All Shadows Fled

1

Kythorn 20, Year of Shadows

The wind rose and whistled through the stones of a roofless, ruined manor house on a grassy hillside in Daggerdale. The trampled slope was strewn with tentacled, jellylike, eye-studded nightmare bodies.

Three weary, wild-eyed rangers and a ghostly lady hastened up the hill from the monsters they'd slain, running like starving men to a banquet table. They hurried toward a man who sat in the ruins.

The gaunt, white-bearded old man sat on what was left of a crumbling wall and serenely smoked a pipe. He looked at them all, smiled, and spat out this smoke belcher. It rose smoothly upward to float by his ear, spouting wisps of smoke that curled away to be lost in the quickening breeze. "Ye deserve congratulations for one thing, at least," he announced.

After the silence had begun to stretch, Itharr sighed and asked in tones that were just respectful, "And what, Lord Elminster, would that be?"

"Keeping thyselves alive," Elminster told him dryly.

"I heard an 'at least' in there," Sylune put in. Her silvery tresses hung still around her eerily translucent face despite the gusting wind. Beside her, the blood-spattered lady ranger Shar shot her an amused look through her own wind-whipped hair.

Elminster glared severely at the ghostly Witch of Shadowdale. "There is a little matter of bringing a trio or more of Malaugrym into Faerun, and allowing them to wander off untraced and untrammeled, to work their wanton wills across the land."

" 'Work their wanton wills'… I like that; 'twould fit nicely into a purple Harper ballad," Sylune replied serenely. "My choice, Old Mage, was between the lives of these three heroes-nay, no wincing, now; they've more than earned the title-and those of a few shapeshifters. I think my decision was the right one… and if you disagree so strongly, why did you not take action yourself? You must have been here watching us."

"Been here, aye. Watching, no," the Old Mage replied, eyes on the hillside below them-where, at his magical bidding, the horribly distorted bodies of the Malaugrym were rising into the air and catching fire. "I was tossing meteor swarms over the turrets of Telflamm, half a world away."

"By the gods, the bardic phrases keep flowing, like…" The ghost sorceress paused meaningfully.

"Nightsoil from a hurled bucket?" Belkram offered helpfully.

Sylune rolled her eyes and continued, "And your reason for this… ah, fiery behavior?"

El grinned. "I was feeding a wild magic area to make it grow into a shield against Red Wizards… so I could turn my attention closer to home."

Belkram caught the first whiff of burning flesh and spun around, raising the gory daggers he held ready in both hands. Seeing the source of the smell, he relaxed. A certain grim satisfaction grew on his face as he watched the bodies of their foes burn. Sharantyr gave the midair cremation a single quick glance and turned her gaze back to the Old Mage.

"I know you well enough, Elminster," she said levelly, "to know that such words always lead us to another of your 'little tasks'… and I'd appreciate knowing what this one is without a lot of clever tongue-fencing. Several Malaugrym-one in particular-have about used up my patience for today." As she stared challengingly at the Old Mage, Shar flexed her aching jaw. Her mouth, scorched by a Malaugrym tentacle whose foul taste she could still remember, was throbbing painfully, and her tongue was a thick, numb thing.

As her companions looked at the usually merry Shar in surprise, Elminster inclined his head and said, "Plain speaking is wise in any case, Lady Knight. Know, then: thy swords and spells-and all of ye, with them-are urgently needed in the coming defense of Shadowdale. I'm here to send ye where ye're most needed in that fight."

"The Zhentarim?" Sylune asked shortly. It was more statement than question.

As if her words had been some sort of cue, the world around them was suddenly a cold place of endlessly streaming white flames, and her companions stood frozen amid the conflagration. The last thing the Witch of Shadowdale heard was Elminster's disgusted cry: "Ah, no! Not again!" And then his tattered words were whirled away from her, and all that was left was the ceaseless roaring…

After what must have been a very long time, Sylune knew herself again. She was all that was left of the woman widely known as the Witch of Shadowdale…

She was Sylune. Still a ghost… and still in Faerun. Hanging in the heart of the roaring.

All around her, flames that did not burn streamed endlessly past her motionless friends and the crumbling stones of the manor. But she could move and think… though the cold white flames made her tremble uncontrollably as they roared through her.

Sylune found she could move, if she bent her will hard to the doing. Let us be doing, then.

