged at the hem and a plaid sash so sunfaded the only recognizable colour was grey. The glare of princely displeasure left his paroxysms unfazed.

Lysaer's not really on board with this style of waking. He recommends Dakar "[t]ry that last move on the Master and see what sort of words he uses."

"The Master" is still a very absurd sobriquet when applied to Arithon. I snicker every time.

Anyway, Dakar pinches Arithon's cheek to demonstrate and explains that he won't be waking up this morning. "Too used up still". Also, for whatever reason, Asandir "wants him napping."

Yeah, that's not ominous or anything.

Lysaer realizes that they're meant to leave Althain today. Or rather tonight, per Dakar, as the sun isn't up yet. They'll be heading out in the hour. And apparently since the sorcerers have decided they're in a rush, they'll be going by sorcery.

Dakar's not a fan of this method, personally, as he tends to get the equivalent of seasick. He seems to be consoling himself by thinking of how annoyed Arithon will be when he gets up.

So they carry Arithon downstairs by the dubiously efficient method of wrapping him and his belongings in a blanket like a burrito. Considering that one of Arithon's belongings is a sword, this seems unsafe. But nothing bad happens. Sethvir doesn't seem to approve, asking if they had to bundle him up like stolen goods in a carpet.

...I know Arithon's annoying, but he did get this way by helping you guys out, Dakar and Lysaer.

Sethvir isn't too bothered, noting that apparently the s'Ffalenn family are pretty notorious for being able to "right their own injustices", and Arithon specifically is as touchy as his ancestor, so Dakar's welcome to whatever revenge Arithon decides to take.

So Asandir's got horses waiting below, which amazes Lysaer. But he's got his own issues:

Lysaer sucked a quick breath and pressed ahead into burgeoning light. Assured by now that the Fellowship’s grand magics would not harm him, his reluctance stemmed as much from indignity. Accustomed to responsibility as a king’s heir, he found the sorcerer’s secretive authority deeply irritating. Had he been apprised of their plans one step beyond the immediate, or been granted some insight to their motivations, he might have felt less unnerved. Traithe alone had addressed this need; but the black-garbed mage had ridden off to tutor the heir to Havish, and some event since arrival at Althain had turned Asandir bleak as chipped granite.

I feel you, Lysaer. In my books, you and your brother both have the right to punch all of these people in the dick. I applaud it.

Admittedly, this next description is also pretty cool:

The stair ended. Circular and doorless as a vault, the deepest chamber of Althain Tower was incised into seamless white marble. A floor of polished onyx held eight leering gargoyle sconces arrayed on pedestals at the compass points. No torches burned in their sockets; the light emanated from a webwork of lines scribed across a wide, bowl-shaped depression. The patterning shaped three concentric circles, edged in Paravian runes and centred by an intricate, looping interlace that hurt the eyes to follow. Asandir waited in the middle on a starburst formed by the intersection of five axes, his shadow merged in the silhouette of a massive, high-wheeled mason’s dray. Dakar’s paint mare was harnessed between the shafts and the other mounts tied to the tailboards stamped and blew in nervous snorts. The rap and clang of shod hooves raised no echoes in that windowless, enclosed space, and for all that hellish glare the air retained no warmth. The draft that wafted off the pattern was charged with unnatural, arctic cold.

So this is a power focus, which will allow Asandir to "effect a direct transfer to the ruins west of Daon Ramon Barrens." (This, by the way, is the title of the chapter.)

Dakar asks why they can't go straight to the focus at Ithamon, and he's told it's for Arithon's sake.

‘The Vale of Shadows!’ As if the translation thrust home a violation of something sacred, Dakar cried, ‘Why protect him?’ He rounded in disgust on Sethvir. ‘Arithon showed you how lightly he regards your commitment to Rathain. After his insolence at the summons, do you think he gives a damn for your solicitude?’

...Dakar, we talked about this. You protect people from harm because it's the right thing to do. Not because they're particularly nice.

But also, Sethvir. Asandir. This is something you can fix! You understand Arithon. Dakar does not. You know what was really happening earlier. Dakar does not. Dakar has made his feelings about Arithon clear, and while he may never LIKE the man, you could inform him that SOME of his dislike is baseless. They're supposed to work together, after all!

I suppose in a way it helps to know that they're dicks to their own apprentices as well as strange princes from another world.

Asandir does at least defend Arithon a little, pointing out that they could have fixed a litter and pointing out that Arithon trusted Dakar in the ritual, and "Is that how you thank him?"

