into a little courtyard paved with ancient flagstones, and the buildings on its three sides might have been transplanted directly from Aerenal. Built of exotic woods, the buildings rose in tiers topped with sculpted spires and magical flames that washed the square below in dancing green and purple light.
Apparently unwilling or unable to trust Fairhaven's city watch to protect their little enclave, the elves had their own soldiers, gaunt warriors in ornate armor, carrying poleaxes with elaborately carved, probably impractical heads. The elves stood at attention as Gaven blundered out of the alleyway, shifting their grips on their weapons. The one on the left, Gaven noticed, bore a tattooed skull design that obscured his true face, making him look like one of the deathless. He fixed a wary gaze on Gaven and scowled. The one on the right, though, was already dead-his withered flesh clung to his bones and dim green flame flickered in his eye sockets.
They didn't immediately accost Gaven-they were probably accustomed to people stumbling into their little enclave, looking around incredulously, and hurrying back out. Gaven didn't see anyone else in the courtyard, so he steeled himself and approached the soldiers.
'Have you lost your way?' the living soldier asked coldly. He spoke Common with a thick accent.
'I know where I am,' Gaven answered in the best Elven he could muster. 'I-' What was the correct phrase? 'I invoke the right of counsel.'
The guard's face was as expressionless as his skull tattoo as his eyes searched Gaven's. Then the deathless soldier's bony hand lashed out and struck Gaven's face. A last echo of thunder rumbled overhead, but Gaven squelched his surging anger.
'The Right of Counsel?' the living soldier said in Elven. 'You have no such right. You should leave this place before my friend's righteous anger increases.'
'My ancestors fought under Aeren as yours did,' Gaven said. He wasn't surprised, except perhaps by the violence of the deathless guard's response. But he had no alternative plan. He couldn't give up without a fight.
'Name them,' the dead soldier demanded.
'I am an heir of House Lyrandar,' Gaven said. It was the best answer he knew. The first Lyrandars had already been half-elves, their elven blood mixed with a noble human line from Khorvaire. But perhaps the elves knew more about his ancestry than he himself did.
'No doubt you have ancestors among the elves of Aerenal,' the living soldier said, 'but their names are not honored, nor were they worthy of joining the ranks of the deathless.'
'Name them,' the guard repeated. 'Name a single ancestor you claim among the Undying. Whose counsel do you seek?'
'Alvena,' Gaven blurted. 'In the name of my friends Mendaros Alvena Tuorren and Senya Alvena Arrathinen, I seek the counsel of Alvena.'
Both guards took half a step backward, and they exchanged a glance. Gaven wasn't even certain he'd blurted out the right name, and he had no idea whether it was Alvena or the name of one of his friends that had given the soldiers pause.
'I shall go,' the living soldier said. With a quick glance at Gaven, he hurried across the courtyard.
'Wait here,' the other soldier said. 'On your knees, and do not speak to me again.'
Gaven didn't know what was happening, but at least he'd made something happen. He decided it was best to obey the undead soldier, so he dropped to his knees and waited. Clutching his poleaxe in both withered hands, the guard stood a few steps away, his burning eyes fixed on Gaven in an unwavering stare.
Gaven watched the living soldier climb the wide stair at the far end of the courtyard and disappear into a darkened archway at the top. What was he doing? Whatever had provoked them, it had clearly suggested a course of action so obvious that the only question was which soldier would carry it out.
'You Khoravar,' the deathless guard muttered, half to himself, 'so full of human arrogance.' He stepped closer and addressed Gaven directly. 'The Undying exist only because of the veneration of their descendants. You hybrids who can't even remember the names of your ancestors-if it were up to you, the Undying would all fade into death. Memory is life. Without memory, your people are already dead. You don't know who you are-you might as well be beasts.'
Gaven bit his tongue and stared at the flagstones. The soldier had ordered him not to speak, so he bit back an angry retort, but as he did, the guard's words echoed in his mind. Gaven's memories were a jumble, a shattered mosaic of his own past and the memories of the other. The time before he found the nightshard was shrouded in fog, particularly now that Rienne was gone. When he'd been with her, that time had seemed clearer in his mind.
'Gaven?'
Gaven looked up and scanned the courtyard. The living soldier had emerged from the building and started back down the stairs, followed by a woman in a plain white robe. Her head was shaved bald, and her face bore a skull tattoo like that of the soldier.
The deathless soldier stepped back and watched the others approach. Gaven started to stand, but the guard turned and glared at him, so he stayed on his knees. The woman hurried toward him, sandals slapping against the flagstones. Gaven watched curiously-there was something familiar about the woman, but he couldn't place her in the fragments of his memory.
Finally she stood before him, a little breathless, her slight smile strangely out of place on her tattooed face. 'Gaven,' she said Common, 'I'm glad to see you again.'
Gaven stared dumbly.
'Gaven, it's Senya.'
'Senya?' Gaven gaped at her, trying to see Senya's face past the tattoo. Her full lips, no longer painted scarlet, had been made to look like stark white teeth, and the eyelids she had colored blue before were black, so that when she blinked, they might have been empty sockets. Her bald head was perhaps the most disconcerting, but when he tried to imagine a full head of curly black hair, he could almost see her face.
'Yes, it's really me.' She bent down and kissed his cheek in greeting. She smelled of incense and spice, not the flowered fragrances she'd worn before.
'You have changed,' Gaven said.
She laughed. 'Yes, I have. You may stand.' She offered her hand to him, and he took it as he rose to his feet. 'And I have you to thank for it.'
'Me? Why?'
'You helped me discover who I am. You gave me the courage to stand up to Haldren. You taught me…' She looked away. 'Many things.' Glancing at the two soldiers who frowned at them, she took Gaven's arm. 'Let's discuss this indoors. It's cold out here.'
'One moment, priestess,' the living guard interrupted in Elven.
Gaven looked at Senya again. Priestess?
'What is the matter?' Senya said in the same language.
'This man you greet with such familiarity has spoken blasphemously of the revered ancestors and demanded a right he does not have. I would see him punished.'
'I will bring your concern to the ancestors,' Senya said. She tugged Gaven's arm. 'Come with me,' she added in Common.
'But priestess-'
'That is all. Return to your post.'
Both guards bowed and stepped back from them, and Senya led Gaven toward the building she had emerged from.
'Priestess?' Gaven said, once they were out of the soldiers' earshot.
'Indeed. Much has changed since you left me outside Vathirond.'
'You were at Starcrag Plain,' Gaven said. 'With Haldren. Darraun and Rienne captured you.'
'Yes. We'll discuss it inside.'
Gaven walked beside her up the wide stairs to the many-tiered tower. The warmth of her hands on his arm stood in strange contrast to the death mask inscribed on her face, and when he wasn't looking at her it was easy to imagine her at his side in Korranberg, too close for his comfort, flirting seductively. But then he looked at her again, and all he could see was a priestess of the Undying Court, her body shrouded in her shapeless robe.
'Senya?' he said as they passed through the arch at the top of the stairs.
'Yes?'
