Convalescence had been a wretchedly slow process. The first few weeks were nothing more than incomprehensible pain, feverish dreams and disembodied voice. She could not have accounted for the time; her benefactors did that for her later. But the very first clear recollection came with a subsiding of the heat to which Thiele had finally resigned, a heat that would consume her whole. And through the spaces left by the dissipating fever came a vision, although she was no religious creature, a vision - and it was of Sggordi, or who Thiele thought seemed to be Sggordi. Words passed between them, words that were lost now in her waking mind, but the meaning caught and stayed with her. She was not meant to die from that fall from the tower, not meant to perish from the crushing of stone and mortar, not meant to be snuffed out under the heavy hand of conspiracy. She was meant for something else, and it was out there if she was brave enough to find it. Thiele didn't understand. Even now, as she sat quietly in bed and puzzled over it, ( she still didn't understand it. )

Returning to awareness was a long and painful climb. First, grayness, then white, then reminders of her form - slow aches that grew in intensity, sharp pains that sharpened further by the minute - and finally, muted voices. When she opened her eyes, she was in a very dark room. Dark, she saw, because the single window was shuttered -- and a curtain had been drawn closed over it as well. The voices were arguing - and they were arguing behind the closed door across the room. Light, almost the only light in the room at all, streamed weakly from under the door there. Thiele couldn't keep the voices in her head long enough to understand all of what the argument was about -- but she'd heard enough to know that they were arguing about her. About her and her companion. Tanist? Bahn? They mentioned only one. Which?

What happened?

That came back to her as well, in as broken a path as her consciousness. They were escaping the tower. She remembered that they were trying to get clear of the place. There was a drop - two stories - and Eragos and Eithne were above them, then, doing what they could, and she and Tanist... They'd gone through the window, hadn't they? They had. They had, and she'd tried to buoy them up with the wind under their feet. It had only been partially successful. The landing was hard and brutal, and she'd only survived it because Tanist grabbed her and twisted, and she'd landed on him instead. But the fall left Tanist in rather worse shape than Thiele, and there hadn't been time.... Then the tower made an awful sound, and there were hands on her shoulders and then --

But try as she could, she drew no further memories. And then -- here, where voices in the corridor outside fought over whether to turn her over to one place, another place, or... or keep her here. She had no idea where "here" was.

What she did know was that she was hurt, and hurt from more than just the fall. Lifting her head seemed an almost impossible feat. She tried it, then tried it again, then decided instead to conserve her energy. Focusing all her attention, she began an assessment of her physical state, beginning at her toes and traveling inch by inch upward. But before she got to her knees, she'd slipped back into sleep again.

The low court was not as polished and purposeful as the high, in the opinion of Eragos. While the former was used to resolve land disputes, contentious divides of wealth and property, minor criminal matters and more complicated disputes that did not land in the lap of the High Lord the latter was a tower of imposing gray, built for the purpose of enforcing the law in cases of challenge to the constitution of the Free Cities or cases that required the personal attention of the presiding Lord. Here the grandeur was played down instead of up. There were no gilded lions, no long halls lined with torches. Only long white marble corridors with heavy wooden doors, spear point double-hinges affixed to them plainly. Here the work of the people was truly done day in and day out - while the high court might be unused for a week, or a month, or longer. There were torches, to be sure, but they hung from plain metal chandeliers evenly spaced in those long corridors. And the light was not so imposing as it was in the halls of the HIgh Lord's tower. That was part of the reason this venue was chosen, he thought. There were three judges elected by popular vote whom High Lord Arand trusted to do their job properly. And there was ample space for whatever questioning needed to be done.

( There was even more space simply to wait. )

It was well past a respectable hour.

For the time being, the others had seemed to have forgotten about the green elf stowed away in yet another chamber - albeit a far more lavish, less prison-like chamber than the one at the mage's home. Then, it wasn't typically expected that guests be remembered when the hour was so late that not even the crickets sang. Yes, she thought, sitting on the edge of the massive, feather-stuffed mattress, It is a far nicer room than the other. Lamentable that it is such a human room, for all of that. Thiele missed the sanctuary of sleeping underground, the soft silence, the cradle of the earth... missed it fiercely. Sighing, she pushed off the side of the bed, dropped to the floor, then padded on bare feet across the room to the window.

There were guards at her door. There were guards under the window. But there were no guards in the tree that was only a few feet away from the window casement.

