Then she began to change.
On the blood-soaked plains fronting the entrance to the Valley of Rhenn, the brothers Ohmsford stood face-to-face. It was, for Railing, the culmination of everything he had hoped to accomplish since the onset of his long, disappointing search for Grianne Ohmsford, begun all those weeks ago. Finding and returning his brother had been the driving force behind his efforts, and he had never stopped believing—even in his darkest, most despairing moments—that he would make that happen. But to have it come to pass so abruptly, with no warning whatsoever, was shocking.
His brother managed a crooked grin. “Thought you’d seen the last of me, didn’t you?”
Even given the cacophony rising from the Jarka Ruus as they celebrated their new leader’s victory, Redden’s words were clear. The sound of his voice broke the spell that had frozen Railing in place, and he flung his arms about his brother, hugging him so hard he had to let go almost immediately and step back for fear he might be injuring him. For Redden Ohmsford was but a shadow of his former self, with haunted eyes and a troubled look on his face. His face and arms were battered and bruised, his body was emaciated, and he was hunched over as if bearing an unseen weight. The strength he had exhibited when they had parted was gone entirely, and what remained was a poorly sketched representation.
Railing kept his hands on his brother’s shoulders, refusing to break contact. “I thought I would be the one to find you.”
Redden looked down, tears in his eyes. “I couldn’t wait any longer for that to happen. So here I am.”
He had flown with Oriantha and Tesla Dart from Arborlon to the Valley of Rhenn, Redden explained, arriving just as the battle between the Straken Lord and the witch wraith was reaching its conclusion. Still at the controls of the transport, he was trying to decide where to land when he caught sight of the combatants and the dragon where they occupied the open ground between the Jarka Ruus and the Elves. An instant later he noticed two figures standing close by and recognized his brother and Mirai. With no hesitation at all, even when Oriantha began screaming in his ear to turn around, he piloted his ancient vessel over the cliffs warding the entrance to the pass and down onto the flats. Neither Railing nor Mirai had noticed him land, their eyes directed toward the epic struggle between the demon and the wraith.
He was on the ground and out of the pilot box before the diapason crystals had cooled. He caught a glimpse of Tesla Dart’s horrified face and Oriantha’s cat-like leap over the ship’s side as she came in pursuit while he raced across the trampled ground to reach his brother, but he never slowed.
“I found them, Railing,” he shouted now over the din of the demonkind’s wild, mindless cries, suddenly remembering. “I found the missing Elfstones!”
Railing stared. “How did you manage that? How did you even get back here? I thought you were trapped inside the Forbidding!”
Redden glanced over his shoulder as Oriantha came pounding up behind him, her face a mask of fury. “How could you be so stupid? There’s an entire army right in front of you! Are you trying to kill yourself? Get out of here!”
“Look!” Redden persisted, ignoring her, motioning her closer. “She has them. Oriantha does. Except for one set. Show the Stones to Railing.”
But the shape-shifter’s hands were empty. “I gave them to Tesla Dart to hold while I came after you.” She pointed over his shoulder. “And forget what I just said about getting out of here. It’s too late to run.”
They looked toward the Jarka Ruus. The witch wraith was approaching. The crystalline white frost that had covered her earlier was gone, and she was once again a slight figure dressed in ragged gray and bent against the morning light as if it hurt to be exposed to it. She showed no interest in what was left of the Straken Lord as she passed his remains, and no concern for the dragon crouched at her back.
Instead, her eyes were on Railing and his brother.
“Get behind me,” Railing told Mirai and gently eased her back.
“What’s this about?” Redden asked, stepping up to take her place.
Railing didn’t know where to start. “I tried to bring back Grianne Ohmsford to help us against the Straken Lord. But she returned like this, and now she’s killed him and has taken his place as leader of the Jarka Ruus.”
Redden looked confused, as if he was hearing the words but not understanding their meaning. Railing had already turned away to face the witch. There was no time for anything now but finding a way to send her back to where she had come from, and he hadn’t the faintest idea how to do that.
