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messages while I am at rest.”
    “That would be unlike him. He will come.”
    Eliani sensed Heléri watching her. She looked up at her eldermother, who smiled and silently returned to her weaving.

 Nightsand 
    A sliver of red sunlight slipped through draperies that were not quite fully drawn, spilling across the stone floor of Shalár's audience chamber. She frowned at the intruding light and lifted her head to command its removal. A glance was all that was needed to send an attendant scurrying to adjust the heavy drape. No one cared to court Shalár's displeasure.
    She shifted in the massive darkwood chair from which she held audience, uncomfortable despite its deep cushions. She was not usually in the chamber so early, but this night she had a decision to make and wanted to give it due consideration. She had called an audience just after sundown so that lesser matters could be settled quickly and put out of her way.
    Two oil lanterns on pedestals, so recently lit that she could still smell the sharp smoke of their kindling, gave the chamber its only light. Their flames flickered against the ceiling of black volcanic stone and glinted in the metal threads of the one ælven tapestry that had been brought across the mountains when she and her people had been forced to abandon Fireshore.
    Shalár stared at the weaving, her frown deepening. It depicted a simple scene on the wooded seashore near Hollirued, the first ælven city, capital of Eastfæld. The weaver's work was merely competent, though superiorto anything that had yet been achieved by Shalár's people. Clan Darkshore had neither the techniques nor the resources for making such colors—bright colors that lasted for many decades—nor had they yet succeeded in crafting metal thread that would hold its shine. So many skills had been lost to her people when they were driven west.
    Someday we will reclaim all that was taken from us.
    Shaking her head slightly, she straightened and glanced around the chamber. Only a handful of petitioners had come this evening. She looked to Dareth, her steward and consort, who stood beside her chair. He was lean and handsome, pale-skinned as were all her folk, his silver hair almost as bright as her own. His tunic was of black linen, supple in weave, the finest to be had in the Westerlands. She liked the way it clung to him.
    He felt her gaze and met it, black eyes waiting for her command. Shalár nodded, and he called forth the first supplicant, a thin-faced female cloaked in homespun cloth who put back her hood and knelt before Shalár.
    “Bright Lady, I come to ask your aid for my family. The kobalen we had for our use has died, and my partner is not strong enough to capture another.”
    “So you wish me to give you one?”
    Hollow eyes were raised in a furtive glance at Shalár, then quickly hidden. “Bright Lady, you have many kobalen—”
    “They are reserved for the use of my house hold and the city guard.”
    The female bowed her head. “Nightsand has great need, I know. I hoped you might spare but one.”
    “And if I spare but one kobalen to you, then what can I say to the next who begs to be given what shecannot get for herself?” Shalár leaned forward in her chair, fixing the petitioner's gaze with her own. “Are you unable to hunt? Or merely unwilling?”
    “I have tried, Bright Lady. There are few kobalen to be had near my home.”
    “Go into the hills, then.”
    “My partner is ill—I cannot leave him—”
    Shalár tossed her head to get her hair out of her eyes. She was losing patience with this fretful female. “Put him in a neighbor's care.”
    “But I …”
    The petitioner's khi darkened with fear. There was something else, and she did not wish to tell it. Shalár looked at her with renewed interest, waiting.
    “Bright Lady, you are wise and just.”
    And strong, and cruel. Shalár said nothing, knowing the thought had been finished in the mind of everyone present. Her reputation was deserved, and