“I am not afraid of him,” Paxon declared at once.

“You should be. He nearly undid the Druid Order before you stopped him. He is capable of great evil. Watch out for him. Be careful of yourself and your sister.”

She paused. “One last thing. Isaturin will need time to learn his place as Ard Rhys. No one can prepare for this until they hold the office. It was so for me; it will be so for him. Help him adjust. Give him your support. Keep him safe. You are fully grown into your paladin shoes, a young man with great skill and the good sense to know how to use it. Make use of it for him. Be his right hand and protector in these early months of his service to the order. Now take my arm.”

She reached out, and he rose quickly to assist her. Her arm caught hold of his and she levered herself to her feet smoothly, suddenly seeming younger and stronger. She smiled at the look on his face.

“Now we can go,” she said.

TWO

WITH KERATRIX GUIDING THE WAY AND PAXON LENDING suport, Aphenglow Elessedil walked down the corridors and passageways of the Druid’s’ Keep toward the airship platform off the north tower. A few Druids passed them on their way, pausing to offer greetings to which the Ard Rhys dutifully replied before continuing on. A suggestion of haste marked her progress—and in truth haste defined the nature of her leaving, no matter how you looked at it.

She deviated from her path only once. Pausing at the door that opened out onto the landing platform and the waiting airship, she gestured Keratrix away, standing silently with Paxon as she awaited her aide’s return. The seconds slipped by in slow procession, the measure of her life steadily shortening. More than once, the Highlander thought to speak with her, but something in her demeanor kept him from doing so. She was alone with her thoughts, and he sensed that, for now, she wanted it that way.

When Keratrix returned, he had Chrysallin in tow.

Paxon’s sister rushed ahead of the scribe toward Aphenglow, all protocol and formality abandoned as they embraced. Chrysallin began to cry, her face stricken.

“Don’t go, Mistress,” she sobbed. “Don’t leave us!”

“You’ve guessed, then,” Aphenglow replied, taking her by the shoulders and moving her away so she could look at her. “You are always so quick to know the truth. It will serve you well.”

Chrysallin seemed to make a monumental effort to get her tears under control, straightening herself, becoming composed. She was tall and slender, her girlishness gone—a young woman now, strong and steady, her path through the world determined. “Is there nothing that can be done?” she asked the Ard Rhys quietly.

“All that can be done has been. What happens now is preordained. I leave because it is time. My life has been long and full. Do not grieve for me. Celebrate me in your memories.”

Paxon’s sister glanced at him beseechingly for help, then found the answer in his eyes to her unspoken need and nodded slowly. “I will never forget what you have done for me,” she said finally. “I will celebrate you in my memories, but mostly in my heart.”

Aphenglow smiled. “That makes me very happy. Now, give heed to me this final time. Should you need counseling at any point, on any matter, speak to Paxon. And listen to your brother. He is there for you if you should need him. He has sworn to me it will be so—though I am certain he would be there for you even without his vow to me. But there may come a time when life becomes so difficult you cannot bear it. If that happens, lean on him.”

“I will, Mistress. I promise.”

“That’s a promise I will hold you to.” The older woman leaned forward and kissed her on both cheeks. “Good-bye, Chrysallin.”

Once through the door and atop the landing platform, the Ard Rhys and her attendants moved to the fast clipper that Isaturin had prepared and by which he stood waiting. He was to come with Paxon on this journey, and only the two of them would witness Aphenglow’s passing from the Four Lands. The Captain of the Druid Guard, Dajoo Rees, and his Troll companions were already aboard and would act as crew. To all who might witness it, this leaving appeared to be just another of many, and not the last. Only the handful gathered at the airship knew the truth.

At the ramp prepared for her boarding, Aphenglow turned to Keratrix and took his hands. “Good-bye to you, young one. You were everything I could have hoped for in a scribe and a confidant in these final years. I hope you will think well of me once I am gone, and that you will remember I tried to be kind to you.”

“You were unfailingly kind, Mistress,” the scribe managed to say before breaking down.

She took him by his shoulders and hugged him momentarily before turning back to Paxon. “Help me to board,” she ordered.

It was done in moments. Standing with the Ard Rhys and Isaturin, Paxon watched the Trolls raise the light sheaths and release the mooring lines. He heard the diapson crystals begin to power up, snugged down in their parse tubes, warm with the flow of energy siphoned down by the radian draws. He watched the sails billow out in the midday breeze, and then they were lifting away, rising into clouds banked overhead, thick and fluffy against a deep blue sky. Below, Paranor’s walls and towers grew small against the green of the surrounding forests, and as the airship shifted course south, they faded and were gone.

“The last time,” Aphenglow whispered, mostly to herself, though Paxon heard the words clearly.

Isaturin moved away toward the bow, leaving the Ard Rhys with the Highlander. Paxon watched him go. He had noted the other’s deep reticence during their boarding, and he believed the High Druid was dealing with these final hours in the best way he knew how—but still he was struggling, his path uncertain. Paxon could not blame him. His own emotions were edgy and raw, his sense of place and time rocked by his own reluctance to accept the inevitable.

The airship flew south toward the Kennon Pass, navigated the narrow fissure that split the Dragon’s Teeth, and descended into the borderlands of Callahorn before turning east to follow the wall of the mountains, tracking the blue ribbon of the Mermidon River far below. No one spoke, himself included. There was a surreal aspect to what was happening, a sense of suspension of time as they made their passage. The day eased through the afternoon and on toward sunset, but even knowing their destination did nothing to help dispel the unreality that wrapped the cause of their journey. Paxon kept thinking the same thing, unable to absorb the words fully, incapable of finding a way to accept them.

The Ard Rhys is dying. We are taking her to her final resting place. After today, she will be gone forever.

There had never been a time in the collective memory of living men and women when Aphenglow Elessedil hadn’t been a part of their lives. She had been as immutable and enduring as the land itself—a presence unaltered by events or the passing of the years. That she would one day die was inevitable, but it always felt as if it would never be this day, or the next, or any day soon. The constancy of her presence was reassuring and, in some sense, necessary. Her life had been a gift. Her tenure as Ard Rhys had been marked by accomplishment. She had been instrumental in saving the Four Lands from the creatures of the Forbidding when they had broken free. She had reformed the shattered Druid Order when all but two were killed and made it stronger and more effective than it had been in years past. She had brokered a peace that had lasted for more than a century between the Federation and the other governments of the Four Lands. She had made the Druids relevant and acceptable again in the eyes of the Races.

Her entire life had been given over to her duties as Ard Rhys. There had been two men in her life, but both had come to her in her early years, and both had been all too quickly lost. It was said that the loss of her sister Arling had been even worse, leaving her so bereft she had never been able to love again, and had supplanted that need with a deeply ingrained dedication to her work. It was said that, with her own family lost, the Druids had become her family.