The Seeking:(Prologue)

Through corridors of wood and bark he walked... and the weeds that were slowly choking the paths of the Forest of the Green Silences drew back and cleared the way. Yarrowvathallion, Second Son of the House of the Silver Rose, Prince of the Sithryn, had come home. To what was left of it at least, he thought. If he walked far enough into the woods he would eventually come to where the City had stood, but he could not stand looking at the vast empty plain where towers had once touched the sky. There was nothing left, nothing but flowers brought from other planes and then left to go to seed when the City had been moved on to yet another. No, what Yarrow wanted to see was here... in the Silences.

A few more minutes brought him to a clearing where white marble framed the Fountain of Mezumiiru, Mistress of the Moon. Here was where the women of the Clan birthed their babes, and here was where the doom of the Clan had been born. Rowan's son, Ian Blackthorn. Yarrow looked down into the pool, then passed his hands lightly over the surface of the water and looked at the picture his lightly whispered cantrip summoned: Ian and his new wife asleep. His heart cried out for vengeance. How could the half human bastard know such happiness, after all he had done to his own elven kin? He should be mourning his lost wife and the missing daughters. Instead, against all odds he'd found a new love in the green-eyed Irish lady he'd married.

This would not do... this would not do at all... Rowan was dead... the sister who had been his other half, and Sorian, her first born full Sithryn son, both dead by Ian's doing. It mattered not that Ian's human father had engineered the act. Besides, Voran Blackthorn had been killed in his own plot. Only the son remained for Yarrow to take his vengeance. And he had done just that, planting enough stories to tempt Ian's first wife further and further away from Camelot, until the "storm" he called up had taken her and the older girl away. The woman had left the two infants behind in a village, and when he'd finally seen them, Yarrow knew he could not kill them. They carried even more elven blood than their father Ian, and he could almost see a resemblance to Rowan in her granddaughters. So he had sent the twins away, to be brought up for a life far away from the courts of Camelot. And a subtle spell had already begun to cause Ian to be tormented with thoughts and doubts.

But it was not enough.

He looked down. There in the grass, could still be seen the place where Ian had lain after drinking from the fountain. Months had passed in Camelot, but in the Green Silences it was but minutes. Yarrow snarled. "Heart's Ease! You destroy your clan, and then use the lore of your people to ease you own suffering. No more!" He took out a dagger, and slashing his left palm, let the blood drip slowly down into the fountain. "T`si im T`si! Blood for blood, I swear this on my clan's honor." The blood splashed onto the vision in the water and a black stain began to form. "No more hearts ease for you Ian, this I promise you... "

Far away, in Camelot, Ian Blackthorn sat up in bed, and in his mind he saw a black ship sailing over a moonlit sea.