He was surprised to discover his thoughts were turning to his childhood and upbringing in the court of Shieldhaven. The darkness and the cold, clinging river mists brought him to somber introspection, a sense of melancholy. He thought of the day his mother had died, the stern and unyielding face of his father as the Mhor broke the news to his young sons. The spark in his father’s eye left and never returned. The only comfort Mhor Daeric took from that day forward was in cold, harsh duty.
“Gaelin.”
He looked up, startled. No one was nearby; the soldiers had a small fire going about thirty yards away, and Erin was softly strumming her lute over there, but the voice had been very close. “Who’s there?” he called in a low voice.
“Gaelin, it is your father.” A shape was forming in the fog, a spectral image. It was coming nearer, striding over the waters and the mists, and now he saw a pearly, opalescent light playing in the fog. The figure that stood before him was the Mhor, but Daeric was a silver apparition of mist and moonlight, somehow brighter than the surrounding night, and yet more faint and distant than he could imagine.
Cold fingers of fear grew in Gaelin’s heart. “Father? Is that you? Am I dreaming?”
A soft smile formed on the shade’s face. “We dream more than we know, Gaelin.” The ghostly shape drew nearer, reaching for him, and Gaelin felt a cool touch along the side of his face, even though there was nothing there.
A strange, cold certainty dawned in his heart. “You are dead,” he whispered. “I can feel it.”
Mist swirled and danced around the figure of his father.
“Bannier betrayed and killed us, Gaelin. Only you and Ilwyn are left. You are the Mhor now.”
Gaelin realized that he had fallen to his knees before the spirit. In the periphery of his awareness, he saw his companions surging to their feet in alarm at the apparition, and their cries of concern sounded faintly in his ears. He tried to deny the spirit’s words, but a thin, icy blade of grief pierced his chest. It grew stronger and colder with each passing moment.
“No,” he said. “No, it’s not supposed to be this way. You have years to live yet, and Thendiere is to follow you. It can’t be!”
The shade of Daeric grew colder, and a hint of the old sternness appeared. “What has happened is what was meant to be,” he whispered. “Mhoried is in your hands, Gaelin. You must heal her wounds, and scatter her enemies. You must be her heart, her soul, her strength. She needs you, Gaelin, and if you refuse her call she will perish as surely as I have. You are the Mhor.” The voice began to recede, growing more distant, and the apparition dimmed and drew back. “You are the Mhor.”
“No! Wait!” cried Gaelin. He dug his fingers into the cold, dark dirt of the riverbank. A great racking sob escaped from his lips. “Father, come back, please!”
The apparition faded until it was no more than the glimmer of moonlight in the fog. Gaelin lifted his head to look after it, and saw one last silver mote dancing in the night.
Very faint now, the voice of his father came to him one last time: “You are who you are. You cannot deny it.” And with that, the apparition was gone.
For a long moment, Gaelin gazed after it. His companions were hurrying toward him, rising from the fireside and drawing their weapons. He rocked back on his heels, and held his hands to his chest, as if to crush the earth and soil to his heart to stop the pain. Through his tears, he saw the black rich dirt begin to glow, a leaping purple nimbus of faerie-light so faint and delicate that in an instant he was captivated without a thought. The purple halo grew brighter and darted up his arms, over his shoulders, and in a moment he was encased in the violet aura. He drew a deep, ragged breath; he was breathing living flame.
Suddenly the faint halo blazed furiously into a brilliant corona of searing fire. The heat and light flooded through his body, tearing from him an inhuman scream of ecstasy as his blood became liquid fire, hotter and purer than molten silver.
In a moment of transcendent lucidity, he saw the great sweep of Mhoried, from the rich and ancient lands by the river through belts of forest and into the wild, snow-capped highlands of the north. He felt the pulse of life and vitality that swelled as the land itself welcomed and acknowledged him, a supernal extension of his own senses and body to include everything from the tiny circle of firelight where he knelt to the farthest reaches of the Mhor’s domain.
“YOU ARE THE MHOR.” A thousand voices spoke in his mind. “YOU ARE THE BLOOD OF MHORIED, THE HEIR TO THE THRONE OF BEVALDRUOR. YOU ARE THE MHOR.”
The fire, its beauty, its awesome scope, terrified him. He felt as if he were standing on the edge of a bright abyss. He understood that if he embraced it, he would surrender his soul to an ancient and unknowable mystery. He covered his eyes to block out the raging brilliance. “I refuse,” he said, his voice small and discordant. “YOU CANNOT REFUSE.”
“No! By Haelyn’s grace, I beg you, find another!”
“YOU MUST BE THE ONE.” The chorus was implacable, surrounding and crushing him with its power. A thousand rivulets of fire streamed from the ground over his body, crackling with a brilliance and heat that threatened to sear his mortal flesh to ash and desiccate his soul. Gaelin screamed, a howl of living fire that blazed like a beacon in the night.
And suddenly there was silence and darkness, and Gaelin found himself kneeling in the wet dirt of the Stonebyrn’s banks. Madislav knelt to one side, shouting his name over and over, while Erin held his hand, weeping in fright. His vision cleared, and he slumped forward into her arms, exhausted.
He could feel his blood, the ancient blood of the Mhorieds that had gained the divine fire of the fallen god Anduiras fifteen centuries ago. It raced through his veins and hammered in his heart and his temples, singing in his ears.
Everywhere he looked, a shimmering violet tracery surrounded him, clinging to the earth like dew, streaming through the trees like sunshine.
Erin’s voice called him back to the present. “Gaelin! What happened? Are you all right?” Her long red hair hung over her shoulders, cowling her face as she leaned over him.
He closed his eyes, slowly sat up, and then climbed to his feet.
His companions stepped back as he moved away, staggering into the night. He tried to gather his thoughts, to turn and face the others, but his legs gave out and he fell to his knees again.
“What did you see and hear?” he asked over his shoulder.
Madislav was the first to answer. “We heard you speaking, and then you cried out,” he said. “When I looked… you will say I am losing my mind, but I thought you were talking with your father.”
“I saw someone, too,” Erin said. “And then a moment later, there was a fire all around you. You fell to your knees, and… I don’t know what I saw. Gaelin, what does it mean?
What was it?”
He looked down, studying his fist. “My father has fallen by a traitor’s hand,” he said, “and my brother with him. The Mhor is dead.” He raised his eyes and met their gazes, and he could tell that they sensed the truth of it too.
“Daeric and Thendiere are dead,” Madislav said slowly.
The Vos warrior rolled the words from his mouth, as if speaking them made it so. “Gaelin, you are Mhor.”
There was a long silence then, broken only by the whispering of the wind in the trees. Then, toward the back of the group, one of the guards – a young woman named Niesa, whom Gaelin barely knew – suddenly drew her sword. The rasp of the steel on leather seemed harsh and loud. She pushed her way forward to stand in front of Gaelin and then dropped to one knee, offering her sword by the hilt. “By the Lord Haelyn and the Red Oak, I pledge my faith and service to you, Mhor Gaelin,” she declared. Niesa looked up, and tears streaked her face. “For all my living days, I am your servant.”