Mystra, bright and powerful and whole, smilingly defying the dark goddess.
“Let us, for once, not go too far, Goddess of Night,” Mystra said gently, her eyes two silver flames of understanding, warning, and grim promise.
Shar snarled in rage and turned away in a swirling of shadows, and the day came back again.
One moment the coronal was fighting desperately against too many mercenaries to count, in deepening darkness as the floating city came down on all their heads, fighting to guard Fflar’s back and keep him alive as he worked miracles of deft bladework to hold back hireswords beyond counting, and helping elf knight after wounded elf knight through the portal-
And the next, she was somewhere else.
Somewhere green and forested and familiar, that lacked tall spires and human butchers-for-coin beyond number and fallen Tel’Quess everywhere.
She blinked. Semberholme, that’s where she was.
There were elves everywhere around her, in bloody armor, swords in their hands, weeping and embracing. Her people, the last Myth Drannans who’d fought beside her, she who was now coronal of nowhere.
Through the sobbing, hugging crowd, she saw Fflar, her Fflar, in his hacked and rent armor, sword still in hand, stalking wearily toward her.
“The Srinshee,” he said hoarsely. “She saved every one of us.” And burst into tears.
They plunged into each other’s arms.
The breeze was icy, up on so high a ledge of the Thunder Peaks, but it afforded them the view they needed-once augmented by their spells, of course-and they simply had to see.
It’s not every day you watch your home and most of your kin and people destroyed, all at one stroke.
Gwelt, Manarlume, and Lelavdra stood together in stunned silence as the debacle unfolded.
It was a long time before Gwelt stirred.
“Your grandsire was a mighty man, but a proud one,” he said grimly. “Too proud, in the end.”
“He was a proud fool,” Lelavdra replied scornfully.
“There are worse things to be,” said Manarlume, “but yes, let us strive not to be so proud.”
“Or foolish,” Gwelt added.
“And keep far from the company of those who are,” Lelavdra said bitterly.
Manarlume sighed. “So shall we shiver on some mountaintop? Shrivel dry at the heart of some vast desert? Or drown on a rock far out in the trackless seas?”
The three Shadovar looked at each other-and then burst into rueful laughter.
It was so late on this night of the thirteenth of Marpenoth that it had really become early on the fourteenth, and outside was chill darkness and glittering stars.
Yet Storm’s kitchen was a warm welter of noise, delightful aromas, and dancing candlelight from a dozen lanterns. It was hot and getting hotter, and Amarune and Arclath were trying their best to help their whirlwind of a host prepare a feast. Storm preferred to stir and sample the soups herself, but there were roasts to be wrestled onto spits and then turned by someone who could kick fresh logs into the hearth beneath them without having all the flaming firewood roll right back out (Arclath’s job, and he was learning mastery of it fast, though his boots would never be the same), and bread to be hauled out of ovens (Amarune’s task).
She blew clinging hair off her forehead with a mighty puff, slid her hands into the padded gloves Storm had tossed her way, and picked up a pry bar to do battle with the bread-oven doors.
“How do you know they’re done?” Arclath asked her.
“See that line of bread dough all around the edge of the door, sealing it?” Rune asked tartly. “It’s done, yes? Well, then, so are the loaves inside.”
“And you became an expert on baking bread when?”
“When Storm told me about that trick, while you were raiding the pantry,” Amarune admitted, and when Arclath looked over his shoulder, he saw Storm watching them with a broad grin.
“You’re a couple, all right,” she murmured happily.
“We’re cooking enough for an army,” Rune pointed out, chipping baked bread away from one door. “How can you be sure they’ll come?”
“I know them,” Storm replied. “Saving the world makes you hungry.”
And it was only one dropped loaf and one slopped soup cauldron later that the kitchen door opened without knock or warning, and two tall silver-haired women arrived.
“Luse! Laer! Wine yonder!” Storm greeted them, not leaving her pots.
Alustriel and Laeral smiled and waved at her, and Alustriel asked, “Anything we can help with?”
“Eating and drinking,” Storm told them, “and settling your behinds down in the chairs that end of the table, out of the way.”
“Fair enough. Oh, we’ve brought along some friends,” Laeral announced, and stood aside to introduce, with a flourish that would have done credit to any herald, a bewildered-looking Lady Glathra Barcantle of Cormyr, with a spiderlike, human-headed thing-the former Royal Magician Vangerdahast-riding on her shoulder.
“Well,” it was telling Glathra rather testily, “I think the Rune Lords are-oh.” It stared at everyone in the room, and blinked in surprise.
“Welcome!” Storm said with a smile, and then looked at Vangerdahast and added, “You should have come visiting more often down the years, Vangey. Affairs of state make more sense when discussed over broth-or something stronger-in a farmhouse kitchen.”
Vangerdahast bowed his head, looking a little abashed, but whatever reply he might have made was lost in the banging of the door.
It flew open with force enough to make Storm lay hand on the fireplace poker beside the cauldron she was paying most attention to, ready to hurl it-but through it lurched no foe, but a familiar bedraggled wizard.
Looking more exhausted than usual, if that was possible.
“Elminster!” Amarune exclaimed delightedly.
He gave her a smile that twinkled. “Well, now, that’s a pleasant change! Well met, dearest!”
The Old Mage blew Storm a kiss, gave Arclath a cheery wave, then nodded to Vangey and said, “Ao’s finished toying with us all, Abeir and Toril are apart and getting more so, the Sundering is done-and I believe I need a drink! Oh, and here’s a lady ’tis high time I spoke cordially with, rather than sparring over the safety and good governance of Cormyr with!”
Glathra, who’d said nothing at all and looked like she intended to go right on doing so, ducked her head and blushed.
Then Elminster turned to the two women who stood down at the far end of the table, flagons in their hands.
“El?” Alustriel asked tentatively.
“Luse! Laer!” Elminster rushed to them, spreading his arms wide, and they hastily set their flagons down and fell into his arms.
They rocked together for a few moments, murmuring things and chuckling, before El said briskly, “I perceive I seem to have arrived at the right time!”
“As usual,” Storm commented archly, waving a ladle at him.
“Lady fair,” he said gravely, “point ye not that thing at me!”
“Or you’ll … what?” she challenged him, hands on hips and a mock glower settling onto her face.
“Or I’ll eat one last feast at thy board, burst of a surfeit of everything, and expire at last!” he replied, crossing the kitchen and sweeping her into his arms. “After all, I have a successor now!”
And he pointed at Amarune, who blinked back sudden tears as she reached out an imploring hand to him, fingers far too short to touch him from clear across the room. “Don’t say that! I’m not ready for-for any of it. Yet … you’ve been meddling and fighting and striving for centuries! As those you love are born, live their lives, grow old, and die, again and again, leaving you alone at sunset, time after time. You must be so tired of it all!”