“You’ve found your brother without my help!” the witch wraith called out to him, slowing while still twenty feet away. Her body seemed to shift and change inside her robes, as if she were not entirely solid.
“You have to go back,” Railing replied. “You have to return to Mother Tanequil. I will go with you.”
“Will you now?” she said. She pointed to the multitudes assembled behind her—a casual gesture. “What do you think they will say to that?” She seemed genuinely interested. “They might not like the idea!”
“It doesn’t matter. You can do whatever you want! You’ve freed them from Tael Riverine. They won’t challenge you now.”
She came closer, and he could hear Mirai hissing at him in warning. “We have to go! Now!”
But Railing only moved ahead a few more steps, bringing him within ten feet of the witch. He was scared out of his wits by the prospect of what this creature could do to them—what she might at any moment choose to do. But he was still hoping he could reason with her.
“What will you do with me once we’ve returned to Mother Tanequil?” she wanted to know.
“Whatever I must to get you back to what you were. I promise.”
“What are you talking about?” Redden hissed, still at his elbow.
There was a long silence as the witch considered. “I think maybe you would try to do as you say,” she said finally. “The problem is that I don’t want you to. I don’t want to go back to being what I was. All I want is what awaits me here.” She gestured behind her to the dragon and the Jarka Ruus. “I want what they want.”
Railing felt his heart sink. In the dual life of Grianne Ohmsford, the part that was Ilse Witch had won and the part that was Ard Rhys had lost. She no longer felt the urge to go back to being an aeriad. She no longer wanted that life, the one he had dragged her away from in order to bring her here.
It was his fault, he knew. All his.
“So you see the problem,” she continued, “because you won’t let that happen, and neither will your brother. Will you?”
“We’re your family!” Railing reminded her frantically.
Within the shadows of the cloak’s cowl, her head gave a small shake. “No, boy, you are not. I have no family.”
The Isle Witch struck out at Railing without warning and without preamble—a fiery strike exploding from a withered limb that she thrust out from her gray robes like a snake. But Redden was quicker. Sensing what was about to happen, acting on his instincts, he flung himself at Railing an instant before the fire was expelled and sent them both tumbling to the ground. Rolling clear of his brother, Railing responded by using the wishsong to fling dagger-sharp particles of rock at the ragged figure before them. The pieces tore into her, shredding her coverings, riddling her through and through.
But still she stood upright, seemingly unaffected, conjuring a torrential gust of wind that picked up both Redden and Railing and threw them backward into Mirai, sending all three crashing to the ground. Redden was stunned, but Railing, quickly rising to a guarded crouch, tried a fresh tactic, using his wishsong to damage her senses, clogging her mouth and nose with dirt, hammering at her ears with shrieking sounds and blinding her with the sun’s own brightness. He went after her relentlessly, holding nothing back, striking out at her with everything he had because he knew he was unlikely to get a second chance.
For a moment, it even looked like he might succeed. Grianne wen
t stumbling away, trying to fend off the unexpected attack. Unable to clear her vision or her hearing, she began choking and gasping. Railing pressed his advantage, using the wishsong to summon roots that wrapped themselves about her like shackles and pulled her down.
But she fought back against what was being done to her. An explosion of light ripped through the air and ended with a concussive boom like thunder following a lightning strike. Railing was flattened instantly, his magic dispersed and his consciousness gone. He lay sprawled on the earth, steam rising from his inert form.
Oriantha attacked the moment Railing went down, coming at the witch from her blind side, moving so fast she was little more than a blur. But the witch saw her anyway, caught her in midair, and threw her away like a scrap of paper. The shape-shifter landed in a heap and didn’t move again.
Mirai was kneeling over Railing as the witch turned on her. “Why don’t you join him?” Grianne asked almost gently, arms extending. “You love him, don’t you? So why don’t you die, too?”
The Highland girl reached for Railing and tried to pull him away, but he was too heavy, so she grabbed on to him and shielded him protectively. “Get away!” she screamed.
