after discovering Eowen that she had ended up wandering across
the flats in the wrong direction. Stresa had managed to track
her, but it hadn’t been easy. They had come in search of her at
nightfall, despite her command that they were not to do so,
Worried by then because she had been gone so long, determined
to make certain that she was safe, even at the risk of their own
lives. They knew they had no effective protection against the
Drakuls, but that no longer mattered. Both Garth and Triss were
decided. Dal was left to keep watch over Gavilan and the Ruhk
Staff. Stresa had come because no one else could find Wren’s
trail in the dark. They might not have found her even then if
the Drakuls hadn’t been so preoccupied with their quarry. Even
a handful of the wraiths would have been enough to disrupt the
rescue effort. But Wren, bearer of the Elfstone magic, was a lure
for the Drakuls, and all had joined in the hunt, anxious to share
in the feeding, Shadowen to the end. Stresa had been able to
track her unhindered. They had found her, it seemed, just in
time.
Wren told them in turn of Eowen’s fate, of how the Drakuls
had subverted her, of how she had been made one of them. She
described the seer’s death, unwilling to gloss past it, needing to
hear the words, to give voice to her grief. It felt as if she were
speaking from some hollow place within, wrapped in a haze of
emptiness and exhaustion. She was so tired. Yet she would not
slow; she would not rest. She disdained all help once clear of
the ravine. She walked because she would not let herself be
carried, because that would be another demonstration of weak-
ness and she had shown weakness enough for one night. She
was dismayed by what had happened to her, appalled at how
easily she had been misled by the wind voice, how close she
had come to dying, and how willing she had been to allow it to
happen-Wren Elessedil, called Queen of the Elves, bearer of
the trust of a people, heir of so much magic. She could still
remember how inviting the wind voice had made it seem for
her to give up her life. She had been so ready, welcoming the
peace she had supposed she would find. All of her life she had
been strong in the face of death, never giving way to the poSh
sibility of it finding her, always certain that she would fight fot
her last breath. What had happened in the Harrow had shaken
her confidence more than she cared to admit. She had failed to
resist as she had always told herself she would. She had let
exhaustion and despair work through her so thoroughly that she
hollowed eiit ac wormwood and as quick to crumble. She
saw the way the magic pulled her, first one way, then the other,
the Drakul’s, her own. Just as Eowen had been a prisoner of her
visions, so Wren was now becoming a prisoner of the Elven
magic. She hated herself for it. She despised what she had be-
come.
I am nothing of what I believed, she thought in despair. I am a lie.
She talked to keep from thinking of it, speaking of what she
had seen as she wandered the Harrow, of how the wind voice
of the Drakuls had lulled her, of how Eowen-so vulnerable to
visions and images-must have become ensnared. She rambled
at times, the sound of her voice helping to distract her from
dark thoughts, keeping her awake, keeping her moving. She
thought of the dead on this nightmare journey, of Ellenroh and
Eowen in particular. She was consumed by their loss, ravaged
by feelings of helplessness at having been unable to save them
and by guilt at being inadequate for the task they had left her.
She clutched the Elfstones tightly in her hand, unable to per-
suade herself to put them away, frightened that the Drakuls
would come again. They did not. Not even the wind voice whis-
pered in the darkness now, gone back into the earth, leaving