With slow determination, she drifted nearer the Old Mage, sitting motionless on his bit of wall. His hands were uplifted and his lips open, wearing the disgusted frown of his realization that whatever it was had caught him again.

So they were in some sort of trap. A magical trap, though its flames-which didn't seem to harm anything-had withstood the wildness of magic stalking Faerun for some time; it seemed. Some of the wildflowers growing amid the stones had bloomed and withered since the magic had begun. The companions had been here for days, then. Sylune wished she could sigh. I've not been a ghost long enough to learn patience for waits that may well take years.

She looked at the Old Mage's pipe, still floating beside his head where he'd left it, and saw that the flames bent around it.

They seemed to be avoiding it! Sylune stared at the spell-flames narrowly for a time; they boiled up out of nowhere on one side of the ruins, arced over her frozen companions, and then returned in an endless rush to nowhere on the far side of the broken walls. It was some sort of stasis field that avoided Elminster's small, curved, ever-smoking pipe.

So, the pipe yet radiated its own magic-and floated on its own, not frozen by the flames. She frowned. He'd once been able to teleport with it, hadn't he?

She drifted nearer, noticing faint wisps of smoke curling up out of the pipe bowl ever so slowly and rising to mingle with the onrushing flames.

She eyed it. This was probably going to hurt.

Mystra, if any part of you is still around to hear, she thought firmly, aid me now. And with the resolve still strong in her, she surged forward, thinning a part of her essence into the pipe.

Magics swirled and tore at her, defenses against tampering that bore Elminster's trademark spell-upon-spell interlacing. Gods, the pain!

Whirling around in a silent scream, Sylune found that the pipe could teleport vapor in and away, in an endless cycle-giving her an escape whenever she wished-and could also transport anyone who touched it and willed it, thus, from place to place.

Elminster sat frozen, but perhaps she could guide the pipe to him… yes! That very movement was a direction he'd given the pipe several times recently, so how to do it was displayed right in front of her!

Sylune swirled around the pipe and moved it down toward the Old Mage's mouth. The flames bent away from her, and grim satisfaction rose within her as she made the slow, drifting journey. This was going to work!

At last the pipe touched the Old Mage's lips, but he sat open-mouthed, unmoving, and she could feel no quickening of will within him, only the endless roaring. The magic was binding his wits, then. Of course it must be, or he'd have used spellfire to drink it down to nothingness long ago. Sylune wanted to sigh again.

Perhaps she could force a teleport by-oh, gods, this might well be the last thing she ever did, the last moment she knew.

Farewell, Faerun, Sylune thought, and flowed back into the pipe. She must will it to take the Old Mage away from here, to the meadow. The meadow where Sharantyr had danced about with a glowing sword in the depths of the night-a lifetime ago, it seemed-in the meadow just over there.

And then white flames roared up between her ears and up her throat and the world exploded, whirling her away… Castle of Shadows, Shadowhome, Flamerule 15

"I have seen enough shadow weaving and clearing away of dead kin and rubble to last me many an eon," the gigantic horned worm declared in a voice that echoed in the far corners of the cavernous room, "and Shadowhome is rebuilt sufficiently to set my gorge at ease-for now."

With a rattle of huge chitin plates, he glided into the dim, shadowed chamber, and there dwindled into a bald, long-tailed, gray-scaled humanoid. Othortyn of the Malaugrym eyed his minions, a pair of tentacled lesser kin who peered into the flickering, floating light of a scrying portal at the center of the chamber. Othortyn shifted his tail and asked irritably, "So how've you two been wasting your time?"

"Watching what befalls in the world of the humans," Inder said boldly, "as you commanded." His quiet companion, Hastrim, nodded but said nothing.

"And what have you found?" Othortyn asked, settling himself on a crumbling stone throne that was almost as old as he.

"The ambitious humans who dwell in Zhentil Keep, bolstered by their god-or one who claims to be Bane-have gone to war," Inder said in a voice swift and shrill with excitement. "They've sent four armies into adjacent lands, the largest by road into Shadowdale… where the Great Foe dwells."

"And what befell this force sent against Elminster?" Othortyn asked quietly.

"Some local human mage called down lightnings and cooked many in their armor… and then the Foe turned a few thousand into boulders while they were camped at a place called Voonlar. No doubt he planned to transform them all, but-"

Othortyn blanched. "Mass transformation? You dare to tell me that the Great Foe can turn whole armies into toads? I've not heard that sort of nonsense since I was a youngling and pranksome elders tried to scare me with wild tales of human wizards!"

