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star of war has risen. I saw it as I rode."
    Her fingers trembled in his grasp. "So quickly!"
    His voice grew softer. "You know what is said, my lady. One of the Three stalks the dreams of mortal Men."
    "The Misbegotten." Cerelinde shuddered.
    Aracus nodded. "Aye."
    Cerelinde gazed at their joined hands. His fingers were warm and calloused, rough against her soft skin. It seemed she could feel his lifeblood pulse through them, urgent and mortal, calling to her. She tried not to think of Ushahin the Misbegotten, and failed.
    "Our children…" she murmured.
    "No!" Aracus breathed the word, quick and fierce. His grip tightened, almost painful. Lifting her head, she met his eyes. "They will not be like that one," he said. "Wrenched forth from violence and hatred, cast out and warped. We honor the Prophecy. Our children will be conceived in love, in accordance with Haomane's will, and Arahila's."
    She laid her free hand upon his chest. "Love."
    "Aye, lady." He covered her hand with his own, gazing at her. "Never less. I swear it to you. Though my heart beats to a swift and mortal tune, it beats true. And until I die, it lies in your keeping."
    "Ah, Aracus!" His name caught in her throat. "We have so little time!"
    "I know," he murmured. "All too well, I know."
     
    ELSEWHERE ON URULAT, NIGHT CREPT crept westward.
    Slowly, it progressed, a gilt edge fading to the blue of twilight, drawing a cloak of darkness behind it. Where it passed—over the fields and orchards of Vedasia, over the dank marshes of the Delta, over Harrington Inlet, across the Unknown Desert and Staccia and Seahold and Curonan—the stars emerged in its wake.
    It came to the high mountains of Pelmar, where a woman stood on the steep edge of a cavern, and a gem bound in a circlet at her brow shone like the red star that flickered low, low on the far western horizon.
    Her name was Lilias, though Men and Ellylon called her the Sorceress of the East. She had been a mortal woman, once; the daughter of a wealthy Pelmaran earl. The east was the land of Oronin Last-Born, in whose train death rode, and his lingering touch lay on those Men, Arahila's Children, who settled in Pelmar as their ever-increasing numbers covered the earth. It was said those of noble birth could hear Oronin's Horn summon them to their deaths.
    Lilias feared death. She had seen it, once, in the eyes of a young man to whom her father would have betrothed her. He was a duke's son, well made and gently spoken, but she had seen in his eyes the inevitability of her fate, old age and generations of children yet unborn, and she had heard the echo of Oronin's Horn. Such was the lot of Arahila's Children, and the mighty Chain of Being held her fast in its inescapable grip.
    And so she had fled into the mountains. Up, she went, higher than any of her brothers had ever dared climb, scaling the height of Beshtanag Mountain and hiding herself in its caverns. It was there that she had encountered the dragon.
    His name was Calandor, and he was immortal after his kind. If he had hungered, he might have swallowed her whole, but since he did not, he asked her instead why she wept.
    Weeping, she told him.
    Twin jets of smoke had risen from his nostrils, for such was the laughter of dragons. And it was there that he gave a great treasure into her keeping: One of the lost Soumanie, Ardrath's gem that had been missing for many centuries. It had been plucked from the battlefield by a simple soldier who thought it a mere ruby. From thence its trail was lost until it ended in the hoard of a dragon, who made it a gift to a mortal woman who did not wish to die.
    Such was the caprice of dragons, whose knowledge was vast and unfathomable. Calandor taught her many things, the first of which was how to use the Soumanie to stretch the Chain of Being, keeping mortality at bay.
    She was no longer afraid.
    It had been a long time ago. Lilias' family was long dead, her lineage forgotten. She was the Sorceress of the East and possessed