Jivex and another of his kind—it had turned out the Gray Forest was home to six faerie dragons, each with its own extensive territory—led Taegan and a dozen of the queen’s men skulking through the wood. Finally the reptiles wheeled and flew back to their bipedal companions.

“Here we are,” Jivex said.

Taegan surveyed the patch of ground ahead of him. If it had ever been a carefully shaped and tended burial mound, that time had long since passed. It had no discrete edges or discernible form and had seemingly fallen in on itself until it was scarcely higher than the surrounding earth. It even had old maple trees growing out of it.

“Are you sure?” the maestro asked.

Jivex snorted and said, “Who lives hereabouts, you or I? Of course I’m sure.”

Sir Corlas moved up beside Taegan. The cavalier’s surcoat was torn and grimy, his plate and shield battered, his destrier slain, but he still had his lady’s crimson scarf knotted to his helmet.

“I’ll post sentries,” he said, “while you begin the ceremony.”

Though by no means servile, Corlas’s manner was respectful. It had been disconcerting to discover that, with Rangrim and his senior lieutenants either dead or at best still missing, the Warswords regarded the duelist responsible for their reunification as a de facto officer. Accordingly, Taegan tried to behave as if he merited their confidence, and to ignore the inner voice whispering that a war-leader of his meager qualifications was bound to fall well short of expectations.

“It isn’t a ceremony as such,” he replied. “Apparently I simply talk to her, but I have no idea how long it will take, so pickets are a sound idea.”

With Jivex flitting along beside him, Taegan advanced until he was standing at the foot of the dilapidated mound. He drew his sword and saluted the entity who theoretically lay sleeping before him.

“Vorasaegha,” he said. “My name is Taegan Nightwind. Your friends the moon elves sent me to ask you to come forth.”

Nothing answered except for a jay chattering in the meshed branches overhead. Well, he hadn’t expected it to be that easy.

“The city is gone now,” he continued, “and the elves themselves, much changed. But they still revere your memory and pray you’ll help them as you did before, to cleanse the forest of corruption. Since your time, a new evil has come into the world. An insane wizard named Sammaster invented a way of infusing dragons with the most virulent kind of undeath …”

He pressed on, spinning the tale of the Cult of the Dragon and of his own protracted duel with it, looking for any subtle sign that something under the moist earth with its coating of slippery rotten leaves could hear him. He couldn’t discern one.

He concluded by once again imploring Vorasaegha to reveal herself. Still, nothing happened. He felt a crushing disappointment.

“Louder,” Jivex said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“She has dirt in her ears, and more of it piled between you and her. Maybe you need to yell.”

Taegan smiled wryly and said, “An interesting conjecture, but I doubt that’s truly the problem.”

He turned. Corlas was standing with Uthred, the wizard who’d protected the archers’ retreat when the Warswords routed. Like the knight, the latter was a relatively young man, but affected long, wheat-colored, grandfatherly whiskers that he probably felt made him look more the learned and formidable battle mage. It was plain from their glum expressions that both humans understood what had just occurred. Or failed to. Still, Taegan supposed he ought to say it anyway, for form’s sake.

“I’m sorry. The creature has apparently slipped too far from this world and its cares for us to summon her back. The gray trees warned it might be so.”

Corlas unconsciously squared his shoulders, bucking himself up.

“Well,” said the knight, “at least we’re one army again. Maybe we can retreat in good order, muster reinforcements in Lyrabar, and march back.”

“If everyone else isn’t already off fighting to the east,” Uthred said somberly. “Still, you’re right, it’s the only way. Jivex, will you and your folk continue helping us conceal ourselves from the enemy?”

“That’s it?” the faerie dragon shrilled. “You’re just giving up? My kin and I have been wasting our time on you.”

“We truly will return if we can,” Taegan said.

“And maybe we’ll have a dozen dracoliches running around by then. Won’t that be fun?”

Taegan looked at his human companions and said, “Sune knows, I wouldn’t choose to flee, not if I could see any hope of avenging our fallen comrades and smashing the cult now.”

“In our present circumstances,” Corlas said, “every minute we can use to distance ourselves from the enemy is precious. But I suppose we can spare a few more.”