It would have been the end of all of them if not for Redden. Still shaken from the blow the witch had given him, he struggled to his feet, clutching the red Elfstones. He ignored the dark flicker of recognition, warning him of what he was about to risk—of the danger and the likely cost. But the threat from the witch was immediate and he had no time to think, only to act.
Combining both forms of magic in the same way he had when facing Tarwick and his hunters in the underground caverns of the Kroat Abyss, he struck out. A brilliant stream of red fire burst from his clenched hands and washed over the witch until she was encapsulated. She fought to break the magic’s casing, but it was thick and strong and refused to be dispelled. Redden could feel her efforts in his own body, the ripples of her power washing back through the stream of scarlet light in wild reverberations. But he held fast, even when he felt the dissipation begin. It was similar to what he had felt when he had drained the Catcher and his creatures down in the Kroat Abyss, yet different because the witch was a singular being. Ever so slowly, the essence of the witch began to drain from her ragged form, siphoned away by the magic of the Elfstones. Some of it was drawn into the Stones themselves and into their user. Redden gasped as the first painful sparks of the magic’s detritus reached him and began to fill his body. Shards of the witch’s shattered emotions and broken power washed through him, slashing like sharpened metal. He felt everything she did, all of her terrible rage and madness and despair, every savage and damaging belief and compromise she had embraced in becoming the Ilse Witch reborn.
For a moment, it seemed to him that it would be too much. But in desperation, he tightened his hold on his fears and reinforced his determination. The power of his Elfstone magic surged, and within the haze he felt from the rawness of the pain assailing him, he heard the witch wraith howl in anguish. She twisted and writhed in an effort to break free, trying to use her own magic to stop what was happening to her.
But Redden held her fast, bleeding her, even as an overpowering sensation of loss and emptiness filtered through him, a feeling of unwelcome invasion filling the void. Though he held himself firm, though he refused to ease back on the power of the crimson Stones, his mind was losing traction. The fury and power of the witch’s substance was filling him up and replacing his sense of identity and self. He tried to grasp something that would hold him in place, but the void was smooth and empty, and he felt himself sliding away.
In the Gardens of Life, Arlingfant Elessedil’s alteration had begun. Aphenglow watched with both horror and amazement as her sister’s slender body began to bend and stretch, arms and body taking on a silvery cast, hair turning crimson. Limbs sprouted and grew long and crooked, arching out in all directions. Her legs merged and sprouted roots that worked their way deep into the earth. Layers of bark covered her skin, and scarlet leaves replaced her hair.
Her face disappeared last, and Aphen could see from her expression that she was feeling no pain or discomfort but instead a kind of euphoria that transcended her fears and doubts, bringing her to her fate unafraid and accepting.
When it was done, a new Ellcrys stood in place of the old at the crest of the rise, perfectly formed and unblemished, its silver bark and crimson leaves shining with sunlight and fluttering slighting in a suddenly fresh morning breeze.
Aphenglow rose and walked up the rise to the Ellcrys reborn, placing her hands on the bark of the trunk and running them slowly across the smooth surface.
“Arling, I’m here,” she whispered, her words graced with hope.
Railing Ohmsford was conscious again. Shaking off the dizzying effects of the blow he had been struck, he pushed himself back to his feet. Mirai was screaming at him, her voice frantic.
He saw his brother then. He just stood there staring at nothing, his body stilled, his outstretched arm wrapped in crimson light. The witch was on her knees but trying to stagger back to her feet, apparently recovering from whatever damage the Elfstones had done to her. In moments, she would be after them.
“Run!” he yelled at Redden, grabbing him by the arm and turning him around.
But Redden didn’t hear him. He didn’t seem even to notice him. He was staring at nothing, completely oblivious to what was happening around him, his face blank and his eyes fixed. The way he held himself let his brother and Mirai know instantly that he couldn’t make himself move. He appeared to be somewhere else entirely, unaware of what was happening. Whatever was wrong with him, it was deep and abiding.
Railing glanced down to where his brother’s right hand was curled into a fist, still holding the crimson Elfstones.
