I didn't want all the way up at first. I couldn't move. My arms and legs felt
like they were made out of water. Not water from the Inner Sea or the Bay, cool
sapphire-blue... no, my lims felt more like the foamy scum washing up on the
shores of Spectre Island: they felt thick, painful, and useless. Fearing the
depth of the darkness held behind the lids of my eyes, I ventured to take a
look at the chamer surrounding me. Their motion gummy and heavy with sleep, my
eyeballs struggled against the sharp, even silver glow of the space above me. I
blinked only once, but when I opened my eyes the blurred image of something new,
a face peering down at me, had appeared.

"Don't strain yourself, Petre!" She giggled. The voice sounded familiar, but I
couldn't put my finger on it. Where had I heard it before? I closed my eyes,
and squeezed them shut to keep out the light. Two hands were massaging my arms,
coercing them to take shape and gain strength. Whenever a painful spot had been
soothed and strengthed, one of the hands would caress it, sending shivers
through my body. That was when I begin to feel the cool, milky smoothness of
her hands, like alabaster - the skin of a child. When I opened my eyes the face
was more clear. It was a young face, and too round for my tastes. To be sure,
its roundess had a completeness to it that was perfect, not of this world. Yet,
deep in my body I knew that my heart was at home with its unity and serenity.
Her lips were thin and pert, her cheeks as pure and beautiful as the petal of a
virgin flower. Shimmering black hair cascaded from around this wondrous face,
soft hair that tickled my skin and forced me to close my eyes once again. But
in that familiar darkness, two sparkling lights shined forth: bright, silver
spheres gazing longingly at something in the far recesses of my soul. Her lips
were upon my eyelids, her smooth fingers tickling me and tracing patterns on
the skin of my face and neck. Her fingertips danced in circles around my nose,
my ears, my eyes, my chin, and my lips.

"What are you doing?" I questioned her with a contented sigh. She stopped
touching me for a moment, adjusting herself over my ear to whisper her answer:

"I want to remember everything about you, Petre," she cooed, with a hint of
sadness that soon lost itself in the cheerful timbre of her maiden's voice.

I opened my eyes with a start and bolted upright. Reacting seemlessly, she rose
with me and managed to remain just a few inches from my face. Those spheres that
greeted me in the darkness were there in her face. My gaze was swallowed by
those eyes, drawn deep beneath the calm surface of their silvery pools of
light. By the time my mind had finally wrested itself free from their grasp,
the skin around those eyes had somehow become fuller. A plump hand rested
itself on my shoulder, and it shook me gently. Drawing back slightly, I finally
recognized the woman sitting next to me. The color of her hair now matched those
of her eyes, and it wrapped around itself in a coiling mass resembling the
boughs of the Moonhart Mother Tree.

"I need you to understand one thing," Mother Moon whispered, the infinite
sadness in these words now filling me with an indescribable melancholy, "you
must remember it in the dark times to come." I moved forward to embrace her,
cling to her like a newborn child. I didn't want to hear this. I wanted her to
tell me that her soft, silvery light would fill the world around me forever.
Dark times?

"But what do you mean Mother? There is no darkness, there is only you! Nothing
is the matter!" The strained hope in these words was clear to her, but I did
not understand enough to hear the false note in my own voice.

"Viravain..." she began. A solemnity siezed her features that forced me to
blurt out:

"Yes, Lady Viravain has been freed from Kethuru's grasp! Lady Estarra is
nursing Her as we speak... the Basin will be hearing the Summer Song again, any
moment now..."

"I need you to understand one thing, Petre." She gently placed the tip of one
of her fingers on my lips, silencing any future retort. With her other had she
drew me closer, enveloping me in the comfort and peace of her robes. I looked
buried my face in her shoulder and began to weep warm tears for the words that
she had not yet even begun to whisper:

"I will never forget you, my beautiful child... beautiful, yes, no one will
ever understand the beauty you carry within you. Those you call your brothers
and sisters will hate you for what you must do. You will forsake your home, and
to them it will be the same as if you have forsaken me. It is not my place to
force them to see that what you do, you do to maintain a balance that I desire
more than anything else. Cloaked in shadow, Mother Night will call you her own
and fill your soul with tainted darkness. I have seen it, Petre. This
corruption has grown within the hearts of many you hold dear. But I will keep
them, and hold them - no matter how terrible the crimes they are fated to
commit against me. You are young... it has only been a year since you left the
Portals of Fate. I nurture a hope that your youth and purity will preserve the
moonlight the Fates have woven into the innermost fabric of your self.
Please... do not forget me, for I will never forget you my... beautiful
child..."

The terrible sounds of her weeping filled my ears, and the tears on my face
mingled with the tears of another. Then, the bosom I clung to was sank and
withered, and my Mother's cries spilled forth in the wounded voice of a crone.
Wrinkled hands carressed the skin of my face, and I awoke with a gasp.

Pale blue Merian hands, cold to the touch, were pressing my head against my
mother's breast.

"Nothing is the matter, Petre! It's over... you've had another nightmare," she
giggled, but the happiness in her voice had even now begun to give way to a
flat monotone. Pulling back, I looked into the eyes of my mother. Where once
there was a spark of joy and vitality, inky black orbs peered back at me with
lifeless curiosity.

"Lady Viravain has made a full recovery! The Summer Song has returned to the
Gloriana in the south, and Brother Raven has risen... Petre, Our Lady has
called us to form the Night Coven and find a way to return the fae to the
Gloriana."

"But mom, there is no more Gloriana, and there is no more Crow! Lady Viravain
didn't complete Her restoration of our forest, and Brother Raven has been
twisted by the Taint into a malignant, undead Crow. The Glomdoring is all there
is..."

"Yes, Brother Raven is waiting for us in the Gloriana. We must hurry to meet
him!" The dead orbs of her eyes stared past me, and I knew that she would no
longer listen to the reason in my words. Would I too be touched by Lady
Viravain and follow my mother into madness and the Night? Would Mother Moon
keep me and preserve me, as she had promised. Or had my dream been woven by a
student of Ladantine, designed to trap me and steal my soul away to the Plane
of Nil? I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and gave Gwynevere, my mother, a
hand by which to draw me forward and out of the Serenwilde. But from within the
growing darkness that writhed beneath my eyelids, two shining spheres of silver
shined forth - forever.