"You ... will... not ... touch . . . him!"

The guttural roar of command came from Shan's own throat—but the fierce, rumbling voice was not his.

Concentrated power filled him—searing him from the inside out, all but boiling the blood in his veins. It was as if the Bright Lord himself had poured all the vast energy of the Great Sun into Shan's soul on a bolt of divine lightning.

With the power came a presence—feminine and familiar— and Shan wasn't the only one who sensed it.

Silver eyes fixed on Shan. "You!" he exclaimed, and silver irises darkened to the lurid black of Azrahn.

Shan roared a warning to the daughter he had never seen—the precious, beloved child he and Elfeya had conceived in a world of endless horror. The same child they had risked their lives to save, and now willingly suffered every torment to protect.

The Rage—hers and his combined—exploded, flooding him with fury. Sel'dor manacles disintegrated. Agony ripped through him as his body flash-boiled into a cloud of flaming mist and his mind into a fearsome, savage haze.

Burn Him! Shred him! Feast on his roasted bones!

The cry howled in his mind, but the fierce battle cry turned to a shriek of pain as the mist he had become resolidified. Limbs formed, but they were twisted and misshapen, half tairen, half Fey, as if man and beast had been fused together in some monstrous amalgamation. Enormous muscles rippled and bulged beneath a patchwork hide, silvery Fey skin covered by broad tracts of black fur. A man's bony hands, larger than serving platters, ripped at the air with a beast's razored claws.

The creature reared back on bulging hind legs and opened its fanged maw. Searing fire spewed forth in an incinerating jet.

Goram screamed as his body turned to lifeless char, and beside him, the hammer he'd wielded with such malevolent enthusiasm melted into a puddle of harmless slag.

The High Mage shifted his initial weave into a powerful shield that withstood the first blast of fire—then he struck. His skeletal arms shoved forward, purple velvet sleeves falling back to reveal clawed hands holding globes of Azrahn that he hurled with a strength far exceeding his frail, wasted appearance.

The dark, corruptive magic splashed against the enormous, furred chest, and the creature that was part Shan, part tairen reared back, roaring with a mix of rage, pain, and fear. Cramped wings beat at the rough rock of the ceiling. Mid-span claws gouged deep furrows into the sel'dor ore.

The monster howled as sel'dor rubble rained searing acid across its back and the burning ice of the Mage's Azrahn spread across its chest.

Flame exploded from the beast's muzzle.

Vadim Maur dove through the cell door and rolled to the left. His bones bounced painfully across the unyielding stone floor, but neither the jolts nor even the snap of a breaking finger unraveled his concentration.

Pain was the price of great magic, and he had long ago accepted that penalty.

Vast and devastating, his power surged in answer to his call. Blazing, multi-ply threads burst from his hands in dense shield patterns as clouds of intense flame boiled out of the cell to fill the corridor. The guards by the door—unprotected by similar shields— lit up like matchsticks. They didn't even have time to scream before the ash that had been their living bodies scattered on the searing winds of the maelstrom.

Perspiration broke out on Vadim's skin, then evaporated as the hairs on his arms crackled and his skin turned bright red. He poured more magic into his weaves, but the destructive force of the fire was too great. A six-fold weave—no matter how powerful—had no chance of standing against tairen flame for long. His shields were failing. He was roasting.

Desperate, he arrowed a command to his umagi guarding the cell two levels above. «Go to the shei'dalin Elfeya now. Kill her!»

Elvia ~ Navahele

Bel groaned and held his hands to his ringing ears. His head felt like that Eld rultshart had applied his hammer to Bel's skull. Someone was screaming.

His eyes snapped open and he rolled into a crouch.

Two man lengths away, held captive by some invisible force, Ellysetta stood glued to the shimmering veil of water. Her head was flung back, her spine was arched in visible agony, and she was screaming as if her very soul were being torn asunder.

"Get her away from the mirror!" Hawksheart cried. "She cannot free herself!"

Bel sprang into action. With no hint of his usual devoted care, he launched his body through the air, slammed into Ellysetta's slender form, and tackled her to the ground.

They landed with a teeth-rattling jolt on the floor of the hollow, and Bel's only concession to a lu'tan's regard was a last-moment twist of his body so that he—not she—took the brunt of their hard landing.

The instant they hit, Ellysetta went wild. Screaming and roaring, she struck at him with clawed hands, raking burning furrows across his face, ripping through his leathers to score his chest. He tried to block her blows and fend off her attacks without hurting her, but that care was his undoing.

Fast-growing roots shot up from the floor of the Sentinel's hollow and lashed Bel's arms and legs into place, pinning him to the floor. He spun Fire to burn the roots and free himself, but the threads of his magic dissolved the instant they formed, absorbed into the fierce aura of power surrounding Ellysetta.

"Ellysetta!" he protested. Streamers of ice raced through his veins, and a sudden, drugging weakness sapped his strength and left him light-headed.

Ellysetta reared back and Bel got his first glimpse of her face. Her eyes were pure black, lit by lurid red stars, her teeth bared in a snarl of primal savagery. The aura of magic about her was like none he'd ever seen. Like the Great Sun in full eclipse, a dark shadow surrounded her, its edges rimmed by an undulating ring of bright, golden light.