Uthred made a sour face, but said, “Why not?”

Taegan faced the mound, then on impulse went down on his knees and set his sword on the ground as he might lay it at the feet of the queen. Who knew, it might help. He recited the same string of pleas and explanations he’d offered before. By the end, his mouth was dry, and to all unaltered appearances, that was the only thing he’d accomplished.

“That’s it, then,” Uthred said.

Jivex flitted up to the wizard, hovered at the right height to glower at him eye to eye, and said, “You humans are a bunch of quitters.”

“I cast some divinations,” Uthred said. “Once something powerful lay in this ground, but now, only faint traces of its magic remain.” He looked at Taegan. “Maestro? Are you ready to go?”

“Yes,” Taegan said. “No. I concede it makes little sense, but give me one last chance.”

“I realize,” Corlas said, “that Jivex saved your life. We all owe him and the other faerie dragons a huge debt. But we can’t repay it by persisting in an effort that’s manifestly futile.”

“I know,” Taegan said. “I won’t deliver my entire oration a third time. I just need another minute.”

The knight shrugged. “Do what you must.”

Which was what, exactly? At first, Taegan had no idea what to try that he hadn’t attempted twice already. Then intuition, or perhaps mere desperation, prompted him.

“I myself am an elf,” he said, and it felt strange to proclaim it with such fervor. “I, who summon you. This is my elf blood. Feel it. Smell it. Taste it. Recognize it, damn you.”

Taegan drew his dagger, sliced the heel of his palm, and squeezed red droplets onto the ground.

They simply made a stain, without glowing, catching fire, or doing anything else overtly supernatural. They didn’t even soak into the soil with unusual quickness. Nothing stirred.

“We’ll see you out of the wood safely,” the faerie dragon said, an unaccustomed dullness in his voice.

“Thank you,” Taegan replied. He rose and inspected the gash in his hand. He’d sliced it fairly deeply. “We brought along a priest or paladin, didn’t we? If he has any healing left after tending the wounded, perhaps he could look at this.”

“Mystra’s stars!” Uthred swore, his eyes widening.

“What is it?” Taegan asked.

“Come away,” the wizard said. Taegan realized that the divinatory spells Uthred had mentioned must still have been altering his perceptions, revealing phenomena other people couldn’t see. “Come away from the mound.”

Taegan beat his wings and leaped clear. Jivex whizzed after him. The slight hump in the ground began to shake as if experiencing its own private little earthquake. The maples lashed back and forth.

In time, the trees toppled, crashing against each other. An archer had to scramble to keep one from falling on him. Fissures snaked through the mound, splitting it into pieces. The fallen maples jolted upward and tumbled aside as the entity beneath them heaved herself into the light of day.

It occurred to Taegan that the process was a bit like a hatchling struggling forth from an egg, but everything else about Vorasaegha bespoke might and majesty. She was at least as huge as any of the other drakes he’d encountered. Her gleaming bronze scales, from which the dust slid as if it had no power to sully her, were blue-black along the edges, while her eyes shone like luminous green pearls, without visible pupils. Such details were marks of the extreme age that only made a dragon stronger.

Still, the awe she inspired in every trembling observer lay in more than her physical appearance. While plainly as solid as metal, Vorasaegha nonetheless had an elusive but unmistakable uncanniness about her. Though her existence predated theirs by centuries, she might almost have recreated herself specifically to battle dracoliches, for she was their counterpart, a wyrm who’d cheated death for benevolent reasons instead of selfish ones.

She turned her gigantic serpentine head toward Taegan. Her radiant gaze was terrifying even though nothing about it conveyed hostility.

“You called me,” she rumbled.

“Yes, Milady.”

“I didn’t believe I’d ever walk this world again. These are surely the final hours.”

Taegan took a deep breath to steady himself and said, “Then we’d better make them count.”

“Come here.”

Taegan walked to her. She lowered her head, and her forked tongue, longer and thicker than his arm, flicked forth to swipe across his hand. Its touch was rough and wet, and afterward, his cut was gone.

“Now,” said the dragon, “tell me what you need of me.”