( Minutes later, she was on her way. )

Hot, she felt hot. Like a fever. But if she remembered right, a fever felt more cold than hot. Still, it was hot. How had they gotten out of that place? That damned room that claimed Raed. Raed was dead and Eithne could only think about how they'd gotten out. How many assassins lay dead because of them. She'd killed one, she knew that. The other, the other Vera had killed. Vera had saved her from dying and yet she still couldn't trust the woman. Why? Because she'd hid all of this and that's why Martine was dead, why Raed was dead? Both died in the line of duty. Died doing things they loved to do. Was death so easy for them? She could have died, and she would not have been happy dying as a Rider. Dying because she demanded to be here, wanted to be here. Doing this for him and dying because of it? She could be dead.

( She couldn't see anything after all. She just felt hot. )

"A minor question of land rights circa the fourth hundred years of the Free Cities..."

With Throstle on his right, and Gawain on his left, Eragos felt as though any attack would have been a mercy. Bahn had been right. The two Riders were extremely green. One was fat enough to concern Eragos, while the other was nothing but bone. He could have been with the Lady Vera, speaking of... Eragos felt his ears burn before he finished the thought. It was not proper. There was little of his behavior that could be considered proper of late. He still wore the mask, despite the civilian clothing draped upon his person. A single candle illuminated the table in the common area of this large home. There was a certain feel of a dungeon to it, with imposing stone walls and iron-crossed windows meant to keep in as much as to keep out. All gray and black, with little enough red in the carpet that ran like a guide through each room and corridor to each thing of value. The sconces were all carvings of dragons, ornate clutching torches as though their very existence depended on it. Eragos forgot for a moment that the fellow was talking to him.

"...the third daughter has common blood on both sides, and is deemed owner, but in the event of her death..."

( It was unbearable. )

Agethlea was not a comfortable place for Eithne, it would never be her favorite of the free cities. In fact, if she had to pick one as her least favorite, Agethlea would only barely beat Simanel. And that was only because she wasn't sure if Agrippa was going to hang her for killing the Grey Rider, or if there was another death waiting for her on the streets. She couldn't shake the fact that they'd known. They'd hidden this. They kept secrets from everyone, for what, for gathering more evidence that will only be tossed out of any court they give it to? Beit-Orane in some city-burning, death bringing conspiracy? Who would have believed that? Well, except Eithne. Eithne had no trust of the High Houses, they did nothing for her, for any of them as far as she was concerned. She could only begrudgingly admit that Vera had saved her from dying a few times.

A few. Barely.

But Vera was another whole mess of trouble, and another keeper of secrets. Lady Vera of Beit-Orane, was a lady of secrets. Everything Vera held close ended up a secret of some sort. She hardly had straight answers, at least, that Eithne could tell. And finally, finally they were all getting somewhere. Finally Eithne could feel the full weight of it. They'd hidden this. Hatharida had burned to the ground for their secrets. 20 years of secrets. Almost longer than she'd been alive. The pressure of it. The horrors she knew nothing of. Eithne escaped the Manor and stood outside, but not far from the doors as she could see the guards which guarded the manor watching and because that High Lord had looked at her the way he had.. She stayed close like she was told.

( And because she wouldn't leave them. )

No rest.

Those were the words Vera had for the camp of fatigued riders. When she mounted her horse in the ash-filled morning after Hatharida, she took lead of the group without allowing for any real transition. It was like stepping from shadow, the harshness of the light made Vera squint hard into the horizon and motivated her to take back what energy was stolen by more private despairing. She had admitted weakness to Vargis, but in front of Eragos she couldn't bring herself to repeat her worries. The retired rider seemed right to dismiss her and more right to ride on. Normally Eragos was her anchor in hopeless battles. When she had returned to camp, however, and heard word of him sparring with a fresh spirited Eithne, she knew he needed to be someone else's anchor. There was no time for honesty now, just control. She had to keep control. Be ready to do whatever necessary, she told herself. Be ready to let these riders risk themselves the same way.

And pray they weren't gutted.

