PROLOGUE :
The Successor-Child

Ten months after the Liberation of Destriel
Iseldia, Lepitua

            A crimson barge with no sails, and a series of three steaming smokestacks drifted across the icy waters toward a dock, dusted with frost.  The sky was a sickly white, overcast and tainted with the yellowy pitch-infused smoke of a small town on the shore.  A woman, carrying an infant wrapped in blue and grey blankets and a crimson silk sash with a pattern of many lines in almost a maze-form embroidered upon it in silk.  The child's dark blue eyes were attentive and aware, carefully observing the scene beyond the guard-rails.  A team of men in charcoal overalls with varying patterns of black dots tattooed above their left temples; stood alongside the mother and child, hoisting ropes to the docking poles, securing the Cirethian barge in its place.  They slid a steel cage gate open, and operated a chain-pulley, extending a rolling steel mesh gangway onto the pier, with iron chains to each side to assist the balance of those who crossed.

            A man wearing a black garrison with a single crimson band, dressed in a black and brown uniform bowed lowly before the woman.

            "This gesture is a waste of your energy, Captain.  I am Isis no more, only Meilana now."

            "I will forever mourn your departure milady," the man said.  "None shall ever equal your grace and compassion, even if the Order of the Divine Helix were to fall."

            "I don't have any idea who you are talking about.  It was not me," Meilana sighed, as the welling tears in her eyes began to escape down her weathered cheeks.  "My fall was well deserved.  I betrayed us twice.  Even now, with the delivery of this child to the Elves, I betray us again."

            "Say no more.  Your new friends are here," the captain cut her off as a mounted officer in the darkened blue and silver-trimmed uniform of the High Navy of Tarligean approached on the pier.  "I need to get back on course before my disabled GPS attracts suspicion."

            "Of course," she nodded as she turned away, passing down the gangway.  The wind cut into her, chilling the blood beneath the skin.  The sky's pallid cast reflected the barren land before her.  She shook her head ruefully as she stepped onto the creaky, aged hardwood pier.  She sniffled, but couldn't catch the salty odor of this place, having picked up some sort of cold.  She turned back to the ugly crimson painted steel hulk, and watched the captain turn away as the mounted Taergeni officer approached.

            "Stranger, identify yourself," he addressed the woman in Cirethian.  She turned and faced him.  "These are strange dealings, seeing a Cirethian Merchant Corps freightersail into our harbor under a flag of peace only to drop off a single woman and child?

            "I am Meilana Adasrache-Nashanti, of the Cirethian Pharaonic House Tu'vel and widow of the late Thoth Asan of Cireth," she returned in perfectly cadenced formal High Taergeni.  "I seek the asylum of the High Kingdom of Tarligean.  I have come at the request of the Majestrix Rayelle Andaya T'Ras.  Am I correct in my understanding that she is a figure of some importance and renown?"

            The officer's eyes widened at the mention of her name.

            "Then in the name of our Kestiel, I shall immediately grant your request for amnesty," the elf complied.

            A vague, yet hollow and metallic voice whispered unmistakably in the escalating winds.  "Don't waste your time with any of the paperwork, Lieutenant Lediere, I'm almost with you now."

            "Every time her name comes up," Lediere thought to himself, as he momentarily questioned the voice in the wind.

            "Pleased to meet you, Lieutenant Lediere," Meilana said coyly, confirming the reality of the voice in the wind.

            A dull splash, followed by some very loud and angry screams in the waters beside the pier them broke their awkward meeting.

            "Arrrgh!" Rayelle shrieked from below them.  "By the Nine Cursed Gods of Chaos, why oh why did I have to slide back in into water!  Perhaps my trajectory was a little low--"

            "Milady, let me get a rope," Lediere offered, as he turned his horse away.

            Rayelle closed her eyes and swam beneath the docks to the surface.  "Don't bother, Lieutenant."  With a telekinetic upward thrust, she propelled out of the water quickly, and stretched comfortably into the air as a flame aura dried her off.  With some casual telekinesis, she floated back down to the dock.  Her ivory leather-like tipped boots gently touched the ground.  "I abhor Lepitua.  Lady Adasrache, would it have been that much of an inconvenience to sail to Destriel instead?"

            "You know full well that every spy with a perch atop the Destriel Bulwark would have seen us coming for miles," Meilana snapped.  "This is safer."

            "You are correct Lady Adasrache," Rayelle conceded.  "And the poor landing was nobody's fault but my own.  To my credit, this particular path of mine is known to nobody but I.  Some adjustments still need to be made..."

            "The successor-child," Meilana interrupted her digression.

            "It's always business with your kind," Rayelle returned.  "Cirethian nobility, I mean, not humans in general.  I will refrain from using some of the more common words for your people."

            "I have fulfilled my end of the agreement.  This successor-child is yours," Meilana sighed sourly.  "You must lead me to D'antarra where I can be assured safety from the..."

            "I believe the correct term for what you speak of is Zhil'dvani.  And should your application be accepted by the Violet Court, your life shall be extended.  My recommendation will insure that your plea will not be ignored," Rayelle promised.

            Meilana held the child tightly, and closed her eyes as the tears flowed without restraint.  Grimacing, she passed the child to Rayelle, who detachedly observed the infant's face.

            "You always start out the same way," Rayelle said to the infant in High Cirethian.  "I'm going to make sure you end rightly this time.  Perhaps you will do good things instead."