“Your suggestion was more right than you knew,” Eldárien says to Hínding, making no effort to hide the tone of gratitude in his voice. Their eyes lock for a moment, only to be torn apart by the distraction caused by another echoing jolt of energy and sound reverberating from the gate as it is battered […]

As the men emerge from the crater, exhausted from the confrontation, their bodies shaking and weak, they look around. To their dismay, they see destruction in the perimeter surrounding the explosion of dark energy that emanated from the Lord of Death. Whatever buildings had once stood on the surface of the ground directly above the […]

Eldárien and Elmáriyë both feel it: the attack is coming in a matter of days. The sense of impending danger, the darkness that flows in as if on the fringes of their consciousness and grows hour by hour—all of this and more awakens in them the conviction that they have very little time to prepare […]

Vast caverns of stone spread in all directions far beneath the earth, their only illumination the veins of precious ore that weave through the darker rock like blood vessels through the body, bringing not life but light. And yet here light is life, and darkness is death. For ever since the Empire began to exile […]

After Eldárien has finished speaking, Tilliána replies, “Your words are very kind and full of love. And I know from whence they arise, for I feel the same in my heart. You speak of desire, but also of call. The desire I understand. But… But the call I doubt and I fear. No, no…it is […]

How is it that solitude can be both attractive and frightening, and that the experience of aloneness can be filled with both the deep pang of one’s loneliness and with the joy of a deeper presence? But so it is. This Eldárien knows and feels now, realizing that for weeks his heart has been yearning […]

The responses of the council of the rulers of Onylándun remain mixed, confused, and conflicted, after Rórlain and Eldárien have finished speaking. At first there are but a few courteous remarks exchanged between diverse members of the council, but then a tense thread emerges between them, and soon one of the men to the hæras’ […]

The day dawns bright and clear, with the rays of the sun reflecting off the street and sending rays of warm light through the thin curtains of the window of the room in which the companions rest. Whenever they emerge from the inn and step forth into the daytime air, it is apparent that the […]

Elmáriyë and Eldárien speak with the parents of their mother until late in the night, sharing with them much about their own lives, though their grandparents seem to know a great deal of it already. They also receive tales of their mother in her youth, and their hearts are stirred with wonder and gratitude to […]

“I have been bereaved of my parents twice over,” Eldárien says when the account has concluded, “and yet I have also found a kin whom I did not know, a home deeper than memory, untouched by evil or by harm.” “That is indeed true,” Seriyéna says, her face touched with tender compassion as she beholds […]