As Dinaden stretched his four legs on obscure westward roads, aching to leave the other horses of the party in the dust, Vera felt grim wings shade her heart. The same organ that raced with the rhythm of her horse's hooves. Occasionally she glanced back at the hooded people riding behind her, only to push them faster. She worried at first for Thiele but the man with her, Tanist, looked after her well enough. From the moment she met the Green Elf, she knew she was not weak. It was the only reason Vera did not slow the groups momentum for her. They did not even stop for the first night. They rode along the edge of the Acierran Plains, south along rocky ledges and toward the sound of water. The twisting Olne river, waters that once brought peace to her heart, kept her thoughts constantly churning. Talk of assassins with Vargis was not hypothetical. Deaths would be ordered in the night. She didn't trust red swords not to come for their number before Agethlea. She tried to make tracking their group as challenging as possible. Avoiding roads was difficult, if only because they would have been so much easier on weary riders than navigating the wilderness. Roads were also much faster. Vera had not made use of the Free Cities' roads in at least a year. When Raed complained in a loud voice that they were wasting time, Vera only reminded him that roads were the territory of Beit-Orane. Where trade passed so did the security of armed soldiers who were loyal to her family and the generals of the Cardinal Towers.

( And who do you hold loyalty to? )

It seemed an impossible feat to try to sleep now, when the ashes of her kingdom and her peple rendered in the skeleton of Hatharida behind them. But at the same time, it seemed an impossible feat to try to stay awake any longer. She'd gone without sleep for two days, had eaten only bits of scarce fruit, and the magical summoning of the power of the earth had weakened her to the point of uselessness. There was nothing more than rest for Thiele Varchardt of Lsaia to do in this night. Turning down the generous offer that the Lady Vera made to set up some sort of bedding, Thiele instead chose the space beside the unconscious champion she'd chosen for her land. In a way, he was the only thing left of her home, and that alone was reason enough to curl with her back against his arm. But he was also a good man with a good heart. That was reason enough to keep her there.

Her skin felt near to boiling - a side effect of the connection between the land of Lsaia and herself, now that the earth lay under a sea of fire. The night was cool, however, and although she couldn't be certain, she thought that Tanist's skin was also cool. Sitting up, then, she un-twirled his cloak from where her head had rested, tossed the azure garment over the man, then dropped back to the earth with a breathless sigh. She was so very, very tired.

This place that Vera had spoken about - this city of answers - was unknown to Thiele. She had no where else to go, and nothing else to say about her path. If the White Riders offered her an escort to this place, she would take it. Perhaps on the way, there would be word of another place where green elves lived. She would like to find a home, a haven away from places that needed swords and knives and White Riders. She did not think it would be Lady Vera's city. But maybe she could discover where to go from there.

Lost in thoughts that wouldn't let her close her eyes, she realizes belatedly that Tanist's breathing had become lighter - not that heavy, deep-sleep sound, but the hiss of air that meant awareness. He had not moved. Thiele frowned, then twisted around until she could see him. The night shielded his face. But she was certain he was awake.

"It's over now," she said in a whisper, reaching for the best comfort she could think to offer. "We're safe, and you should feel free to rest. You've well-earned it."

For he had. This man had gone from stranger to closest friend in the span of three weeks. He'd walked with her, unafraid, unwavering, into the fires that consumed her homeland - and he stayed with her when they brought out the only lives that they could salvage. Yes, there was no one else she could name who had earned his rest better than he.

White drifted in and out of his vision, swirling seemingly without pattern, and if not for the heat on his skin it could have been winter. South of Hatharida the many cottonwood trees that grew along the Olne river had not felt hte scourge of fire. Breathless white motes soared through the air on a warm spring wind. Those, Eragos knew, were the seeds which spread as far and as wide as they could. Since the world was not ruled by those massive trees with their dull flattened leaves he could assume it was not the most effective form of transmission. They were survivors, those trees. Fire and water could not move them. Cottonwoods survived floods that would destroy other trees, and fires as well, to keep hurling seed after seed at a world which needed no more of them. They should have been pests, but against the moonlight, with each of those cotton bursts captured perfectly in silver beams, he was glad for them. Snow, or so it appeared this close. All of them together forged a blizzard from nothing. Carried with it was a stillness of soul that he might not have found otherwise. Eragos didn't know how a soul could be so still after the horror of that forest.

A forest that was by now burned to the ground.

( Gone. )

"Pigeons," Birloch said quietly.

"Lots of 'em," Raed added with a stabbing glare.

"And you saw all this," Eragos said with a wry tinge of his voice. "From behind the bushes."

