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Brynn Dharielle looked back over her shoulder repeatedly as she slowly paced her pinto h she had only been on the road for a half hour be-yond the edge of Andur&039;Blough Inninness, the enchanted elven valley, the ridges that ht The mountainous landscape was a natural ic of Lady Dasslerond of the Touel&039;alfar to be unsolvable Brynn hadher route, but she understood that she would have a hard tiht then

This was the first time Brynn had been out of that misty valley in a decade, and she truly felt as if she was leaving her hoed elves of Corona, had come to her when she was a child of ten, orphaned and alone on the rugged and unforgiving steppes of To-gai, far to the south

They had taken her in and given her food and shelter And even iven her life purpose They had trained her andher ho brown-skinned woht, as she continued to stare back along the trail behind her, to the place that she knew to be her real hoain

Tearseyes of a child, still, though so much had they seen Already she missed Aydrian, the fourteen-year-old who had shared so Many ti, often infuriating But the truth was, he was the only other human she had seen in these last ten years, and she loved hiain

Brynn shook her head forcefully, her raven hair flying wildly, and point-edly turned back to the trail heading south Certainly leaving the valley was a sacrifice for Brynn, a diss and the companionship that had made the place her home But there was a reason for her depar-ture, she rereatest sacri-fice she would be expected to make, then her road would be easier by far than anyone, herself included, had ever iined possible

Her future was not her own to decide No, that road had been laid out be-fore her a decade before, when the Behrenese Yatol priests and their arai, had abolished almost completely the last remnants of a culture that had existed for thousands of years Brynn&039;s road had been set froe-robed Yatol priest, had lifted his heavy falchion and lopped off her father&039;s head; froed off herher, as well

Brynn&039;s jaw tightened She hoped that Tohen Bardoh was still alive That confrontation alone would be worth any sacrifice

Of course, Brynn understood keenly that this journey, this duty, was about ain

She had been trained for a specific reason, a destiny that was bigger than herself She was to return to the cold &039;~ and wjndy steppe? of harsh To-gai, the land she loved so much, and find those flickersj>fXvhat had once been She, little Brynn Dharielle, just over five feet tall and barely weighing a hundred pounds, was to fan that flicker into a flame, then feed the flame with the passion that had burned within her since that fateful day a decade ago She was to find the To-gai spirit, to remind her fierce and proud people of who they truly were, to unite theenemy: the YatoMed Behrenese, the Chezru

If the plan went as Brynn and the elves hoped, then Brynn would be the harbinger of war and all the land south of the great Belt-and-Buckle Moun-tains would be profoundly changed

That was the hope of Lady Dasslerond, who rarely involved herself in the affairs of hu hope of Brynn Dharielle Lib-eration, freedoe her parents, would allow theraves

"We willthat open stone to the tree line," came a melodic voice from the side and above Brynn looked up to the top of a boulder lining the rocky trail to see a figure far more diminutive than she Belli&039;mar Juraviel of the Touel&039;alfar, her olden eyes His hair, too, was the color of sun-light, and his features, though angular, with the high cheekbones and pointy ears characteristic of all of the Touel&039;alfar, soain toward the land that had been her home

"Keep your eyes ahead," Juraviel reh Inninness is no more to you than a drearinned

"They say that memories often leave out the more terrible scenes"

Brynn looked at hi, she understood hiswell