"They are not lost to you," Anest replied with a sad smile. "They are here, even as you see them."

Palindor frowned at what he saw, or could not see, in them. "You have won some sort of victory, it would seem, unless my eyes are mistaken. But there is something else . . ."

Lily's acute anguish was poignantly visible, though only in her eyes. "We have preserved the life of the Marsh for but a little while. The evil there has been banished. But its soul . . .

"The Earth Mother . . . she is slain. My sisters are gone . . . taken by the Enemy. There is no more faerie magic. If it lives yet, somewhere within the deeps of the earth, I cannot tell."

Grol was too dismayed for words. He hung his head and wept.

"What will you do?" asked Palindor, though his throat ached with grief.

Lily straightened her back, squared her small shoulders, and said through her pain, "We will fight."




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