"You'd be surprised what you can see when ya ain't runnin' around like a madman wavin' some huge sw-"

( Raed cut off with a yelp. )

For the last few hours no one had rest of any kind. Sleeping Tiger had insisted on carrying Frozen Pond across his back. Vargis had objected to the idea - initially. When he raised the possibility of Sleeping Tiger slitting their captive's throat while he slept the Dragon Knight looked so disgusted that Vargis wondered if they had the same father. It was the same look that Eragos summoned a thousand times before. Whatever else he could say about either of these strange foreigners, they did their killing to their enemy's face. Vargis could at least respect that. If not always agree with it. Right now Sleeping Tiger didn't occupy his thoughts. At least, not entirely. What occupied his thoughts was the fire that raged seemingly all around them. A burning of the forest, exactly what he would have done in their place, as he'd said before.

( Being right never felt so wrong. )

Hatharida was a line of trees - gnarled and tangled black lines - but the air was wavering. There was no snow on the ground past the treeline, only cracked lines in the earth. As they approached the beginning of the stark forest, she and her champion, Thiele began tugging the azure cloak from her shoulders. It was still bitterly cold and her feet were wet and numb, but she knew her own home well enough to know that soon she would not feel so numb.

A heat wave poured over the both of them the very moment they stepped into Hatharida. As hard as the air had been to breathe outside, this air was equally difficult. No moisture hung in it, and the intake of breath was shocking to her cold lungs. Shocking, yes, but welcome.

( She was home. )

All in all, Thiele thought that her escapade outside Hatharida was going rather well. She'd managed to obtain a champion for her country, for the people of Lsaia, and he seemed to her to be the perfection of what a knight truly should be: kind-hearted, careful, and concerned for the welfare of others, but with strength enough to do what is necessary. The very fact that he'd left his sword behind them when they boarded the riverboat was proof enough of his strength, to say nothing of his noble heart. And now, they were well on their way to the port on the river just outside the Lost Wood. If she estimated the journey well, they had just a few more hours before they made it there - and then a day's travel by land to the edge of her forest. What would she find there when they arrived? The brigands in grey had been coming more and more every day, and they had been bold - daring to travel through her wood as if they knew just exactly where they were going. In all the long time since the Corruption of Hatharida, there had been only a handful of people who had been able to navigate the twisted forest - so much the better for her quiet people. But it was odd indeed, that they could manage such a feat without the subtle aid of her citizens.

Now was no time to think on these things. Now was a good time, a time filled with playful conversation, peaceful dinner, and a great mug of peach nectar! She traded words back and forth across the wood table at Tanist, laughing when he thought to worry for her, and taking as many chances as she could to tell him about her good people and her good land. In the galley, it had begun to grow warm - a temperature change that Thiele attributed to the cooking behind her. But as the moments passed, the heat became thicker and more powerful than any stew could manage. Sweat began to dot her forehead. She was in the middle of turning around to the cook, when she noticed Tanist didn't seem to be bothered at all by the heat. Frowning, she studied the planes of his face, looked at his fingertips, narrowed her eyes at his mouth, and checked the air for the frosting of his breath. It was there, barely, but there... And yet, the heat was rising to near intolerable levels. How could he bear it? "Isn't it hot?" she asked. And then she smelled it - the scent of something burning, something vital and important. "What's that --"

( Without warning, a silent, unseen force hurled the elf across the galley. )

"So yer the army she came for, eh?" The voice belonged to the weathered old riverboat captain, whose face was a landscape of wrinkles and whose hands looked as knotted as the ropes attached to all manners of things there on the deck around him. Joithus Wisestar - for that was the Captain's name - slapped one gnarled hand heartily across the well-outfitted passenger now standing just to the side of the deck. "Well, I pity ya, I do. I do. Not many men in their right mind would sign up on a mission she led. She's a demanding, tricksome little tyrant, and that's the truth! Why, the first night she was on the boat coming downstream with us, she threw such a racket about going ashore that none of us could sleep until we let her. If it wasn't the damnedest thing I ever saw, she came back less than 10 minutes later with an apron full of apples. Apples! And we're heading straight for winter, boy! An' if that ain't enough for ya, she invaded all our quarters after and practically force-fed us the damned things. She's a menace, I warn ya, boy, a menace!"

