How like Urolf (Feyrwarl) looked, except that his face had been used in quite a different way, thought Wycan, noting the laughter lines around his eyes. Feyrwarl wasn’t smiling now.

Looking down, Wycan couldn’t even see the ground on which he stood. On a thought, he bent to touch it, and felt … nothing.

 You broke up the Yul Kinta clan, you destroyed this realm. Would that you had never been!

Leana’s face was white and anxious. “Gom?”

“As for one race being better than the other: my lady, like it or not, you are part Yul Kinta now—with your son.”

His mother slipped, scraped off the cliff wall, then rebounded off towards the falling water. Wycan grabbed at her arm but to his horror his hand passed right through it! Reaching her, the nearer figure caught her by the mantle. The mantle gave, fully revealing the burden beneath, A baby, bound to her chest with a shimmering gray shawl. That glimpse was all he had before woman and child vanished through the falling water.

(Gom): “When will (Leana) waken, do you think?”

You would have me meet with Vala?

(Wycan) opened his pack and pulled a bite. But he didn’t settle down to sleep. Every slightest sound brought him to his feet, empty-handed, defenseless against tooth and claw, until he almost wished for Gom to come again. . . .

 ’Tis my own first knife that I got when I had learned to throw. I long outgrew its heft … may it serve you well. . . .