Télsarràs did not leave for several minutes as Rhoethella slept. Her long, nude figure sconced between two pillows with her head on another.

He found the discarded tray of cheeses and aromatic seasoned breads crusted to crackers. One bottle of sweet white wine remained untouched.

They feasted together before drifting to sleep. He was still famished. He watched her as if he were keeping a vigil. When her chest lifted, the stitches on her breast peeled and stretched. They held up well, and the tissue healed in full.

Her tiny round chin, so contrasted with her long nose and face, tucked into her chest. What did she dream? They say elves drifted into Eversolstice in their sleep. It rejuvenated their minds, keeping them mentally sharp for the near thousand years expected of a Haute elf of pure lineage.

He finished off the bread and cheese with two full cups from a glass of white wine. Dressed in his trousers and undershirt, he gathered his armor and effects in a second wicker basket back to his chambers where he dropped into his bed and slept for another twelve hours.

A hard-knock pounded at his door. It must have been going on for some time, before his conscious mind was aware enough to register it. Télsaràs slipped a dagger under the back side of his belt. He did not open doors not knowing who was on the other side without a weapon.

"Give me a moment," he yelled just before pulling open the door.

Seneschal Vohré stood at the door. His face was hard and purposeful.

"How long have you been standing there?"

"I just arrived. However, I sent my errand boy a half an hour ago. He came back to me convinced you were dead given you did not respond to the ruckus he made.

"I could even hear his pounding from three stories down. I merely assumed you were exhausted from your long trek, Sieur. I would not have bothered you, or allowed anyone else to do so this day if the Queen did not request your presence."

"Aie, my thanks, sir."

"I will inform her majesty you will attend her shortly. Please meet in her Day Chamber."

The seneschal bowed and then turned to leave.

Télsaràs entered the atrium of the Queen's Day Chamber. Several servants were gathered by a tub that had been placed near the western wall of the chambers. He noticed all eight servants were women. Four of the large stoneware vases used the previous day to carry hot water stood in front of the servants.

Rhoethella approached him. Her gaze was warm and knowing.

"Now that you are here, First Warden, we can begin."

She motioned for a servant on the far side of the chamber. It was Lizzi. In her lap was the brass metal box he had secured from Dreíz.

The girl rose up and brought it to the Queen. Rhoethella, for her part, removed the elixir vial from its felt bed. Its very presence caused fear to tumble down into the pit of the Knight's stomach.

Rhoethella grasped his shoulder hard.

"No matter what you see. No matter what occurs, you must be by my side. By my side, Sieur."

"I'm going nowhere, my Queen."

She leaned over to his ear to whisper.

"You will see things no man should have to witness in his wife, his mate, his lover. It will likely haunt you to the end of your days. Perhaps, your soul even, 'til Day Final."

"What is all of this about?"

"You're aware of who my mother is," she said. Her chin askant as her bottom row of teeth gnarled in her jaw.

"How could I not be? She entered the palace of the Sunwelder and froze it over solid just as a warning. But I never thought ill of you by that bloodline."

"She betrayed all mer kind," Rhoethella stated flatly. "She aligned with the Abyss, and lead ice devils, frost giants, Foeren yetis, all manner of goblin kind to seize an Elven City. All for the amusement of a demon lord who gave her a vial very much like this one, made of the same substance you retrieved from Gros Skerd.

"Unfortunately, I am in such a dire turn, I will quaff down this vial just as my mother did ninety odd years ago. I have very few of her natural talents. Though many already believe me to be a great witch, I am almost as mundane as my human father.

"What I need to do to survive this time of tumult is to tether myself to something of great power. I consulted with my astrologer many years ago. I am of the water firmament in the distance of constellation. I am of the moon in the near of planetary rise, I am of the season of change in the near of the Earth. In the confluence of the three, I will find my eventual salvation, or I shall stumble along until I see to my own damnation."

