when she arrived, as though the Night of Noxaur had strengthened its half-rotten roots. She pushed through, yanking her cloak and skirts free of thorns every few steps. Here and there she was obliged to use the sword to cut a path for herself. Its sharp blade hewed through the snarling branches as if they were nothing, and she made better progress. Finally reaching the end of the snarl, she peered out to the clear space between the ruined gates and Dornrise’s courtyard.
Soran was there.
Soran, but . . . not Soran.
An aura of magic surrounded him, engulfing his limbs. And the shadowy thing in that shining center hardly looked like the man she knew. His claw-tipped fingers arched in savage silhouette, and blue flames sparked like bolts of lightning from his eyes, from his mouth, from the palms of his hands, sizzling with pent-up energy.
Even as she watched, he pointed one hand at an approaching skull-dog and let off a blast. This was nothing like the bolt-strike he’d used against the harpen a week before. It was more like a scythe of pure magic energy that swung down at the dog and cleaved it in two so quickly, so cleanly that the monster howled and writhed for some while before succumbing to death.
This was sorcery—true sorcery such as Nelle had never seen before.
A spell wrought by a mage with power enough at his command to create a Noswraith.
Nelle hung back among the briars, feeling suddenly very foolish. What use was her meager spell compared to the power she saw before her? Perhaps she should retreat after all, drop the spell, let the magic die, and sneak back through the thorns before he saw her.
Her hand trembled, and the flaming sword flickered and faltered in her grasp, the spell ready to dissipate.
Another skull-dog sprang at Soran from behind. In a single fluid motion, he spun around, slashing with the claws of his left hand. Horrible gashes opened across the monster’s throat, but its momentum carried it on until it crashed into him, knocking him off his feet.
The dog wasn’t dead. It snarled, choked, gagged, and tore at Soran’s chest, trying to get through the folds of his robes down to his throat. Soran thrust a nilarium hand up into the dog’s mouth, pushing it back as the savage teeth tore the air mere inches from his face. A swell of magic gathered in the palm of Soran’s other hand, but it faltered, faded. Worse still, the claws on his fingertips began to retract slowly, and Soran cried out in pain, either from the skull-dog’s teeth or the agony of the spell coming undone.
Two long, low shadows closed in, eyes bright pinpoints of fire, faces gleaming white in the reflected glow of magic. They lunged at the fallen mage, grabbing at his arm, his legs. Nelle gagged on a scream, adjusted her grip on her sword, and took three long strides through the brambles, intending to throw herself into the fray.
“Zivath!”
The command rang out in the darkness.
The dogs responded at once, swallowing their growls and backing away from the ragged, bloodied figure lying on the broken paving stones. Nelle recoiled among the brambles, lowering her sword. She didn’t mean to . . . She’d meant to rush out into the open, to stand over Soran’s crumpled form and brandish her spell in wild defiance.
But something in that voice—something in that shadowy figure approaching through the gloom of night, striding down the center of the long Dornrise driveway—made her knees turn to water. She sank to the ground. The flames of her sword died back, the spell nearly flickering out.
The fae lord moved with smooth unhurried grace, his silvery garments wafting gently behind him. A glow like moonlight seemed to wrap his body, making his every feature perfectly visible even in that deep night. Nelle, much closer to him now than she had been that morning, saw the details of a face perfectly chiseled into an extreme archetype of male beauty.
“Well, well, mortal mage,” the fae said as he approached Soran and the crouching hounds. “It seems you have been lying to me, after the fashion of mortals. I shouldn’t be surprised, but . . .” He tilted his head, and a long sweep of midnight-blue hair fell across his shoulder. “But I am disappointed.”
Soran forced himself up onto one elbow, gasping as he raised his head to peer at the fae lord’s face. Nelle’s heart lurched at the sight. She covered her