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telmiirkara neshyrr. All elves shared a bond, a communion of sorts, that allowed them to feel what other elves nearby felt, especially those whom they loved. It was not unknown for the link to wax or wane in strength. Doubtless it had something to do with changing his nature to suit himself for high magic, but what choice had he had? He took a step toward her and reached for her hand. “Come with me, Ilsevele. I need you at my side.”
    “You haven’t needed me in a long time, Araevin—and my place is here, at least for now.” She touched the side of his face, and she drew back. “I think I should go now. Good luck in your journeys. I will pray for your success.”
    “Ilsevele, wait—” Araevin began, but she just shook her head and left him standing in the doorway.
    “This,” snarled Sarya Dlardrageth, “is an abomination.” She paced fretfully, her eyes aglow with hate. Sarya’s face was heartbreakingly beautiful, her supple figure the very image of desire, but in her anger—and Sarya was indeed angered—her demonic heritage was inescapable. Ruby skin and great black wings overwhelmed her noble elf’s features, and her slender serpentine tail coiled and uncoiled with agitation. “Tell me, Mardeiym, why haven’t you destroyed it yet?”
    Mardeiym Reithel was a lord of the fey’ri, and Sarya’s most trusted general Unlike many of Sarya’s minions, he knew her well enough to sense that her anger was not directed at him, and he did not quail before her rage.
    “Strong old magic guards it, my queen. I would not presume to destroy something of such antiquity without consulting you first.”
    “Antiquity?” Sarya snorted. “I am four times as old as this shameful stone. Don’t speak to me of its antiquity!”
    The daemonfey queen stood before the old monument the humans called simply the Standing Stone. It stood thirty miles south of Myth Drannor, at the spot where the road leading south to Sembia met the Moonsea Ride. Twenty feet tall, the gray obelisk was covered with old runes and hidden Elvish script that proudly—proudly! Sarya marveled-described how the great elven realm of Cormanthyr had given over the governance of its unforested lands to dirt-grubbing human squatters.
    The flyspeck lands known as the Dales dated back to that day, growing up in and among the vales of the mighty forest … and the coronals of Myth Drannor had given the humans their blessing. Of course, time had demonstrated the folly of that decision. The coronals of Myth Drannor were dead, and their kingdom was no more. But Sarya could see clearly that this shameful monument in front of her marked the day that the elves’ decline in Cormanthor had begun.
    “Dlardrageth corona’s would never have descended to such degrading pacts with humans,” she spat. With a flick of her wings, she turned her back on the Standing Stone and confronted her chief general. “You have now consulted me. Have it pulled down and broken into rubble. Use whatever power is necessary to overcome its wards. I never want to see this … emblem of weakness again.”
    “It shall be as you say, my queen.” Mardeiym bowed his horned head in acknowledgment. He paused, and added, “The drow emissary still awaits.”
    “I absolutely will not receive him standing in front of that,” she said, flicking her tail at the Standing Stone. “He is at the ruined keep?”
    “He is, my lady,” Mardeiym affirmed.
    “Come with me, then,” Sarya said.
    She reached out and took Mardeiym’s hand, then teleported away from the road. There was an instant of darkness, of cold, and she stood in the courtyard of a ruined human keep, long abandoned. The place stood atop a rocky hill a few miles from the Standing Stone, overlooking the road. Less than a month before Seiveril Miritar had used that very keep for his headquarters while he hesitated on the doorstep of Myth Drannor, but since then the leader of Evermeet’s Crusade cowered in the supposed safety of Semberholme, a