Inder met his master's gaze steadily. "Didn't you believe those tales?" he asked quietly.

Othortyn glowered. "So, just how many spells, oh wise apprentice, do these wizards hurl around that I don't know about?" he asked, voice heavy with sarcasm. As he eyed the younger Malaugrym, his tail curled out to open a door that had been secret for long years. He took out a dusty bottle from the dark niche beyond.

Inder shrugged. "Several thousand, perhaps."

"So, with all this magic to hurl about, reshaping worlds," Othortyn snarled, the end of his tail rearing back and lengthening into a hollow stinger, "why did oh-so-mighty Elminster stop making his rocks before the whole host was done?"

Inder frowned as his master pierced the cork of the bottle and drank deeply. The apprentice said, "His spell-as would any mighty magic, we believe-created an area of wild magic… which is still spreading. A wizard would see such a thing as the greatest danger of all, and would do nothing to aid its spread-nor dare to risk himself in its vicinity."

"So the Great Foe did not confront his own foes directly," Hastrim added, "fearing for his skin."

"He turned instead to the other armies, where only lesser mages stood against him," Inder continued, "and-"

"Speak no more of the Foe," the old Shadowmaster said sharply. "What has become of our kin who reached Faerun?"

"Atari, Yinthrim, and Revered Elder Ahorga survived the battle with the three accursed humans who came here," Inder said in more sober tones, "and seem to be roaming Faerun in many shapes, learning its ways and uses."

"Others of our house have found their own, separate ways into Faerun," Hastrim added. "We have scryed Bralatar and Lorgyn, and seen one other, whom we believe to be Lunquar, get of Byatra…" His voice trailed away, and there was a little silence.

"Is that all?" Othortyn growled. "I thought Jaster had gathered a dozen or more eager younglings around him!"

"He did," Inder said quickly, "but when Starner came to you with word that the Great Foe was caught in the loop trap you cast at their gate, you told him to gather all kin with spells to spare and make haste to-"

"Blast all who defy me!" Othortyn roared, and lightning leapt from his eyes like two darting white flames, roaring across the chamber to swallow up Inder and the scrying portal with him.

Hastrim staggered back with a startled sob as his companion and their spell vanished into wisps of curling smoke.

"I did tell you, Inder, not to mention the Great Foe again," Othortyn said chidingly. Then he turned his head from the drifting smoke and said politely to Hastrim, "Please continue with the exposition of events that Inder so abruptly abandoned…"

Hastrim stared at him in stunned silence, face pale. Muscles rippled around his mouth as he fought for calm.

"Feel free to be as clever as you feel necessary," the old Shadowmaster said soothingly.

Hastrim looked at Othortyn, and then his gaze fell again to regard the greasy curls of smoke that had been Inder. He swallowed.

"Well," he said unhappily, "perhaps it would be best to begin when it was first noticed that three humans-bearing a magic sword-had somehow stepped from Faerun into the heart of Shadowhome… undetected."

"Good, good," the old, bald Shadowmaster said encouragingly, opening another bottle. "Would you like something to drink?"

"Er-" Hastrim began, and then added with sudden firmness, "Yes," and a long, snakelike tentacle put a dusty bottle in his hand.

Faerun, Daggerdale, Flamerule 15

"Easy, lass," a familiar voice rumbled as Sylune of Shadowdale slowly blinked her way back into awareness. " 'Twas well done, to be sure. Ye shattered a spell loop, a very nasty Malaugrym magic-and there were a dozen of them waiting with all the spells they could think of, for us to break out. It's probably best that Shar and the lads were stunned when ye hurled me elsewhere. It saved them from about forty mind-rending attacks, and left me free to use the sort of Art that was really necessary."

Elminster gestured down the hillside, and Sylune saw rainbow swirlings there, above torn earth and blasted stumps. The trees around the stream and the leaning bridge were no more… and no doubt the gate to the Shadowmasters' home plane was gone too.

"A wild magic area?" she whispered.

"I fear so," Elminster replied grimly, "but the gate is gone forever, and a score or so more Malaugrym with it."

Sylune shuddered and drifted up out of his hands. Except for the few stones where the Old Mage was sitting-well west of where he had been-the ruined manor was now a crater of mud and gravel.

