"All right, now, we’ve got them surrounded!" one of the soldiers cried out. "Somebody take word back to camp that we’ve caught a couple of spies!"

A messenger did as he was commanded, and the soldiers began to close in on their captives--two teenagers that they had found camping on their territory. Now the spies stood in the middle of a circle of swords aimed at them, terrified and helpless, too frightened to speak or move.

"Who are you working for?" one of the soldiers demanded. "Speak up, and you just might get out of here with your life!"

"We aren’t spies," one of the captives stuttered, a tall young man with shoulder-length dark blue hair. "P…please, let us go…"

"Don’t think you can lie to us," a soldier said. "What other reason would you have to be on the private property of the Queen of Shadows?"

Another soldier snickered. "Unless you were bringing your girlfriend here to—" He was cut off, then cried out as if he’d received a blow to the stomach.

"It’s not like that at all!" the other captive shouted indignantly. She was rather short, with blond hair only a bit longer than her companion’s. "We are travelers who come from far to the south. We were only passing through on our way to Thaliron."

"Everyone knows that this land belongs to the Queen, now," a soldier replied. "And punching a soldier of the Queen, either physically or magically, is a punishable offense!" He had the tip of his sword at her throat now, making her afraid to swallow. She breathed a sigh of relief when he lowered it.

"You’re a pretty thing, aren’t you?" he said, and the girl broiled with anger.

"Don’t touch me!" she shouted.

Yet another soldier lowered her sword, regarding the two of them skeptically. "If you are spies, you sure are lousy ones."

The messenger returned. "We’re supposed to bring ‘em back to the camp," he said. "For questioning and execution."

The girl gasped, but the man’s expression barely changed. He closed his eyes, his lips moving in a silent prayer.

"Don’t try anything," a soldier warned. "If you ran, you wouldn’t get far. The whole army knows where you are, and there’s no way you can stand against all of us."

"I know," he replied softly. They began the march towards camp.

"Kreis, what are we gonna do?" the girl hissed at him. Kreis shook his head.

"We’re innocent. What can they do to us?"

"It doesn’t matter how innocent we are, if they don’t agree!"

"You haven’t had any dreams about this, have you, Triana?"

"No-o, not specifically, but that doesn’t mean that everything’s going to be all right," Triana replied. "Don’t pretend you’re not scared."

"Of course I’m scared."

"Quiet!" They marched the rest of the way in silence.

*

The captives waited in silence, surrounded by hundreds of soldiers. Their wrists and ankles were bound as they waited for the inquisition.

They’ll be able to see right through us. I can feel it. Oh, God, I’m terrified. Kreis wanted to run, but he knew that even if he could untie himself, he wouldn’t get far. From looking at Triana’s face, he could tell she was feeling the same. How could we be so stupid? How could they catch us? The Queen of Shadows must be much stronger than we had guessed…

He heard shuffling, and looked up to see the mass of soldiers that surrounded him and Triana parting to allow a cloaked figure to pass through. They bowed before this person, and the captives looked at each other in horror. Could this really be—

She wore a hooded cloak of smoky gray that hid everything but her face. She was beautiful—in some ways, she looked much younger than Triana and Kreis had expected, but in other ways she looked very old. Three golden stripes cut into her cheeks from each side of her face, and her eyes were an intense violet.

Her deep-red lips curved up in a tiny smile as she looked down at Kreis and Triana. She surveyed them for a moment, and the captives felt the ropes that tied their hands and feet loosen and fall away.

"Stand," she commanded softly, and Kreis and Triana complied, quickly. The Queen of Shadows stepped towards them and lifted Triana’s right hand, examining her wrist and touching the golden silhouette of a crane that she found there. "I see. It was only a matter of time before you came to me." Her expression was unreadable as she dropped the girl’s hand.

"I know who you are. Your names are not important, although I suppose the crane would not send incompetents to perform the task which you have been assigned."

"We were only passing through on our way to Thaliron," Triana stuttered, and the Queen of Shadows shook her head.

"You need not continue to lie to me. I mean you no harm. I am certain you have news to carry back to the Abbey—this does not concern me. You may go."

Kreis took a deep breath, trying to suppress the intimidation that the Queen of Shadows seemed to radiate. "We want passage to Thaliron," he said, as strongly as he could manage. The Queen regarded him thoughtfully, her eyes lingering on the shape of his ears and the glint of gold on his left wrist.

"A man, half-human, who bears the mark of the crane? And on his left wrist, no less?" She lifted his hand to examine it, then ran her fingers over the small point of his ear. "Indeed. I should have recognized you sooner, Kreis Delamuir."

Kreis blinked, trying to hide his shock. How could she possibly have recognized him? He feared that his dark red eyes betrayed his confusion.