He only glances at Lysaer, but Lysaer does feel bad now:

Stung for his lapse into pettiness, Lysaer hefted Arithon into the dray. He attended his half-brother’s needs with a servant’s humility, while around him the vault became preternaturally quiet. The horses stopped sidling and stood glassy-eyed, their ears and tails hanging limp. The pattern in the floor began to sing in a tone just outside of hearing and the air gained a charge that lifted the hairs on their backs.

So everyone gets into the horse-drawn wagon and whoosh, magicky stuff happens. Lysaer gets to be awake for this one, and it sounds pretty intense. He feels sick and disoriented, and eventually passes out.

So where are they?

The Paravians called the place Caith-al-Caen, Vale of Shadows, by the dawn of the Second Age. Common usage corrupted the name of the ruin there to Castlecain, though from a vantage halfway up a mist-cloaked hillside the reason seemed obscured. The site never held any fortress. All that remained of the clay and thatch croft where Cianor Sunlord had been born were hummocks where orchards had stood. Yet as Asandir wound his way over ground that once had held gardens of scented, flowering trees, his eyes saw beyond bleak mist and sere landscape. If he looked with his mage’s vision, the shadows, the memories, that abiding resonance of mystery that lingered wherever the old races had cherished the earth skeined like star-lit thread through the cross-laced, dead canes of briar.

This place apparently was really important to the unicorns, and there is a lot of flowery language the gist of which is that the place feels empty and desolate without them. (My favorite turn of phrase is: "The ecstasy in their music had marked the very soil, and now wind itself mourned the loss." which is my favorite bit of ridiculous prose not directed toward Arithon.)

So yeah, this place is really depressing. Especially for Asandir, until he hears music!

Arpeggios rippled and soared, linked by grace-notes that revealed, like unfinished tapestry, the latent promise of the bard. Cut diamonds had less clarity. The s’Ffalenn heir already possessed a skill that could pierce the heart; offered freedom to pursue his desire, and given the right master, his talent could be refined to a grace that held power to captivate.

Asandir seems to feel a bit guilty right now, as well he should. So he goes up to talk to Arithon. He asks why. I think he means why was Arithon playing for them.

Arithon settled the lyranthe into the crook of his elbow and answered the question’s drift. ‘I finally had proof that your promise of free will was genuine.’ Green eyes turned, but Asandir could no longer meet them. Unperturbed, where in a more guarded moment he might justly have taken alarm, Arithon continued. ‘I challenged my right to self-destruction and was shown an open door.’ He paused, looked down and his hands opened. ‘You’ll forgive my cantankerous behaviour, I hope. I’m capable of better, as you’ll see.’

Dude. That was a lie. It was totally a lie. And to his credit, Asandir flinches.

We get a few snippets of Arithon's backstory here, and of course more prose.:

The offering itself was a rarity for a man unaccustomed to companionship: a lonely boy, raised in the company of elderly mages who had all loved him at a distance. He had grown without a mother’s affection, but hereditary compassion had turned him from resentment. He readily forgave what he did not understand, and defined his joy through his competence. Praise for his achievements kept him from discovering the depths of his isolation, the cost of that misapprehension still yet to be paid.

The true friend, the caring lover, could absolve all hurt from the growth that inevitably must be forced upon the grown man. The lesson might be learned through care and happiness, that the self-worth Arithon instinctively sought in music was a separate thing from accomplishment – had Desh-thiere and a crown not hung between.

Asandir hid bitterness. His own role disallowed mercy. Inwardly connected the Master might be, and strong as well, but along with his confidence came infinite power to wound. Asandir came close to recoil as another image touched his consciousness: a young girl’s face, with shy, smiling lips, eyes like aventurine, and ash-brown hair caught up in braids. Arithon had wanted to kiss her but women confused him; while walking in the hills to gather herbs they had spoken of music and poetry and then of things more personal. And trembling in his arms she had admitted that his powers, the given gift of Shadow he had laboured so long to master, frightened her. He had let her go, not knowing what to say.

Asandir knows the girl's name is Tennia, and fuck if that doesn't seem like a huge betrayal right there. Does Arithon even know you know these things? I know the prose is laughably over the top, but it still doesn't mask that Asandir is a dick.

Asandir watched the winds comb the dry, frost-brittle grasses with bleak eyes. This time, in keenest irony, inherited s’Ffalenn compassion had set the reins into his grasp; s’Ahelas farsight offered the whip. His mage’s perception recognized Arithon’s inner fibre, and its naked vulnerability stirred him to grief sharp as outrage: for he could, he would, and he must, manipulate this prince into voluntary betrayal of everything he held dear.