She swirled back to face him. "How long has it been since we came back from the Castle of Shadows?"

"Nigh on a month," Elminster said quietly.

Sylune nodded grimly. "I thought so. Has Shadowdale fallen?"

Elminster gave her a twisted grin. "Not yet." He got up and trudged west, into the trees. "Come to the meadow."

Sylune drifted along beside him, suddenly reluctant to be alone. The old wizard had taken only a few paces before they emerged into a field of trodden grass where Belkram, Itharr, and Sharantyr sat, looking up with welcoming smiles.

"Thankee, and all that," Itharr said, his broad shoulders shifting as he smiled.

"All part of my orders," Sylune told him briskly, giving Elminster a meaningful look, "as enunciated by the tyrant mage here."

"Ah, yes," Belkram said. "I believe I know just how you feel."

"Yes," Sharantyr agreed crisply. "I think it's about time, Old Mage, that you told us what befell Faerun while we were all caught in this magic."

"You might have revived us sooner," Itharr added darkly.

Elminster looked at the burly ranger. "It took me days to repair and rebuild thy bodies, all three of ye. I had to use necromantic spells I haven't looked at in ages… and I do mean ages." He lifted an eyebrow. "Perhaps I didn't get thy head screwed on quite right."

"I-" Itharr began, but Belkram interrupted him.

"If that's so, sir-why do I feel weary, and in pain?"

"Aye!" Itharr agreed.

"The only way I could save ye at all," Elminster muttered, "was to restore ye to exactly as ye were before the trap took us. As it was, I nearly lost ye more than once-ye in particular, Belkram, five times! The gods know I've grown used to never receiving the slightest thanks when I help folk, but betimes I think certain beneficiaries of my arts close enough to me-and perceptive enough, to-ah, ne'er mind…" He glared at the handsome Harper.

Belkram returned his look of anger.

"All right," Sharantyr said, looking from one to the other. "Enough. Tell us about the Realms, El."

Elminster's face grew calm as he nodded and said briskly, "Zhentilar armies march on Shadowdale from all sides-and the avatar of the god Bane rides with them, leading the main body himself."

"Faerun's flying dung," Sylune said crisply. The unaccustomed oath drew startled gazes her way. "Even if the dale can withstand such an assault," she said bitterly, "it'll be torn into smoking ruins in the doing." She turned to look south. "And after all these years, I'll see it destroyed after all."

"Be not so quick to surrender our home to the Black Gauntlet," Elminster said firmly. "I shall be there, fighting to the last… and I've sent Zhentilar troops running bootless away from Shadowdale more times than I care to recall."

"If three swords can make a difference in this, sir," Belkram said heavily, "things must be bad. Tell us in truth what's befallen thus far… where are the Zhents now?"

Elminster nodded. "Four armies are on the march," he said, all trace of testiness gone. "The one coming down through Voonlar is the largest, though my friend Perendra took care of a goodly number of the fools by calling up a lightning storm. Fancy marching through a downpour in full armor; some of these warriors must have cold iron between their ears, not just over them! Meanwhile, I dealt with a few thousand more."

"Oh? How do you 'deal with' a few thousand Zhent troops?" Belkram asked, shifting into a more comfortable slouch in the grass. The more he dealt with archmages, the more it was becoming obvious that their shared concept of 'haste' allowed time for thorough discussions of everything.

"Carefully, lad," Elminster told him predictably. "Carefully."

The two Harpers sighed together… and had many other opportunities to sigh as the wizard rambled on. At one point Belkram muttered despairingly, "Get on with it!" under his breath.

He'd spoken a trifle too loudly. The Old Mage's eyebrows rose, and Belkram gulped.

"Patience certainly seems to be the provision ye used up most in the shadows," El observed mildly as his pipe glided in to find its way to his lips. He blew a slow, spreading smoke ring and then banished his pipe again. "Teleportation is one thing that still seems reliable among all this chaos of Art, so I spent the better part of the highsun hours yesterday transporting a dozen monsters-hydras, firedrakes, wyverns, behirs, death kisses, and the like-into the camp of the second, central force, north of the Flaming Tower."

Belkram chuckled, but Shar looked troubled. "What's to stop their using spells to drive those beasts before them, south into the heart of Shadowdale?"