The Queen of Shadows paced, moving with a smooth grace Triana envied despite her terror. "I fear that you are too dangerous to travel my territory alone. Return to your Abbey. There, I will send you a guide who will take you to Thaliron. First, though, I wish for you to tell Faradine Marchaun that Aradinea Osareon sends her regards." She turned away, her cloak sweeping out behind her. "You are free to go."

Kreis half-expected to hear some protest to this turn of events—after all, he and Triana were known spies, and he thought that some of the soldiers might be upset about the captives getting away so easily. Instead, the Queen of Shadow’s words were met with complete silence, and not a single man or woman even grumbled, let alone moved to stop Kreis or Triana as they left the camp.

Because they are too terrified to question her authority, Kreis realized. He found that realization extremely frightening.

*

Faradine Marchaun sighed as she checked off the day on her calendar. Her pen marked the eighteenth anniversary of the day the Elorhans had been exiled. In some ways, it seemed as if it had been only yesterday that she had found herself in a strange new world, trying to rebuild the Abbey to which she had devoted her life on Earth. However, sometimes it felt as if she had been on Elorhe all her life, like Triana and Kreis.

The anniversary of the exile was a reminder that soon their birthday would be coming up as well—in less than a month, the children she had raised would be eighteen. Though they had been born on the same day in the same place, she could find no more reason for it than coincidence. Triana’s mother had died soon after giving her birth, while Kreis’s had left her son in Faradine’s care and never returned. Though not biologically related, they had grown up like brother and sister, with Faradine acting as their mother.

Normally, only girls grew up in the Abbey of the Crane, but it was impossible to throw Kreis out into an unstable and dangerous new world, so with the crane he remained. He had received the mark of the crane at the age of twelve, placed on his left wrist due only to the fact that he was left-handed. Being the only male in the abbey, he had always been popular, and the fact that he was good-looking certainly didn’t hurt. However, his ears betrayed his half-human heritage, which was impossible for Elorhans to ignore.

Triana had fit in well enough with the other girls of the Abbey, though they accused her of trying to keep Kreis all to herself. When she hit adolescence, however, she began to have dreams that would come true. Unable to control her prophetic gift, her visions were just as clouded as the memories of normal dreams and of little use, but the strangeness set her apart from the other girls.

The two had excelled in magic—especially Kreis, with his human blood—and worked well together, despite Triana’s unstable temperament, which had only recently begun to settle down. It had been difficult for Faradine to send them on such a dangerous mission, but her resources were extremely limited. If anyone could find out what was going on in the north, it would be Kreis and Triana...

*

"We got off much too easily," Triana muttered, once they were a safe distance away from the camp and certain they were not being followed.

"Let’s just be happy that we’re alive," Kreis replied. "Still, I can’t imagine what her motives are..."

"We don’t know much more about her than we did when we left," Triana sighed. "But at least we’ve seen her, now."

"She calls herself Aradinea Osareon, though we don’t know if that’s her real name or not," Kreis added. "And she’s got a bigger army than anyone would’ve guessed, and reaches farther south than we thought. I’d say just that information is more than enough to tell us we’re in trouble."

"But we still don’t know why!" Triana protested. "Like you said, we have no idea what her motives are. How much longer do you think it’ll take her to get to the Abbey?"

"Long enough for us to get suitable warning to Faradine. You know that she and the girls can hold out."

"Against the Queen of Shadows?" Triana shook her head. "And an army?"

"We don’t know that she’s going to attack," Kreis began, but Triana interrupted him.

"And we don’t know that she’s not, either! Our mission has been a failure. We know we’re in danger—so what? If we didn’t know that, we wouldn’t have gone on this mission! She says she’s going to send us a guide to Thaliron—how do we know this guide won’t just kill us?"

"If she wanted us dead, she had a whole army to do it. Obviously, she doesn’t want to kill us."

"Oh, just great! Or are you not thinking clearly? She’s got to have some reason to want us alive—some plot for us! We’re playing right into her hands!"

"Better that than dead!"

"Unless by our sacrifice we could’ve saved the Abbey! We could be walking into a trap!"

Kreis shook his head. "I really don’t think so, Triana," he said. "I don’t think she’s that concerned with us."

"If she’s not concerned with us, how did she know who you were?" Triana retorted. "Everyone recognizes the mark of the crane, but she knew what your name was!"

"It’s not a secret."

"But how would she figure it out if she hasn’t been watching us?"

"There’s only one half-human on Elorhe. News travels." Kreis sighed. "I don’t like it either, but we have to get to Thaliron, Triana. And it seems like this is the only chance we have."

"I hate it," Triana replied. "What does she want from us?"

"If we knew that, we wouldn’t be in so much trouble, would we?"

"No. We could be in much more than we realize."