"You must understand," she said, and she raised the vial to the side of her eyes. "This is indeed a thing of pure evil. A rarefied substance from the times the elder gods consumed the souls of men and mer to perpetuate their own existence.

"This very vial was created over ten thousand years ago, and it's formula has been lost in that far gone eon. I hope you appreciate my desperation in doing this, Sieur Télsaràs.

"What happens, you wonder, when I quaff the substance? For forty-eight hours no matter what happens to my body, I cannot die. You could cleave me in two halves with that great bastard of yours and the flesh, bone and viscera will find one another in reunion. I need you to stay steadfast beside me. No matter what you see, do not stop until the forty and sixth hour is complete and my Lizzi will assist you at that point."

"Your Majesty," Sieur Télsarràs said, as he kneeled. "I Accept. If there is no more delay, then let us by all means proceed."

Rhoethella nodded. Lizzi commanded the servant girls in a highly accented Suüd. The girl readied two servants beside each vase.

Rhoethella pulled off her terry cloth robe. She stood nude as she quaffed the elixir. She coughed, her eyes grew wide. She walked for three paces and doubled over. Rhoethella's neck jerked wildly, but her hand waved off any attempt to help her.

She rose back up, arched her delicate elven neck and gulped several times, keeping the substance down. Now ready, she walked to the tub, entered and laid herself down. She closed her eyes for five long minutes.

"I can feel it now, coursing through me, pumping red-hot through my veins." Rhoethella blurted with an oddly giddy lilt in her voice. "Lizzi. It is time."

Lizzi gave an order. The servant girls lifted the great vases over their heads. They poured thousands of silk worms on the Queen's body. Rhoethella's screams shattered the air.

The servant girls dropped their vases and scattered.

"Help her! Help her!" One girl screamed. "Oh, ye gods. What have we done!"

"Keep back," Rhoethella yelled. Her voice nearly garbled. "All of you, keep back. Cover your eyes."

Télsarràs was stunned for the first moment. He was the only one in the day chamber who knew not what was going to occur. He stepped forward. Rhoethella was already a bloody mess. Skin stripped entirely along her jawline where muscle tendons dripped off of the bone. He watched as her tongue was flayed by the silkworms in their feasting.

Lizzi called out to the crying and whimpering servant girls.

"All of you to your chambers, now! You already know not to speak a word of what you have witnessed."

Télsarràs could only watch in helpless disarray as the silkworms devoured his Queen. They crawled in cascade inside her stomach lining causing the splatter of gastric juices.

Little remained of the tummy he had nuzzled just the previous night. Where he had licked the salt and succulent flesh, the worm's incisors mercilessly ripped into ribbons. They cut deep into her intestines. The gas puffed out in a sudden loud whoosh, overwhelming him.

He doubled over and vomited.

"Step back, Sieur," Lizzi said in a commanding voice. "You have seen enough."

Her hand pressed against his shoulder. He was reluctant to follow. Rhoethella's skull was bare of flesh and caught in a tight rigor mortis smile. If she was wrong about the elixir she would be dead forever.

"It is not necessary for your vigil to watch this horror," Lizzi appealed. "Queen Rhoethella needs you to be of sound mind and good judgment after this deed is done."

He turned his head up to the servant girl.

"Did she instruct you to watch over me, Lizzi?"

"In fact, she did, Sieur. Don't do this to yourself, Winter Knight."

The girl placed her hand in his and she led him to a set of chairs and tables fifteen yards away.

"Are they calling me by that moniker even here?"

"The girl you brought back, the fine archer. She even sings a tune about it," Lizzi said as she sat.

"Branduanne teased me with the ditty on our way back to Castle Barso. Now that it is in song it will inevitably spread throughout the entire Suüd"

After he settled down, Lizzi brought a bottle of blushbort to which they shared as they conversed. It was a good choice from the servant-girl as it did much to calm his frayed nerves.