"Me," the Old Mage told her impishly. "I took care of their mages first." He watched another smoke ring drift away on the wind and added, "Some of the beasts I sent into their midst were rather hungry, too."

"Can't Bane teleport just as easily as you can?" Itharr asked quietly.

Elminster nodded his approval at such tactical thought. "Of course. He'll have to come to the aid of his Central Blade or lose the lot of them… but the doing will keep him occupied for a time, too busy to work other mischief." He ran fingers through his beard. "The same consideration governed my treatment of the smallest force. Fzoul's leading four hundred or so mounted men-at-arms past us right now, through Daggerdale."

"Four hundred Zhentilar?" Belkram asked, holding up his daggers. "You want us to take down four hundred warriors? Shouldn't we get horses to ride on, just to make it a little fairer?"

Shar and Itharr snorted together. Sylune reclined gracefully on thin air, as if sprawled on a couch, and awaited Elminster's answer.

The Old Mage shook his head and asked softly, "Bold today, aren't we, friend Harper?"

Lesser men might have quailed before that tone, but Belkram merely shrugged, smiled, and waved at Elminster to continue.

Inclining his head in a mock bow of thanks, Elminster said, "That task is not yours." He lifted his lips in a mirthless grin. "I suspect a few orcs can do it better."

"A few orcs?" Sharantyr roared, her voice rising from deep and ragged tones, for all the world as if she were a burly male and not a lithe lady. "Elminster!" That last squeaked word of reproach sounded more like a lady's pique, and goaded Sylune into peals of tinkling laughter.

"Yestereve," Elminster told them in tones of injured innocence, "I approached several orc bands foraging in Daggerdale, and undertook to alert them that a well-provisioned Zhent force was entering the territory. That should make things a little warmer for Fzoul than he anticipated, and rob him of most opportunities to reach Shadowdale ahead of the other Zhent forces, hole up in the woods around Grimstead, and amuse himself by using his spells to harass the good folk of the dale."

"All right, El. You've been both clever and busy," Sylune reassured him, her voice soothing. Her next words, however, came out as sharp as the crack of a whip: "But so have we. My friends here grow stiff and tired and hungry. Armies march on Shadowdale from all sides, you said, and have told us of three, so what attack is coming from the south-and what is our duty in dealing with it?"

Elminster bowed his head again to hide a grin, cleared his throat in apparent embarrassment, and said, "I need ye four to deal with the fourth Zhent attack: the Sword of the South. It's a band of Sembian mercenaries and the covert Zhentarim agents who hired them. They've been assembling in Battledale for a month and more, drawn from all over Sembia and the eastern dales."

"They're going to try to march through the Elven Court woods?" Shar asked, one shapely eyebrow raised. "That's not a wise tactic for any armed band."

The Old Mage shook his head. "Their orders are to take and subdue Mistledale, and without pause press on up the Mistle Trail, to drive into Shadowdale from the south." He smiled gently. "You will stop them."

"I thought we were going to defend Shadowdale," Belkram said. "You may be able to dance around the Realms with a thought and a wiggle of your hips, but we have to walk… and I don't feel like running back and forth between two dales, sword in hand, through gods know how many Zhent blackhelms!"

Elminster held up a quelling hand. "I said I'd come to send ye where ye are most needed. Right now Shadowdale is crowded with frightened troops bustling about. I don't want them to relax because the heroes have come to town, and I don't want them in thy way, or ye in theirs. Mistledale is thy battlefield. The defense of Mistledale will be the southern defense of Shadowdale."

"How strong is this fourth host?" Belkram asked suspiciously.

Elminster shrugged. "About seven thousand, when last I counted."

"Seven thousand!" Itharr burst out as jaws dropped all round.

Shar shook her head. "You love us, don't you?" she murmured.

El chuckled. "Oh, ye'll have help. All of Shar's battle companions, the Knights of Myth Drannor, are in Mistledale already, mustering the Riders."

"There are only thirty Riders, perhaps six more if the graybeards who can still walk and breathe at the same time come out of retirement, and another dozen if their sword apprentices ride with them, too," Sylune said softly, "and barely a dozen Knights, even if all who've retired or strayed off come running to Mistledale."

El frowned. "And ye, of course… isn't that battle might enough?"

"Ah, Old Mage," Sylune said gently, "you may not have noticed, being old and terribly important and even busier than usual… but I'm not… er, the woman I used to be."

