Shadows Return

Epilogue

WINTER CAME EARLY this year, before the end of Erasin. Looking out from the shelter of the domed colos on the roof of the clan house, Seneth ä Matriel Danata Hâzadriël admired the way the moonlight glistened on the new fallen snow. From here she could see the entire valley below, her beautiful fai’thast, and the warm glimmer of lights in the villages and steadings. Her lands stretched from the head of the long valley to the gleaming peaks of the Ravensfell Pass far to the south. Here and there, in the highlands above, distant fires marked the villages of their neighbors, the Retha’noi.

How long had it been, since she’d slept a whole night through? Weeks, it seemed. Night after night she woke from a sound sleep, feeling like she’d forgotten something very important. She usually ended up here, while the household slumbered below.

Tonight she found her gaze straying to the Pass again. Twin watch fires burned there, steady and bright, but the sight gave her little comfort.

Just then Uri knocked at the doorframe behind her. “Khirnari, you have a visitor.”

“At this hour?” She turned and found her old friend, the seer Belan ä Talia, standing just behind the servant, and with her a stooped little Retha’noi man. Seneth did not know him, but recognized the witch marks that covered his face and neck under his wild grey curls. The shoulders of their cloaks were dusted with snow, and the hems heavy with little ice balls. Both of them were shivering.

“My friends, come warm yourselves!” Seneth urged them downstairs to the great hearth in the hall. “Uri, fetch shawls and hot mead for our guests.”

“Thank you, Khirnari,” the Retha’noi said as he warmed his bony little hands over the flames. More witch marks, the gift of the Retha’noi mother goddess, covered them and what she could see of his arms. She’d never seen so many on one witch, and wondered how she’d never met him before.

Uri hurried back with one of the young cousins of the house, carrying the shawls and steaming cups. Seneth wrapped both her guests up snugly on the bench closest to the hearth.

Belan wrapped her hands gratefully around the mug of honey wine. “I would not have disturbed you at such an hour, Khirnari, but I’ve had strange dreams lately, and tonight this witch man, Turmay, came to me with the same vision.” She paused, and Seneth saw that her hands were shaking. “I believe a white child has been made in the south.”

For a long moment Seneth could only stare at her friend; this was the last thing she’d ever expected to hear.

“And so I saw,” Turmay said, nodding emphatically. “It meant nothing to me, but the Mother guided me to friend Belan.”

“What did you see?” Seneth asked.

“A child that is not a child, Khirnari. One with a dragon in its eyes.”

Seneth clasped her hands together in her lap. “How? How did this happen?”

Belan looked away uneasily. “I can think of only one possibility, Khirnari.”

Seneth closed her eyes as old pain gripped her heart. Twenty years had passed since Ireya ä Shaar’s name had been spoken aloud in this valley. She could not bring herself to say it now. “It isn’t possible! The blood was mixed in half parts.”

“But I believe something has happened,” Belan told her. “What shall we do, Khirnari?”

Seneth gathered her will and hardened her heart. “The Ebrados must hunt again.”