but a glittering shadow upon the snow.
Only one creature would leave such a trail. Wonder-a feeling that Zaor had thought was forever banished from his heart-flowed over him in rippling waves. Silently, carefully, the ranger followed the silvery prints deep into the forest and into a snow-shrouded glade.
The sight before him stole his breath. Two unicorns-wondrous creatures whose coats were so white as to render them nearly invisible against the unblemished snow-broke away from the pristine background. They minced toward the center of the glade, tossing their silvery horns and nickering softly.
This was wonder enough, but Zaor found his eyes lingering less on the rare and magical creatures than on the pair of elven maidens who awaited the unicorns with outstretched hands.
Both of the maidens were Moon elves, and by the looks of them initiates of some religious order. They were clad in simple white robes and swathed in white cloaks, and there was a stillness about them that came only with strenuous training and great personal discipline. With their snow-colored garments, milky skin and bright red tresses, they looked like statues fashioned from ice and flame.
Zaor watched, barely breathing, as the unicorns came up and nuzzled the maidens' outstretched hands. One of them, a tall girl whose hair fell in a riot of tangled curls about her shoulders, sprang onto her unicorn's back.
'Come, Amlaruil,' she chided when the other girl held back. 'Why do you wait? The unicorns have accepted us-we can leave behind the stuffy towers for good and all, and seek adventure at last!'
The other girl's face was wistful, but she shook her head even as she caressed the second unicorn's silky mane. 'You know I cannot, Ialantha. This is your dream, and I wish you well of it, but my place is elsewhere.' She smiled up at her friend. 'Think of me, from time to time, when you are captain of the unicorn riders.'
The girl called Ialantha snorted, as if amused by such visions of grandeur. 'All I want is a bit of excitement and an open sky! A year and a day-that is all the service a unicorn will give! And after that, I will be on to the next adventure.'
'We can set our feet upon a path, but we cannot always choose where that path might take us,' Amlaruil said seriously. She reached out and patted her friend's fey mount. 'I think you have found not only a year's partner, but a destiny.'
Ialantha's eyes widened. 'You have seen this for me, then?'
The girl hesitated. 'There is need for unicorn riders,' she said carefully. 'I think this unicorn has chosen well. You could ride before you could walk, and you were reaching for a sword before you could do either! No one in the Towers rides or fights as well as you. Who better than you to revive the old ways, and to train and command the swordmaidens?'
'Who indeed?' Ialantha echoed teasingly. Her face turned serious, and she extended her hand to her friend. The girls clasped wrists with the gravity of warriors.
Ialantha lifted her white hood to conceal her bright hair, and then tapped her heels against the unicorn's sides. The creature reared, pawing the air with hoofs as delicate as the falling snow. With the speed of thought, the unicorn and her rider melted away into the forest. The second, riderless unicorn followed like a white shadow.
After a moment, Amlaruil turned toward the thicket where Zaor crouched. 'You might as well come out now,' she said in a clear, bell-like voice. 'I will do you no harm.'
Zaor's first response was mingled surprise and chagrin that the elf maid perceived his presence so easily. Then the irony of her remark struck Zaor as rather amusing. The girl seemed to be little more than a child, and slim as a birch tree and by all appearances fragile as a dream. She might make half his weight, had she been soaking wet.
But he rose and entered the clearing, stopping several paces from her as propriety demanded.
He managed a bow that he thought would not disgrace him too badly. 'Zaor Moonflower, at the etrielle's service,' he said, using the polite term for an elven female of honorable birth and character.
The girls' large, blue eyes lit up like stars. 'Oh! Then we are kin! I am of the Moonflower clan, also. How is it we have never met?'
Zaor managed, just barely, to hold her gaze. 'I am recently come from Cormanthyr.'
He steeled himself for the usual barrage of questions, or the formal expressions of regret, or the words of acclaim lavished upon the 'heroes' of Myth Drannor. To his relief, the girl merely nodded. 'That explains it, then. My name is Amlaruil.'
'I heard.'
'I know.' Her sudden smile lent her face such beauty that Zaor had to drop his eyes to keep from staring. A moment before, she had seemed nothing but a skinny child with long red-gold plaits of hair and huge, serious eyes. The fleeting smile transformed her into the reflection of a goddess.
Zaor took a moment to compose his thoughts. 'You spoke of a Tower.'
'Yes. I am a student of High Magic at the Towers of the Sun and Moon. They are not far from here.'
The ranger frowned. 'I have never seen these towers.'
'Nor will you, unless you know where to look.' The girl laughed at the aggrieved expression that crossed Zaor's face. 'Do not take offense-the magic that shields the towers hides them even from the birds and wood nymphs. But rest assured, you will see them one day.'
Zaor's brows lifted at this odd pronouncement. There was a strange note in her voice as she spoke these last few words, an abstracted tone that had been missing a moment before.
'You sound very certain of this. Can you read portents, then?' he asked, thinking to humor the child.
'Sometimes,' she said in all seriousness. 'It is easier to do if the person carries an object of power. I do not know why that is, but it is so.'
Her eyes fell to the sword on Zaor's hip. Although sheathed, the ornate hilt with its crowning moonstone gem was clearly visible. Before Zaor could divine her intent, she reached out and ran her fingertips over the smooth, milky surface of the stone.
With an oath, Zaor jerked away. No one could safely touch such a sword but the wielder-surely the foolish child knew that!
But apparently she did not. Amlaruil regarded him in surprise, her eyes wide. After a moment Zaor realized that she had gone unscathed. The slender fingers that by all rights should have been blackened by a blast of killing magic were as smooth and white as the winter snow.
For some reason, this shook Zaor almost as deeply as the thought that the girl had come to harm through his carelessness. 'You should never touch such a sword,' he told her sternly. 'This is a moonblade, and can mean death to any but he who wields it.'
Amlaruil's eyes grew still wider. 'A moonblade. Oh, then that explains…' Her voice trailed off uncertainly and her gaze slid to one side.
'You really did see something, didn't you?' he asked, intrigued.
The girl nodded, her face grave. 'This is the king sword. Who rules this sword, will also rule Evermeet.'
Zaor stared at her, not wanting to believe the words she spoke with such uncanny certainty. Yet there was something about the girl that lent weight to her words. He believed her, even if he did not wish to do so.
'There is nothing of the king about me,' he said dully. How could there be? It was the final duty of any elven king to die for his people. Myth Drannor lay dead, and he stood hale and unblemished, half a world away in the glades of Evermeet. 'My children, perhaps, might someday serve- that is, if their mother can make up for my lacks.'
'Perhaps,' she echoed in a tone that gave away nothing of her thoughts.
Zaor shook aside the girl's troubling pronouncement and turned to something that lay closer to his ken. 'You touched the sword without harm. How can that be?'
Suddenly, Amlaruil did not look so much a child as she had a moment before. A faint flush stained the snow of her cheeks. 'As to that, I cannot say,' she murmured.
'Cannot, or will not?' Zaor pressed.
Again, that incandescent smile. 'Yes,' was all she said.
The elves joined in a burst of laughter. It seemed to Zaor that suddenly the burden that had weighed down his heart for so long was easier to bear.
After the shared laughter faded, they stood gazing at each other for a long moment. Amlaruil was first to break the silence. 'I must return to the Towers. I have been away too long.'
'We will meet again, though?'