El chuckled. "I've been spreading stories of the Ghost Witch of Shadowdale these last few months… I think ye'll find, on a battlefield, that ye're rather more than ye used to be."

Sylune glared at him, her eyes two white flames dancing in the air. "And just what does that mean?"

"I've had half Twilight Hall modifying their best battle spells since the seasons turned," the old wizard told her. "If it all works, they can cast them simultaneously through ye, so a dozen or more battle magics-which ye can aim-lash out from ye at once."

"And the catch?"

"The power involved will burn ye out from within, leaving thy body only ashes… killing ye."

"El, I don't have-oh. I see. As I'm dead already, I should survive the destruction of whatever body you're going to give me."

El nodded. "It's waiting for ye in Mistledale," he said quietly. "Not the last one I'll give ye if-gods willing-I survive this Time of Troubles."

Tears welled up in her phantom eyes, and he added quickly, "Ye'd best get down there speedily. Torm's been dressing the body-ye-in all sorts of black leather, red evening lace, and fishnet gauze apparel, most evenings, and seating ye in the porch window of the Six Shields to entertain the locals."

"Oh he has, has he?" Ghostly eyes flashed. "I think I'll just slip into this body of mine at an opportune moment and give him the fright of his life!"

Shar grinned broadly. "May I watch?"

"No, that's 'may we watch?'" Belkram corrected her.

"Of course," Sylune told them grandly. "This Six Shields place is unfamiliar to me, though…"

"A cheap rooming house east of Lhuin's tannery," El told her in the manner of a pompous guide, "opened recently to house field workers, drovers, and others too cheap to stay at the Hart or the Arms."

Shar and the Witch of Shadowdale sniffed in unison. "It sounds like the sort of place where Torm would stay, tight-pockets that he is."

"Much as I'd like to watch ye roast Torm on a spit, just to see him wriggle for once, there is some haste," the Old Mage added. "By sundown, the scouts of the Sword of the South may well reach Galath's Roost."

"How can we possibly reach Mistledale in time, then?" Itharr asked-unwisely, as it turned out.

Sharantyr gave him a weary look. "He's going to mass teleport us," she said grimly. "It always makes me feel sick for hours afterward." She sighed and put one arm across her bosom and the other over her stomach, bracing herself. "Get on with it, then."

"Wait," Belkram said, brow wrinkling. "We haven't even-"

The last, fading thing the Harper saw as he struggled to finish his sentence was Elminster's cheery grin. Around him the world flashed and changed-into blue, swirling misty emptiness. Next came a sense of falling, for just one wrenching moment, and then they were standing on a bare board floor in a loft lit by two barrel-sized lamps that hung down on dusty chains from the roof beam. Frowning men in armor stood staring down at large maps whose corners were held down by daggers and gauntlets-or looking up at the newcomers in startled consternation, hands going to hilts.

Belkram and Itharr stood a little behind Sharantyr. Right in front of her was a tall, broad-shouldered and hard-faced man whose steely eyes raked both Harpers for a moment before he took a catlike step forward and crushed her into an embrace.

"Shar, by the grace of all the gods!"

The lady ranger's shoulders shook for a moment as she clung to him, her drawn sword forgotten, and she knew tears would be bright on her face when she turned to introduce them. Florin Falconhand did not give her the chance.

"I've missed you, little one," he growled, and as Shar reached up to tousle his unruly hair, he added, "but you've found companions on the trail, I see. Who are these two gentlemen you've brought?"

Eyeing the drawn blades crowding in around them, Belkram deemed the moment right. He bent his knee, parted the leathers at his throat to show his silver harp pin, and said, "Belkram and Itharr of the Harpers to fight alongside you, Lord Florin. Elminster sent us."

A good-natured grin split the famous ranger's face, and he reached one long arm around Sharantyr to clasp their forearms. "Be welcome! We have need of swords, good men to wield them… and adventurers brave enough to stand up to Elminster, too!"

"Pardon, Lord," Itharr said smoothly, "but shouldn't that be 'foolish enough'?"

There were chuckles from all around the room, and other men thrust forward their hands in welcome. They were accepted.

Shar tossed her silver blade under the table and put her freed hand on Florin's cheek to guide him down into a kiss. As their lips touched, she was overheard to be murmuring, "Well, here we go again…"