They conversed over the first two hours of the vigil. She told stories of the upper Midvries where most of her family originally hailed a generation previously to keep him distracted from worry.

When they finished off the bottle, Lizzi looked him over, and satisfied with her assessment, she stood up. She flattened her dress with her arms pressed to the sides, and she smoothed two coils of Nincian bronze out of her otherwise blonde hair.

"By your leave, Sieur. I need a little additional relief for my own nerves. Somniferum curings I could use at this moment. I'll return in eight hours, and have one of my attendants check on you every hour."

"Indeed. I thank you," Télsarràs said. "Your presence brings me great comfort, but it would be cruel of me to demand it. You don't have to worry yourself, my lady. You have brought me back from the edge of the Abyss."

She nodded with a smile and turned to go.

"One last thing, Lizzi, the ardant, Abicore. If he is still on the Isle, staying close by, send for him. Have your girls bring two more bottles of the bort. After which, you are free for the evening. And, Lizzi, once more, thank you, my maiselle."

Abicore arrived an hour later. He had his two brothers haul a pony keg between them.

"A doppelbock from a personal brew," he announced proudly.

Télsarràs shook his head. "Not an honest Czerraza of a proper Suüd vintage, Padré?"

"My mother hailed from the Northern Isles. Give it a go. Let it roll on your tongue. The pleasure is infinite if your tongue is capable of perceiving it."

Télsarràs found three more glasses for his company to drink. Lizzi thought ahead and supplied trays stacked with cheeses, well crusted seasoned bread, olives, pimentos and cured ham.

From his robes, Abicore brought out a set of three chance bones. Télsarràs laughed at the sight of it.

"The Lord of Days does not restrict gambling," he asked.

"Not by any doctrine to which I am aware," answered the ardant.

"I've no coin on me at the moment, and I can't leave this chamber to retrieve it either."

Abicore shrugged with a toss of his thumb in the direction of another ardant.

"Brother Ficte is our banker. He'll lend you the difference."

Brother Ficte smiled as he removed a belt fitted to hold coin from inside his robe. It was lined with newly minted silver. A heavy set man with rose red cheeks he was; he had been eyeing the remaining bottle of blushbort since the ardants arrived.

"Say, I spot you thirty coins for now," Ficte asked.

Brother Abicore grabbed Télssaràs's hand and placed the three chance bones in them.

"You give it a go first, Sieur."

Brother Sarsmon overturned a small white wood table for a make-do backboard.

Télssaràs bent low and let loose the chance bones. They hit the backboard. All three landed on Settetoiles. Given there were two inscribed on each chance bone it was not an uncommon roll. Just an unfavorable one. Now he could not call high or low.

"Well then," Télsarràs frowned. "I'll place one coin on each."

"There is no shame in forfeiting," Albacore suggested. "And it will only cost you one coin."

The knight stared at the star symbols that looked so much like a demon's bind.

A whimper came from the tub. His heart jumped.

"One moment, Padre. Wait here."

He stepped over to the tub. The blood frenzy had slowed down considerably where he could see Rhoethella's skin stitching together in counter to the biting of the worms. He could see into her rib cage. Her heart exposed. It was being stitched and in doing so made strangely glossy. It struck him that the muscles sheened like silk in the silver color of the moon where the cavity of her ribcage remained unexposed to light.

"Sieur," Abicore called to him. "Lizzi informed us of the ritual being performed. We can keep good confidence. To the extent my brothers and I can assist, our knowledge is yours."

"Much appreciated, Padré."

He felt a hand brush up against his side. His heart jumped once more, further reassured Rhoethella was alive just as she proclaimed she would be. Télsarràs turned to look.

She appeared an animated corpse from a mummy centuries dead. Muscles reformed where the worms slowly devoured around, when they moved, flesh reformed like an ever-moving battlefield.

He looked to her face. It was more well constituted than the rest of her body. The silkworms tore into her jawline and forehead still, but oddly left the soft tissues alone.

