JAMES ULEMENS

Concerned murmurs rose from the gathering.

But our efforts will protect the world for now, she finished. It is all one can do in life fight evil where it is found.

Where will it be found? the elder'root asked. The foothills are vast. A search for a single statue could consume hundreds of days, not just two.

We know roughly where the statue was going, she said. To Winter-fell' the place where I grew up.

Stunned silence met this revelation.

But the next to speak surprised even Elena. I know more exactly where such an evil might lie. The words came from the strange child at Jaston's side one of the swamp wit'ch's golems, a winged girl of perfect beauty. But the voice that spoke was ancient and came from much farther than the boundaries of this room: It was Cassa Dar. When I studied the texts to send Jaston from one Fang to the other, I came upon a treatise that spoke of the confluence of elemental energies between the two Fangs. If the Weirgate is positioned anywhere, I wager it will be there.

And where is that? Elena asked.

If my calculations are correct, at a place named Winter's Eyrie.

Elena gasped. Er'ril tensed beside her. The place had a long and bloody history. It was where her Uncle Bol had set up his cabin and met his death. In Er'ril's time, it was where the Chyric mages had their school until it was sacked by the Gul'gothal armies and destroyed. And in the caverns under the Eyrie, Elena and Er'ril had discovered the living crystal statue of the boy, De'nal, pierced through the heart by Er'ril's own sword. So much tragedy had grown out of that one spot' Could it be true? Could they have come full circle back to where all their journeys had started?

Winter's Eyrie'

It'll be a place to start looking, Er'ril whispered.

An icy dread shivered Elena's spine. The Eyrie was fraught with awful memories: the dark tunnels, the hiss of goblins, the fight with the mul-gothra in the open field. It was on those empty highlands she had come to accept her power.

And if the statue be there, one of the clan leaders said gruffly, who will lead the armies in two days' time? The og're stared with suspicion toward the elder'root and his shape-shifters.

Elena tried to answer this question. Each army will have its own leader. Hun'shwa for the og'res. The elder'root for the si'lura.

This was met with murmurs of agreement, but Er'ril placed a restraining hand on her elbow. No! he said boldly.