Yeah, dude. You're not winning me over with this. You might, MIGHT be able to convince me that it's important that the Paravians return. You EVEN might convince me that it's a good thing for all seven sorcerers to be reunited (though the ones we have now seem to be total dicks), but if you really think you're justified, you should TELL THEM.

Maybe you wouldn't need to manipulate!

But then, maybe Asandir is actually going to do something for Arithon here. He has Arithon give him his hands, and there is talk of clearing and centering his mind. He's giving him a glimpse of the Paravians.

The statues of Riathan enshrined at Althain Tower might reflect an artist’s proportion and line. But perfection carved in cold marble could never capture motion, nor the lightness and flight of cloven hooves, nor the lift of tails and manes more fine than spun silk; not the spiralled twist of horns that shimmered with an energy visible to mages, nor the soaring, heart-searing sweetness of song that underlay the sigh of the wind. Caith-al-Caen rang with a purity of tone just beyond grasp of the mind.

Arithon dropped the bit of stone, helplessly overwhelmed. He sank to his knees before the cranny where he had sheltered. Assaulted by a rapture beyond hope, the half-glimpsed promise of limitless light, he laughed aloud and then trembled. His eyes filled with tears and over-flowed. ‘Blessed Ath,’ he managed finally, his words wrung to harshness by awe. ‘I never guessed. Yet the beauty in the sword should have warned me.’

Where Arithon is awed, Asandir's reaction is different:

Asandir regarded the lyrical pavane of the spirit forms, mute. Their image held power to captivate, surely; but the palliative brought only hunger, akin to the cravings of delirium. These illusions were just poor, starved shadows, an imprint like after-image left by creatures whose existence transcended mortality. The reality made pearls seem as sand. For one who had beheld the wisdom in a unicorn’s depthless eyes, for any who had once experienced the current of undefiled exultation that abided in their presence, the ghosts scribed here by trace resonance exposed only wretched emptiness. Asandir wept also, but for loss beyond words to encompass and for a future set into motion that must not now be undone.

I suppose it makes sense. For someone who hasn't seen the real thing, a glimpse must be tantalizing and awe-inspiring. For someone who has, it's just a memory of what is lost.

Asandir has a moment of humanity:

Cut by regret and infinite pity, he bent also and gathered Arithon’s shivering shoulders into the embrace a parent might show to a child about to be orphaned. ‘You can block the visions at will by sealing off your inner sight.’

..."embrace a parent might show to a child about to be orphaned". Snerk.

Anyway, Arithon's so moved by the vision that he can't imagine wanting to block them. Asandir thinks that he's soon to regret this. Apparently, they're soon going to be passing through some really really messy, in a spiritual sense, places.

Asandir actually has some moral quandaries here:

Irony within irony, Asandir knew, as his feet stumbled in unabashed haste and his clothing hooked on the briars. The king for Rathain would be bought in false guilt against every dedicated principle of the Fellowship whose first task was to foster enlightenment.

...I'm glad you're aware of it.

The next scene is from Lysaer's point of view. He's in good spirits, though not, apparently, special enough to warrant a glimpse of unicorns or anything. You know, it'd serve you assholes right if the thing that splits Lysaer and Arithon up is jealousy. It's not Arithon's fault that they've prioritized him, but Lysaer has every right to resent it.

Interestingly, the landscape is completely deserted. No hostels, caravans, or anything like that. Asandir explains: "Daon Ramon" means golden hills. Because this was the province of the unicorns, there was no need for any real buildings. Lysaer has trouble imagining that the land was fertile and green.

‘It was, and beautifully so.’ Asandir urged his mount over a gully where the road had washed out and the slates lay jammed like old bones in a spongy bed of moss. His silver-grey eyes seemed to pierce the mantle of mist and peer far into distance. ‘All that you see was a grassland, rich with herbs and wildflowers. Winters were short and mild. But that changed, after the rebellion. Townsmen believed the magic of the Paravians could not abide in a land without water. They went to astonishing lengths to assuage their fears. The governor’s council of Etarra funded a force of mercenaries to dam the Severnir. A great canal was cut through the Skyshiel Mountains to divert the river at its source. The current flows east, now, and empties into Eltair Bay.’

Okay, that does seem like a dick move. Successful though, as Asandir acknowledges.

Lysaer has a moment of wounded pride when Dakar critiques his attempt to mend a tear in his sleeve. Arithon comes to his defense, pointing out that princes generally don't keep clothes until they fall apart. He offers to help Lysaer, so long as he doesn't mind wearing what looks like "a sail-makers patch."