Her lips were full and her eyes intact. The sheen brilliant like the gloss of lipstick, but of a more scarlet shade than before. She whimpered.

"The pain is beyond imagining. I won't scream. I won't scare off your alefellows. Play your chance bones, for now, my love. Télsarràs, I have to tell you this. I have thought of nothing else in my anguish. I love you with all the seasons of my heart. I love you from the base element of my soul."

He took her hand. The disturbed silkworms bit into his fingers. He bowed and kissed her knuckles. His lips were bitten as well. He grimaced but he did not cry out.

As he plucked the beast from his lips, she laughed with a guttural whisper. Her ears now devoid of hair around them waved almost merrily.

"I will love you 'til Day Final," He said. The Knight grinned as he stared at her lips. "The gloss that has been rendered upon your lips is something exceptional."

She licked them, flicking the silkworms off her tongue. Télsarràs bowed down and kissed her lips. When they parted, she smiled.

"Go to your game now, I'll be fine."

He went back to the game feeling strangely hopeful. Abercore noted the smile and smacked him on the back.

"Be prepared to lose your money, Padre."

"Not with that roll."

At the forty and sixth hour, Lizzi helped Télsarràs lift the pitcher of kerosene to douse the silkworms. With the silkworms dead, Rhoethella came out of the tub a little over an hour later fully mended. Télsarràs robed her and helped her to her bedroom chambers.

As he bathed her, he admired the silken sheen her body acquired. Once cleaned, no longer smelling of kerosene, and feeling strong, they returned to her bed for an evening of oral satiated love making. They drifted asleep and he woke to Rhoethella rubbing his chest and kissing his neck hours later.

"I approve of everything I've discovered of this unknown terrain that I now trespass," he murmured. "Except . . ."

"Yes," she said as if to dare him to continue.

"The scent of your sex is not so bold. I dearly miss it."

Rhoethella giggled and patted his chest.

"Like my hair, it will return."

He kissed her bald head.

"I have to ask, my dear Rhoethella, what has been accomplished?"

She raised up over him. Her nipples bearing in his ribs in pleasant rub. He pinched on one.

"What did it accomplish? My heart is now tethered to the moon. The light she sends, her moonbeams -" Rhoethella smiled. Her lips glistened brilliantly. She closed her eyes. "-they cast throughout the entire world and they come forth to me and speak to my intuitions. The whisperers in the night now have my ear. Whether they do so willingly or not. Soon the weakness of my enemies are laid bare to me."

"May I ask a question about your mother."

She smiled as she gazed down into his eyes. She placed a hand on his cheek.

"I have such a weakness for you soulfull blue-eyed men with your pretty blond locks. I will abide you anything. Ask away, lover. Ask away."

"Why did she need the fentifeledes?"

"Smart man. You have been paying attention. V'ia't'n'alla acquired it for one purpose, to cheat Death's Embrace."

"I be damned," Télsarràs whispered.

"V'ia't'n'alla be damned it is certain. Our fate, my lover and mate, is still in our hands to determine. Enough of that, I have something else in mind."

She turned to Télsarràs moving him to be on top of her and she stroked his hair.

"You have been repreived for a short while in your roll as the ranger of the Raven Forest as it has been clipped for a month at least. So you enjoy a stroll through the barren lands that no longer hide the Sabered Craig this eve in its stead."

She would reign for another eighteen years before Izdun with the full might of his army dethroned Queen Rhoethella, forcing her into exile amongst the Haute elves, a people weary of her birthright. As for the five dukes who formed council against her, a schoolyard ditty survived the centuries.

For the Duke of Andalas,

A hookah drawn breath his last

The Lord of Tara Kestrel

His ear pierced by morning rill

The great man of Sera Moche

Brought low in horse-drawn coach.

For the traitor of Galiege,

A fleshy feast for the besieged.

The ruler of Catavane,

That death no rhyme can explain.