He made his way onto the bridge, allowing himself to take his time, working hard at staying calm enough to think everything through. The bridge arch provided a wide span for crossing, but there were no guardrails or walls. As he moved onto the walkway, he could see down into a ravine that fell steeply away below. It was an endless drop into blackness, and, after twenty feet of walls grown thick with vegetation and gnarled roots, it became a void.

He took a single glance to either side and did not take another. He forced himself instead to focus his attention on the stone pathway before him. He kept to the exact middle of the span so that he would not be tempted to go closer to the edge. The lure to do so was present; he could feel it. But because he was always taking risks, always tempting the fates-just as Mirai had said-he knew better than to put himself within reach.

As he neared the far side of the bridge and began looking up into the huge old trees that grew there, he heard singing. It was in the air around him, swirling about, drawing him in. The voices were soft and sweet, and while the words were indistinct, the music was soothing. He could feel his fears and doubts diminishing and his confidence growing. It was an unwarranted response to what was happening, but the voices were compelling.

He came down off the bridge and stood looking into the forest. The trees towered over him, their huge trunks more than a dozen feet across, their great limbs canopied overhead to blot out the sky, leaving the forest dark and layered in shadows. Nothing moved within the trees; no sounds came from the gloom.

Where was he supposed to go now?

Come

As if they had read his mind, the voices beckoned. Their music shifted and took him forward and slightly left of where he stood. The bridge disappeared behind him. His companions vanished. He was alone on his quest, and he was faced with discovering at last if his journey had been in vain or if it might provide some hope for finding Redden and putting an end to the threat from the Straken Lord. Even as he considered what he was trying to achieve, he was confronted anew with the foolishness of it. To think that he would be able to find a woman who had disappeared more than a hundred years ago alive and well and then persuade her to come back with him to face a monster that wanted things of her she could not possibly provide was the height of arrogance. He wondered at what had made him think he could do this.

And yet, right from the beginning, it had seemed to him that he could succeed. He had told himself that this was the path he must travel. Even knowing how impossible it seemed, he was drawn toward it. He wondered now, remembering how he had disdained the advice of the King of the Silver River, how he had ignored what his instincts told him about the Grimpond's duplicity, how he had refused to allow common sense to intercede and the possibility of failure to color his hopes. The warnings had been given, the odds against him made clear, and still he had persisted.

He continued ahead, knowing only that he was moving toward something and whatever he found would bring about some sort of resolution. He told himself-insisted to himself-that it would be enough.

Questions crowded his mind as he listened to the music of the creatures leading him. Would he find Grianne Ohmsford here, somewhere in the ruins of Stridegate, as the ring suggested he would? Was she still alive? He felt from the tugging of the thread that she was, but he couldn't be certain. The tugging might just as easily lead him to her grave.

"Who are you?" he again asked the voices leading him.

This time, they answered.

Aeriads

Aeriads. Spirits of the air. The creatures that served the tanequil. "Where are you taking me?"

She waits. She knows

"Who?"

Come

He felt them moving away, and so he followed. The thread seemed to be following them as well, prodding him in the same direction. He was deep in the forest now, surrounded by the great old trees, a part of the shadows, a tiny transient life-form among ancients. He glanced about for movement, but found none. There was no sign of anything present save for the voices.

As he advanced, he rehearsed in his mind what he would say to Grianne. What words would he need to persuade her to his cause? He had come so far and risked so much, and yet he had no firm idea of what it would take. Even now, after all this time, he was uncertain.

He felt a chill run through him. He wasn't equal to this; he didn't have what was needed. He was going to fail.

Come

But to turn back now was unthinkable, an act of cowardice and an admission of defeat. He must do what he came to do and find a way to succeed.

Here

He was in a clearing, dappled with sunlight and permeated with a warmth he had not felt before. The voices were singing loudly now, their music filling up his senses. He looked around for something he would recognize, for a sign of Grianne, for the "she" the aeriads had told him was waiting, but there was nothing to see. The clearing was empty.

Then, abruptly, everything went silent, and in that same instant he felt the tugging inside his head disappear.

Railing. I am here

A voice in the air, disembodied. "Grianne?" he whispered.

I am what Grianne has become

He hesitated, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. What she has become? "Are you one of them? An aeriad?"

I am

"You exchanged yourself for Cinnaminson?"

I did. When I left Paranor, I came here to offer myself for the girl who would later became your grandmother. She had given herself for me, so that Penderrin could come into the Forbidding and free me. I chose to do the same for her and let her return to Pen

He felt a rippling in the air and heard the soft voices of the other aeriads calling.

My time to speak with you is short. Tell me why have you come, my brother's great-grandson, child of my blood. Tell me what you seek

So he did. Quickly and efficiently. He told her how he and Redden had accepted Khyber Elessedil's request that they come with her to the Westland in search of the missing Elfstones of Faerie, of how their efforts had gone so badly awry and how Redden had become a prisoner of the Straken Lord and was trapped inside the Forbidding. He told her how Tael Riverine had demanded that Grianne be brought to him so she could become his Queen and bear his children. Finally, he revealed that the Ellcrys was failing and the wall of the Forbidding was coming down. The Straken Lord intended to bring his demon hordes into the Four Lands and take what he wanted, Grianne included, if she did not come back to him on her own. All of this had persuaded him to seek her out and ask if she would return to help them in their struggle-if she might not be able to show them a way that Tael Riverine could be destroyed. He had discovered her fate in the diary written by Khyber and had followed it here.

"I thought you might return with me because Redden is your blood descendant and you loved Penderrin and would want to help his grandson." He exhaled sharply. "I came to find you, really, because I didn't know what else to do to save my brother."

Railing, I cannot help you

The words were tinged with regret, but were no less bitter for being so. Oddly, they were the words he had been expecting to hear all along, but had convinced himself she would not say.

"Is there nothing you can do?" he pressed. "Even if you came back long enough to face him and tell him what you have become, perhaps that would be enough. If he saw what you were, maybe he would no longer have interest in you and be persuaded to abandon ..." He trailed off helplessly, aware of how foolish that sounded. "Or maybe you could just persuade him to let Redden go because his imprisonment serves no purpose."

The Straken Lord will be persuaded of nothing. He will be enraged. He is not human. He is a demon. He craves power, and when he cannot have me, he will turn his anger on others

Railing felt the first twinges of desperation. "If you are an aeriad, you are beholden to the tanequil. But Cinnaminson was an aeriad, and you found a way to replace her and set her free. Can't you do that now for yourself? Can't you get free of the tanequil, at least long enough to come back with me?"

I have been an aeriad for a lifetime, not for mere weeks. I am nothing of what I was and cannot impact the world of humans and Elves as once I did. I cannot come back with you

"But you must!"

He blurted out the words in a paroxysm of frustration and dismay. The air around him went still in the aftermath, and for a second he thought she had left him, unwilling to listen to more.

"What about the Druid order? It is destroyed because of Tael Riverine! Would you let that happen? Would you do nothing to help preserve it?" He paused, waiting for an answer that did not come. "Grianne! Are you there?"

I cannot help you, Railing. You must leave

He took a deep steadying breath. He stood at the edge of a cliff, and she was pushing him from behind so that he would fall and all would be lost. He was devastated, but he was angry, too.

"I will go to the tanequil and speak to it! I will insist you be freed from your service and come back with me! My brother's life is at risk, but so are the lives of everyone in the Four Lands!"

There was a rush of movement as the other aeriads whipped about him-or perhaps it was only Grianne, suddenly become aggressive and swiping at him repeatedly.

Do not do this