THEY KNEW! HOW, SHE could not possibly say, but his accusation was clear as a jungle cenote. Allory could not breathe. In an instant, all the old fears gripped her throat, rendering her unable to speak, nor even to move a muscle. Not even the slightest tremor touched her body or wings.

The Golden Purrmaine Felidragons had better information than she could have imagined in her worst nightmares.

Before she could speak, the Felidragon addressed Monsteron. "As you know, brother, our research is impeccable. We bring generations of expertise and incomparable, species-specific methodologies to bear upon the most abstruse problems. I am Sharzaah, Prime Scholar of the Golden Purrmaine Felidragons. For several centuries, we have been involved in a fruitful partnership with the Ultimate Tracker Raptors which has the ultimate goal of preventing the species genocide being wreaked upon your kind by this creature we call the Wraith – a creature of many names and life immortal – aye, the Egg-Stealer, the Corruptor, the Vile –"

"ABOMINATIONSSSS!!" Monsteron exploded. So powerful was his outraged roar, Allory saw a small set of cracks develop in the crystal in front of her nose.

The Felidragon shut his eyes and weathered a blast that threatened to strip his fur clean off his body. "Yes. One and the same. He has many manifestations. Perhaps, many lives – just like Allory Fae here."

Allory blinked rapidly. "Eh –"

"I believesss it not! The little ssshheee promisssed …"

His voice trailed off in puzzlement, perhaps in realisation.

"Unfortunately, your problem has become our problem," Sharzaah put in smoothly, pivoting to seize the advantage with sickening cunning. "The noose of this Wraith draws tight about our necks, undoubtedly seeking the same powers we do – the deepest, most incredible powers of the Scintillant Fae themselves. As you are aware, the Scintillant Fae have been the object of our study for many hundreds of years."

Allory clenched her fists. Objects? Never! Agonising memories tumbled through her mind. Subjects of Felidragon torture! Experimentation of the most immoral, depraved kind … she barely had words to describe the hatred that soured her sap in this moment.

How many had suffered and perished to fulfil these Purrmaines' twisted desires? For there was nothing noble about this. Nay. Surely Monsteron must know their goal was loftier by far; that his Raptor-kind were merely being used as fodder for the cause, a convenient excuse? Suggids! No way could he be so deceived!

"It is clear as day from all the latest reports that the Deepwoods are surrounded in all directions by armies vast and powerful beyond imagination, armies far beyond any precedent in the histories. There is neither commerce nor communication beyond their boundaries and, our best intelligence shows, this situation is merely the culmination of a strategy decades or perhaps many centuries in the execution. We are now cut off in all directions. There is no hope of aid from the outside."

His paw rose delicately – yet only for the briefest moment, barely a flutter of her wings – to draw in the air before his learned muzzle a spatial representation of the Deepwoods, using some magic beyond her ken. What she saw was a small pocket of green being swallowed up by an enveloping red amoeba of enemy territory. The red splodge sprawled across what appeared to be hundreds or even thousands of kingdoms. All she recognised was the canyonlands, and that only because a stylised Giant's head identified the darker-shaded area she knew from one of Yaarah's maps. Here, even that vast range was but a small scar upon a geographical tapestry vaster by far than anything she had ever imagined.

Yaarah's intuition had been bang in the nectar. Those whiskers!

"– what this Wraith seeks by these actions, is the question."

Allory's attention snapped back to the Felidragon. Precisely the question to which she had always assumed only one answer existed – the power of souls. Millions, even billions of souls. Creatures uncountable trapped in the soul lockets she jealously guarded, but … did the Wraith crave that power only to assault Middlesun and plunge all Spheris into the eternal darkness, a frozen wasteland of cold Yaarah had described as abyssal beyond imagination?

Of course it did. That was the answer. Infernal, immortalising power.

"By genocidessss, you mussst sayssss!" the Long Nose spat unexpectedly. "How will any sssurvivessss?"

"OUR EGGSSSS!" Monsteron Realm-Waster thundered.

Was he truly blinded by the issue of the eggs?

A moment or three later, Allory found herself cowering inside the bottle – yet, she remained unmolested. Unharmed. In that time, she had thrice prayed for deliverance, that Ashueli and Master Barakunal might smoke inside this chamber and teach these Golden Purrmaine traitors a lesson or three, but she realised also that if they knew how to capture an Elemental, they must know also how to hide from one.

Yet, Master Barakunal had tracked her with ease before. He must be on his way.

To her surprise, Allory's hesitant glance through the crystal facets showed the Dragons and Raptors now paying her absolutely no attention whatsoever. How annoying. Wasn't she meant to be the irrepressibly sparkly one, the darling of the Deepwoods?

And Middlesun herself built my cocoon, she snorted to herself. Slap my sap, when did I start having delusions of grandeur?

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

The day the Forestal Dragons danced for her? Maybe. Silly-sap Scintillant.

No, far more interesting was what the Felidragon Sharzaah was up to. He had … rewound the map, she recognised with a puzzled frown. Rewound it into history.

Touching her antennae, Allory peered at the map with a sense of growing recognition. She knew this tactical projection. She had examined it for endless hours; she knew the lay of those armies as well as any person living, because in that time she was – she had been – General Allory Fae.

Could she still be? One life or many?

A question that touched the fundamental mystery of her existence.

"Two thousand, nine hundred and thirteen seasons ago," Sharzaah purred meantime, grabbing her fullest attention, "we believe that the Wraith – one and the same creature – came against Ahm-Shira at the head of an army of such magnitude as Spheris had never seen. Three armies, in fact. Two came from sun-anti-spinward and one from sun-spinward, following the Canyon of Aruzile, the main trade route into and out of Ahm-Shira. It was and is heavily defended, as you are aware."