“He used them on the witch,” Mirai exclaimed. “In combination with the wishsong!”
Oriantha stumbled over to them, bloodied and streaked with dirt, but clear-eyed and apparently not seriously damaged. Together the three took Redden by his arms and hastened him back toward the Elven defenses, away from the thrashing, screaming masses of the Jarka Ruus. Already Elves were running from the mouth of the pass to reach them. Railing thought he saw Challa Nand, his huge figure distinctive among the smaller forms of the Elves. He saw Skint, too.
Then he caught sight of someone else, a wiry creature with elongated arms and legs standing much closer than any of the others. The creature had both arms wrapped about a metal box, clutching it against its chest.
“Who is that?” Mirai asked before he could get the question out.
“Tesla Dart,” Oriantha said. They were practically dragging Redden. “An Ulk Bog from the Forbidding. She helped us get free.”
Behind them, a roar went up from the enemy army, and Railing glanced over his shoulder to see the dragon lifting away. The enraged Jarka Ruus, freed of its presence, had recovered sufficiently to mount an attack and were swarming across the plains after them. The witch was upright, as well, and joining in the hunt.
Railing and his companions tried to flee more quickly, but Redden’s movements remained wooden and uncoordinated. He was still not responding to them. He’s catatonic, Railing realized. He’s been rendered incapable of speech, movement, sight—of even knowing what is happening around him. He can’t do anything to help himself.
Impatient and desperate, Oriantha moved in front of Redden and hoisted him onto her back. “I’ll carry him. Hurry!”
Railing glanced over his shoulder once more. The creatures from the Forbidding were gaining on them. Even with Oriantha shouldering his brother’s weight, they would not be able to reach the pass and the protection of the Elves in time.
“Get him into the airship!” he shouted.
They turned toward the transport and the crooked figure of Tesla Dart, who was screaming at them unintelligibly and jumping up and down while holding the metal box.
“Wait!” snapped Oriantha suddenly. “What’s happening?”
She stopped where she was and began searching the sky. A hush had settled over the plains, sweeping eastward from out of the mountains warding the Rhenn and across the Streleheim and Tirfing onward into the rest of the Four Lands. It was as if every sound had been muffled and the whole of the world rendered silent. Railing, Mirai, and Oriantha all started talking at once, but their words could not be heard. Tesla Dart was still leaping about and shouting wildly, but they could not hear her, either. It was as if they were all screaming into a massive void. Even the Straken Lord’s army, slowed now in its charge across the plains by what they sensed was happening, had lost its collective voice.
Then a wind rose from out of nowhere, coming from all directions, filling the silence with an enormous howl. Railing clutched Mirai against him, and they dropped to their knees. Oriantha lowered Redden’s inert form and crouched over him protectively. The wind was still gathering force, becoming a violent, dangerous presence—a whirlwind that turned the air dark and hazy, blew away the clouds and shut out the sky.
Seconds later the Jarka Ruus were pulled skyward, disappearing moments after their feet left the ground. One by one, they went into the ether. They ran wildly in all directions to escape what was happening, but there was no place to go and no time left.
Railing realized at once what had happened. He turned to Mirai and screamed it into the silence, but she couldn’t hear him. He watched as the dragon was caught up and carried away. He watched ogres and Furies and Goblins disappear. He witnessed the sudden vanishing of thousands of the creatures of the Straken Lord’s army.
Even the witch wraith was not immune. Her choice to replace Tael Riverine as the Straken Lord and become one of the creatures of the Forbidding had doomed her, as well. She was snatched up and carried off into the blackness, screaming in fury and despair.
Near the end of the terrible culling, he caught sight of Tesla Dart futilely trying to reach them. But then she was caught up, too, still holding on to the metal box. Oriantha leapt up, abandoning Redden to run after the Ulk Bog, but she couldn’t get to her in time. Tesla Dart disappeared with a thrashing of arms and legs, still crying out, still fighting against what was happening, taking the Elfstones with her.