Lysaer surrendered needle and linen with a gratitude that unfailingly melted hearts. ‘These clothes would hardly impress anyone before they were torn.’ To Dakar he added quietly, ‘The s’Ffalenn bastard’s made a fool of you again. You promised a scathing show of temper after Althain Tower. Now I’m left to wonder which of you is the more devious: Arithon, for an act that would fool a saint, or you, for a lying diversion to escape getting dressed down for rudeness.’

Aw. Brothers.

So they travel for five days. We get a better glimpse of the devastation wrought by the Mistwraith:

After five days’ journey the hills of Daon Ramon lost their rocky crowns and became clothed and gentled by heather. Valleys that until now had been channelled with dried gullies and stunted stands of scrub-oak smoothed over into vales half hidden in fog. If the view had once been beautiful, Desh-thiere rendered everything bleak; the winds that never stilled gained the bitten edge of frost. For league upon league there seemed no living thing but grey-coated deer, rabbits furred in winter-white and the lonely, dissonant calls of hawks that sailed like shadows through the mist in search of prey.

There's a cute bit where Lysaer thinks that he's very tired of venison, but is careful not to tell Arithon, who has been spending "as many hours hunting as playing upon his lyranthe."

Dakar is complaining about the lack of alcohol, while Asandir is staying closed-mouthed. Of course he is.

Lysaer, not being mage trained, doesn't appreciate the loss of the Paravians the way that Asandir and Arithon do. Instead, he's just kind of dimly aware of this aching hollow feeling. He thinks about his lost fiancee: her eyes liquid with tears, and her hands held out in entreaty. He remembered how her auburn hair had blown in the sea-breeze off South Isle and echoes of her lost laughter ached his heart.

Pride keeps him quiet though. I wish Lysaer's fiancee had a name.

There reach a spring where Arithon has a violent reaction, angrily saying that Asandir might have warned him. Asandir explains: a centaur was murdered here, during the rebellion. Moss doesn't grow, and the melody that the sunchildren sang in his memory still echoes on the wind to the people sensitive enough to listen.

I mean, fair complaint, but also could extend to a shit ton more.

Lysaer feels like he's been rebuked, but Dakar's elbow in the ribs keeps him from saying so. Dakar explains that this place is painful to sorcerers. Lysaer expresses surprise that Asandir even has feelings, which again, fair. But Dakar says that Asandir is basically doing his best to keep from weeping outright.

Lysaer is skeptical, but Dakar tells him to look at Arithon, who is crying and hunched over like he's wounded.

Lysaer asks why Dakar doesn't feel anything and why he doesn't. And I'm going to excerpt this, because I think it's actually pretty important:

The Mad Prophet clawed back an untidy lock of hair. Cold had reddened the tip of his nose and his eyes looked unwarrantedly bloodshot; yet a dignified majesty cloaked him all the same as he said, ‘Do you want to?’

The question hit hard. Driven to see into himself with uncanny depth and clarity, struck naked before his own judgement, Lysaer perceived that the confusion that had harried him since exile held a core of ugly truth. No longer did the glamour of noble purpose veil fact: that his brave resolve to Traithe in Althain’s storeroom had been rooted in vanity and pride. He had renounced a difficult path of study and vowed instead to redress the wrongs of a kingdom for his own personal glory. As though revolted by a foul taste, Lysaer sucked in a fast breath. He could hope his self-disgust was not exposed on his face, but Dakar regarded him strangely.

‘Do you feel nothing?’ The Mad Prophet slapped the straw from his cloak with sudden, biting sharpness. ‘I’d venture not. I’d say this place moves you as deeply as the rest of us.’

1. Dakar has, so far, basically just been comic relief asshole. We've yet to see him show any real purposeful competence in anything. But we see an interesting level of insight here. And, his use of the word "us" in the last sentence. He does feel what Asandir and Arithon feel, perhaps not to the same extent, but he's holding it together with a certain implicit strength.

2. This also, of course, is an important beat for Lysaer too. I don't think he's actually motivated by glory. But he does have a very single focus that doesn't admit a lot that would distract him from it.

3. Does Lysaer actually feel nothing? Or is it just very unconscious? Would it have been different if he'd gotten to see the unicorns too?

Lysaer does make a declaration: ‘My true heart stayed behind in Port Royal, I see, with my love, and my family, and my people. If that is a failing, it’s at least no more than human. The problems that beset this land are not mine. Yet I will do my best to help right them.’