A waking vision snatched her away.

* * * *

A silver finger stabbed the living map, careless of the ripples it spawned across the green-and-brown surface. "Your Majesty, please! We must divert six battalions to the anti-spinward battlements without further delay."

A musical riposte interjected, "Must we? How long can the forces hold, Prince Harazori?"

Voices clashed at once, advancing different viewpoints – a babble that merged into a muted roar as the new arrival struggled to make sense of her transition.

From … where? Suggids, I feel so torn …

It was as if her awareness dragged itself up from some foetid mire, reluctantly shucking a grasping morass which had entrapped it for aeons. All she saw was a handsome silver finger resting upon the stylised thorn barrier depicting the more vulnerable anti-spinward defences of Ahm-Shira. Then, she noticed a leaf bandage enwrapping the smaller fingers of that hand – nay, stumps they were, fingers hacked off and the stumps rudely bandaged, still leaking silver blood where his agitated hand movements had disturbed a medic's hurried work.

The beginnings of a reply had begun to groan out its first syllable when she took in the gold-trim cuff of a burgundy jacket sleeve that led to a bicep which was also bandaged, perhaps from an older wound. Yesterday's battle. Or the day before that. As the groan elongated slowly her gaze widened to take in the battered condition of his full-length formal trousers, also burgundy, that encased the muscular male thighs snugly cased within.

Suggids, her brain supplied, don't turn, don't turn around, no don't …

He turned.

At odds with every other creature gathered around the living map, Prince Harazori spun about with parade-ground precision and barked, "General Allory Fae!"

Pity, for he faced entirely the wrong direction and barked at the wrong Scintillant.

Less of a pity, his decidedly fitly-clad behind practically brushed her ethereal nose on the way past, and whispered past the gormless gape of her mouth as she admired the – sixteen slime-sucking suggids! she very nearly screeched, having to bite her partially-uncoiled tongue. Allory had quite enough of this crazed-teenage pollen-brain of hers. Had she ever been such a suggid-sucking fool? Apparently, her inappropriate fascination with the royal derriere of a certain dashing harpist went back more than a few generations in his line. Clearly blessed in the heritage her eyes refused not to drink in like water from a cool jungle cenote.

What did emerge from her lips was, "Eep!"

Classic.

I thought of the future-present while in the past, she realised with a fresh spurt of panic. What does this – I don't –

"General," the Prince gasped in evident relief, swinging about once more. "My abject apologies."

Blink, and he had sunk to one knee, facing her!

Oh. That would be so as to raise her with courtly grace from her – ahem – inelegant hiding place behind the mighty golden shield of Yanzureli Sylvanchild, heroine of the battle of Uhl-Kamira, an archer without peer amongst the Elvenkind. The same Yanzureli who had challenged the Prince's claim.

Yanzureli, who could have been Zinueli's twin, a surpassingly fair Elf of the Synshuviar.

Allory shook her sparkles.

No, her head.

Focus. She had to focus. "A moment, please," she chimed, and proceeded to knock her head against the table's edge. Thonk.

The surprisingly hollow sound carved out a strange silence among the advisors to King Hazalli, gathered here for a strategic conference. His expression was striking for the degree of its frustration; most, she recognised belatedly, directed toward her person and presence.

"General Allory Fae," he called, in a resonant voice, "do try to restrain your errant magic. What urgent errand kept you from this council this time?"

Aye. She was not in his good scrolls.

This was a different King in a different time and she needed to make her excuses. Fast.

She opted for action. "My King, it is necessary to hold the – no, hold that thought. Allow me to examine the map for a moment."

Ignoring the snickers and mocking hisses that passed between the dozens of onlookers, Allory fluttered up above a map she had beheld … many times in the past, and in many presents too … and blinking, saw in overlay the situation from which her current self had just been snatched away. How did this mess of tangled timelines even work? Echo upon echo, the strategic situation pounded through her head as if each beat sought to impose a differing view of reality, and each was a violent yank in another direction to another time, each with its attendant slew of memories and demands and pain, and …

And here I make my stand.

STOP!

Time was such a tyrant!

Panting at the extremity of her exertion, Allory bent over again, trying to recover herself. Her calm. Her sanity. What mind was even capable of not crumbling under such pressure? Cruel demands that had been made of her since birth – whatever that birth might mean, she realised belatedly.

Silence was her warning.

Oh, suggids! She had stopped far more than she intended. Not a soul moved about her. Not even a pulse.

Yet her spiky sapphire hair and her not-quite-dust tattoo were prickling madly. With the utmost care, Allory swivelled upon her heel and found herself facing a flotilla of tiny darts that appeared to have been launched from an outflung sapphire hand – a Scintillant hand – that hand belonging to Nyrali Fae, a Scintillant of the Ohmsalfe Jungles, a name she managed to dredge out of the frayed threads of her memories. One remembered the assassins. Many, many their faces over the decades and centuries. Countless, the ways the Wraith had attempted to snuff out the course of her history.

Slowly, her mouth curved into the grimmest of smiles.

Was she or was she not an Elemental? Had Ashueli not taught her a thing or three about being a smoker? Ghastly habit. One, apparently, beloved of very many of her Fae kin. Only, her idea of smoking came in a rather different flavour.

Brusquely but with sufficient care, ensuring she had no flesh to be pierced or poisoned, she collected the airborne darts. Then, from the corner of her eye, she saw Nyrali's gaze track her movement. Impossible! Yet clear as Middlesun. This time, the prickling was so violent that her scalp felt as if it wanted to tear free of her head. A horrid frisson violated her being.

Time blinked.

Seven darts stood like a necklace pierced around Nyrali Fae's throat.

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