Talisa pressed a hand to her mouth. Just the memory of his velvet brown eyes, the luminous glow of his pale Fey skin, made her want to weep for the joy that could never be hers.

"Adrial." She spoke his name in a whisper, barely daring to breathe it out loud. His name had become a prayer, a sacrament to her, whispered in the dead of night and times of loneliness as a ward against the gray despair her life had become.

He'd come, the mate predestined by the gods, but mortal laws kept her from him. She was another man's wife, and Adrial could not claim her. Though it had been like ripping her heart from her chest with her own hands, she'd begged him to leave her and find what happiness he could, and he had heeded her pleading. He'd left with his people to return to the Fading Lands, and even though the Fey had returned to Celieria City last week, Adrial was not among them.

It was time—past time—for her to accept that he wasn't coming back. Time for her to make peace with her lost dreams and find what happiness she could in her marriage.

The crack of a slamming door made her jump. She sat up and turned towards the closed library door. She could hear the sound of boot heels beating an angry tattoo against the marble floor as they approached the library.

Talisa swung her legs off the edge of the window seat and rose to her feet. She smoothed a hand over her skirts and hair and pinched her wan cheeks to erase their pallor. The library doors swung inward.

Colum stood framed in the doorway. He'd gone to visit his father after Lord Sebourne's release from Old Castle Prison, and clearly something had happened. His face was flushed, his hair windblown. A wild light glittered in his eyes.

"What is it?" She gasped. "What has happened?" All she could think of was the war threatening Sebourne and Barrial lands. Had their homes been besieged? "Colum ..." She took several steps towards him.

"Pack your bags, Talisa. We leave for home today—and by home I mean Moreland."

Her jaw dropped. "Leaving? But just last night you said we weren't going to leave the city. You and Da both agreed the borders were too dangerous and that we needed to stay here."

"That was before I knew what you were up to."

She blinked in utter confusion. "What I was up to!" she echoed.

His mouth twisted in a bitter sneer. "Don't take me for such a fool, Talisa. My father had a visitor this morning before I arrived at Old Castle. Someone who informed him on good authority that your lover—that wife-stealing rultshart of a Fey—didn't go back to the Fading Lands. He didn't even go north to your father's lands, which is where I suspected he'd be waiting for you. The thieving bogrot has been here in the city all this time."

Her hand rose to her throat, and the sudden, wild acceleration of her pulse pounded against her fingertips. "Are you talking about... Adrial"

Colum's handsome face contorted with rage. "Don't you dare pretend innocence!"

"It's no pretense!" she shot back. "I haven't seen Adrial since he and his brother left with the Tairen Soul and the rest of the Fey over a month ago."

"Lying petchka!" His hand shot out.

Talisa gave a choked cry, but he moved so fast she had no chance to duck his blow. Her eyes squeezed shut in an instinctive reaction and she braced herself for the smack of his hand against her cheek.

The blow never came.

She pried open her eyes to find Colum frozen, his hand a scant breath from her face, his face purple with rage.

"Colum? Oh, gods." Realization sucked the breath from her lungs, and she gave a short gasp. "Oh gods, he was right. You are here." She turned on trembling legs as the air around her began to sparkle with tiny flashes of light.

Seven leather-clad Fey warriors shimmered into visibility, their pale, shining faces grim, their eyes cold and flat and filled with lethal intent.

She barely saw six of the warriors. Her gaze—her entire being—focused on only one: the achingly beautiful face of the man she'd dreamed of all her life, the truemate she'd never thought to see again. Her heart leapt into her throat, and even though Colum was standing frozen a scant arm's length away, her soul soared with dizzying joy.

"Adrial." She took one step towards him, her shaking hands outstretched. He closed the rest of the distance in a flash. His arms wrapped around her, pulling her tight to his chest, pressing her so close she could feel the hard forms of his Fey'cha daggers and hear the beat of his heart in her ear. Abruptly, the tears she'd kept to herself as she cried into her pillow each night burst free, and she began sobbing as though her heart were breaking. "Adrial... oh, Adrial..."

He bent his head, his black hair spilling over his shoulders to envelop her in fragrant dark silk. He smelled of springtime and warm meadows, of fresh sunlight after a long winter's dark. "Aiyah, I am here, shei'tani. I never left your side ... and I never will."

"Oh, Adrial." Talisa nearly wept with regret. "You cannot be here. You can't," she said, no matter how much she wanted him to stay. Her hands traced the soft, fine-grained skin of his face. She couldn't stop gazing at him, touching him. "The reasons you had to leave before haven't changed. I cannot go with you."

"You cannot stay with him." Adrial jerked his chin towards Colum's frozen body. "And you definitely are not going to the borders. It is far too dangerous. The real fighting hasn't yet begun, but it soon will, and I want you nowhere near what's coming."