Dakar is baffled by the contradiction between these heartfelt words and the ominous predictions. Yeah, I feel you, man. Prophecy sucks.

So now they reach Ithamon. "City of Legend and seat of the high kings of Rathain".

The greensward beyond was overrun with briar, what had been orchards, gardens and tourney fields now choked by weed and bitter-root vine. A second wall had bounded the inner edge of the common. Embraced within gapped, half-gutted watchkeeps, the tumbled shells of townhouses clung to the hillside’s ever steepening pitch. Dismembered foundations marked off a tangle of narrow lanes and briar-ridden courtyards. As if a mighty army had once razed the buildings stone from stone with battering rams, the craftsmen’s cottages, market stalls and merchants’ mansions all lay jumbled in chaos. Gabled roofs had caved inward, beams rotted away in the sunless damp of Desh-thiere. A scatter of fallen slates in what may have been a market court reflected the rain like coins thrown out for a beggar.

The devastation of the lower tiers was total, a memorial to unbridled violence. Yet as if moved by some powerful unseen force, the viewer found his sight drawn upward, where, slightly north of centre, the native granite of the earth sheered up through soil and rock into a near-vertical outcrop. The triangular summit on the clifftop was encased by embrasures of seamless, blue-black granite. Inside, an unkempt eyrie of broken walls and spires marked the site of the inner citadel, the castle where generations of Paravians, and after them, the s’Ffalenn high kings, had held court.

There are four towers though, that still stand. "ach as different from the other as sculpture by separate masters. They speared upward through the mist, tall, straight, perfect. The incongruity of their wholeness against the surrounding wreckage was a dichotomy fit to maim the soul: for their lines were harmony distilled into form, and strength beyond reach of time’s attrition.

Asandir tells us its history. Ithamon had been raised by the Paravians in Athera's first age. It was a fortress at the time, because the Paravians had been at war with the Seardluin, who are also native to the world, but hostile. They're now extinct. Men settled the city in the Third Age.

The Towers are particularly important, having withstood nineteen thousand years. They each have a separate name. The white one is wisdom. The black one is a Paravian concept that seems to mix the idea of endurance and honor. The rose quartz is grace. The green one is compassion. Apparently, when civilization has abandoned any of these qualities, the respective tower will fall.

There was a fifth tower: Justice, but it cracked when some important person was assassinated. The last bit crumbled in the rebellion.

Arithon's reaction to his awesome, if terrifying, city, is similar to his reaction to every thing cool that he has:

Arithon looked tortured to his very core. Struck blind and deaf by the chord of Paravian mystery first tuned to his awareness in Caith-al-Caen, he had wheeled his mare in the roadway to confront Asandir. A betrayal too fresh to have sparked resentment tautened the planes of his face, and his voice was gravel as he said, ‘Ath’s own mercy, how am I to suffer this?’

The sorcerer sat his black stallion with the straight-backed formality of Daelion, Master of Fate. ‘I will answer when you ask out of care, Prince of Rathain.’

Arithon recoiled in a high flush of fury. ‘No need to answer at all, sorcerer. Everywhere I turn, it seems I get saddled with sand-kingdoms. Well, pity has torn out my heart far and long before this. I bear the ache already like a bad scar.’

Dramatic.

But also, Asandir, fuck off. You're forcing the guy into kingship. You don't get to be judgy when he's unhappy about it.

Lysaer asks Asandir why he pushed Arithon and his answer, well:

His mildness shaped by grief, Asandir said, ‘This city has weathered seven major tragedies and three ages of history. So much dust to you perhaps, but to those of us who have borne witness it means wisdom painfully gained, paid for by men who bled and died, and Paravians who weathered mortal failings time and again until the rifts in their world grew too wide to endure. Shall all that has been go wasted because Arithon dislikes responsibility? Athera’s civilizations struggle on the brink of imbalance with Desh-thiere’s coming defeat. A restoration of just rule must follow. The reinstated prince who subdues Etarra must descend from the old kings if he is to close the rift between townsman and clan barbarian.’ The sorcerer finished in baldfaced regret. ‘Put simply, Arithon’s recalcitrance is a luxury the times can ill afford.’

You know, Asandir. You really don't have to be a total dick about all this. You could be a little nicer to the people who you are planning to totally fuck over.

Lysaer thinks that Asandir's made an enemy of Arithon. I doubt it. Arithon hasn't even been allowed to get angry about getting his mind messed with without a massive guilt trip. But anyway, Asandir tells them that they shall camp in a tower. Arithon chooses the tower named "Kieling", or Compassion.