But for all his words and dramatic head-shaking, there was a sparkle in his eyes nonetheless. He couldn't quite keep the corners of his lips from turning upward, and the tone in his voice suggested that for all the 'menace' that'd been going on, he hadn't minded a whit. Seeing that the dismay remaining on the young man's face, he guffawed and only pounded the boy that much harder between his shoulder blades. Once that was done, and it was assured - leastwise in Captain Wisestar's mind - that he'd been friendly enough to the young rascal to let him know he was only playing about, he turned toward the bow of his boat and peered over at the little blonde thing all but dancing back and forth on the grab rail. The captain had noticed from the corner of his eye how tense the man looked while watching her up there. Wisestar could all but see that the man was worried she was about to fall off, and it was something like pity that made him come up to this Tanist Leoncour in the first place. Clearly, he'd not been around Thiele for very long. The boy needed some educatin'.

"She only fell twice, ya know, and that was on the first day she came onboard. We was watchin' her like you is now, son, so she didn't fall far. But after she figured out whatever it is she figured out, she ain't fallen since." The captain raised his bushy eyebrows at Tanist and grinned, but it didn't seem to reassure his passenger. Before Tanist could say a word, however, the captain was at it again:

"Augh, best pull her down anyway. She's a tendency to burn iffin' ya let her caper up there all afternoon. She don't wail too much about a little sun, but ol' Cook got mighty fond of her after she found a whole bushel of mushrooms the third day she was with us. He gets grouchy when she's all lobstered up, and then no one eats well that night. Yes, best to pull her down and be done with it. Here's a ship secret, boy: Iffin' she gives ya any lip, just tell her ol' Cook needs her help. She'll be down in a jig, make no mistake, and Cook's in on it, so he'll play his part. Now, go on, go get the little tyrant offa my rail, now. Go on." Captain Wisestar made a shooing gesture at Tanist, then wandered off to take over the captain's wheel again.

"No, no thank you, keep the chicken for yourself -- ah, no, no, I don't have a daughter - no, no son either -- no, thank you! No, I thank you! --- What would I do with a sword?! It's nearly as tall as I am! No! -- Excuse me! Excuse me, oh, pardon me, madame, so sorry--! Coins, well, yes, I have a few, but I can't give them all... Yes, here, and I hope you buy some fruit with it! -- Oh, no thank you, I've already got one -- Ah, excuse me, please!"

Cities were tricky things; she remembered that much from the cities that the wild elves had built, long ago, in Hatharida. Marketplaces were even more difficult, as she was learning. So many people! So many things to see, to do! But Thiele was not looking for goods. For the past five days, she'd been traveling from her forest to the city of Eistocene, home of the Free Armies -- or so the boatman had told her. The Free Armies may be able to help her -- if she could ever find these ... Belt Arcane? Bought Campaign? Ah, she couldn't remember the name of the family. But the boatman said it would be hard to miss them. It was too bad she had no idea what she was looking for.

Navigating the marketplace - Kendalin Alley, it was called - was proving to be far more frustrating than she'd imagined. It was noontime, the sun said, and it seemed the whole of civilization was out in force, buying and selling as they could. For Thiele's part, all she wanted was directions... But no one would give her the time - apart from one boy who pointed north and said 'You can't miss it!'. It was cold, she was tired, and there was still a long day's searching ahead of her. Things were much simpler in Lsaia -- or maybe not simple, but at least she knew where everything and everyone was!

North she headed, then, even though it meant cutting crossways through the rows of stalls set up here. Apart from the delectable stand of citrus fruit, she stopped for nothing. At last, she found herself in a clearing and - Lorien be praised! - there were a few lining shrubs on either side! Hurrying to the closest one, she tucked into her pocket the orange she was peeling, then started stripping the leaves from the vine. The handful of greenery quickly disappeared in between the layers of clothing she wore - insulation to keep her warmer. Another few handfuls, and she was already feeling warmer. The frost was still clinging to the ground where the shadows had yet to be cleared, and that wetness made her toes numb. Wiggling them against the earth, then digging them into the frozen ground as far as she could get them, Thiele leaned her head back, stared at the sky for a second, then let out a sigh.

Enough resting. Time to move! Move she did -- right into a tall man with at least a week's growth on his chin and the dust of many roads on his clothing.

"Oh!" Thiele chirped. "I'm sorry! I..." And she stepped around him - or tried. The man stepped around her - or tried - at the same time. She tried the other way - and so did he. Thiele stopped, then, set her hands on her hips, and tilted her head back to fix him with her eyes. "Maybe if you moved to the left and I moved the other way?" she asked, grinning a little.