--

The next part of the chapter is "Caithdein".

We rejoin Maenalle, who is in a very good mood. Apparently all of Tysan's clanlords will be gathered beneath this one roof, and she's going to give the very welcome news that an heir has returned to claim Tysan's throne.

I'm sorry, Maenalle. You're about to be really disappointed.

And indeed, here comes the discorporate sorcerer Luhaine. Maenalle realizes that this is bad. Especially as Luhaine has the reputation of being something of a recluse. He shocks her by insisting that Wards be set. She realizes that he's trying to keep the Koriani sorceresses from finding out what's going on.

Once ready, Luhaine tells her the bad news. Basically, once the Mistwraith's defeated, Lysaer will be joining the townsmen and fucking over the clans. (...I still think it might be worth talking to the guy about this first?)

Maenalle is devastated. And there's a nice human moment where Luhaine regrets being a disembodied spirit as he can't offer her a comforting touch. He can't really offer her an explanation either, only that something will set the princes apart, and it will be prompted by the Mistwraith itself.

Maenalle accepts this news with anguish.

--

The next part of the chapter is Scryers.

Here of course, we're back at the Koriani. Morriel, the Prime Enchantress, and her right hand woman, Lirenda are at work. They've detected something interesting: in a place called Corith, in the west, there's a hint of sunlight in the sky.

The mist has gathered strongly at Ithamon, of course. And they realize what's happening. The fight against the Mistwraith is starting.

They decide to use the Skyron crystal to see what's going on. And they have an in: Elaira. Sort of. Basically, since they scanned her brain after the mess in Erdane, they obtained a kind of imprint of her mind: "innocent, unconditional love".

They can use that to pierce the defenses of the tower, as long as they observe and don't interfere.

So they use the crystal to basically start sifting through Elaira's memories. We get a bit of Elaira's origins:

Shivering in noxious rags and the sour, shedding leathers of spoiled furs, she remembered wakeful nights spent listening to the wet, tearing coughs of the old man who looked after her as he lay wasting of lung-sickness. Friends were all the wealth a child of the streets might possess. Food, shelter and belongings could be wrested away; as an orphan, disciple of thieves, Elaira well knew how easily. But love and good memories could outlast misfortune, even death.

Until the hour her fledgling talents had led her into straits with the town constable, who sold her into Morvain for rearing in Koriani fosterage, Elaira had made her life rich with caring.

(Of course, Lirenda is a cold person from a very wealthy family. Because Wurts is not terribly subtle.)

Lirenda subsumes her persona into Elaira's, which gets a little awkward when she catches sight of Arithon:

Framed by magelight and a backdrop of louring fog that imposed false dusk upon the scene, Arithon raised his head and looked around. Recognition suffused his glance as if he could sense the Koriani contact bridged through from Camris by crystal.

As acting surrogate for Elaira, Lirenda felt scorched by that gaze. But the rapport that would have quickened her sister initiate to excitement only tantalized the First Enchantress as elusively as the receding edge of a dream. She shivered. As if touched to recoil by empathy, the s’Ffalenn prince on the parapet frowned. He tossed back his hood in sudden tension as a man might measure an opponent. Through a space while the winds whipped his dark locks into tangles, his hand flicked a gesture to Dakar. Captivated by the movement’s instinctive grace, and spontaneously struck by stray recall, Lirenda shared a past memory – of those very same fingers plucking straw from her hair with a tenderness impossible to forget.

Oh dear. Sorry, Lirenda. You're in the awkward position of being mind-melded with the girl who has a crush on the author's obvious favorite. You don't really have a chance.

We get to watch as Arithon and Lysaer work together, using their respective gifts to attack the Mistwraith. And disrupt Lirenda's scrying.

Then Lirenda is yanked back to the Koriani scrying room by a furious Morriel. She is particularly infuriated that Arithon has mage training, and calls him an abomination loosed by the Fellowship upon this world.

Morriel orders that they summon Elaira. They're going to need more information, and Elaira's the best person to get it for them. Poor Elaira.

--

Our sneak peek section is "Triad".

In Erdane, a seer wakes up with a cry, because her dreams have shown her the sky and moon.

Elaira, who is up in a tree, pruning dead growth, gets the summons from Lirenda and uses foul language that amuses the boys helping her.

And on a very very faraway island, a unicorn watches the mists part, while a sorcerer is sealed under sleep spells nearby. Ooh.

See you next time!