There was a sort of glow down there, around her cheeks, as if her mouth was full of dancing blue moonlight that he'd be able to see when she lifted her head.

She did that, eyes very large and dark, and her mouth was briefly full of blue fire.

And Rod's hand tingled. The pain was gone. Gone with the cut and the blood. His fingers were bare, clean, and… whole.

She held them up for him to see better as he curled and flexed them in astonishment.

"Please aid us, Dark Lord," she murmured, the purr stronger and the sobbing sound almost gone. There was still pain in her face, but she seemed stronger, somehow.

She'd been strong enough to overbalance and pounce on him, that much was certain.

"Please. You are Falconfar's only hope, and my only hope, too."

Rod Everlar stared into those anxious, beautiful emerald eyes, and took a deep breath. He managed to sound fairly calm, he thought, as he asked, "Who are you? And what did you just do to me?"

"Lord Archwizard, I am Taeauna, Taeauna of the Aumrarr. I did nothing, 'twas your blood that healed me. And yourself, for you are of Falconfar as surely as I am."

Tay-awna. Taeauna of the Aumrarr, the winged women he'd thought up. Rod knew he was doing a lot of head shaking, but he just couldn't seem to stop finding reasons to do so. Falconfar?

The world he'd dreamed up. Or rather dreamed about, night after night, until the images had grown so vivid that he could recall them end-to-end upon awakening, and write them down.

Falconfar, that rolling land of vast forests and distant snow-tipped mountains where castles rose up from bare hilltops and warriors rode out to hunt stags. And magic worked. And monsters lurked.

Falconfar: a realm of wizards and dragons and the Aumrarr. Shaped by his imagination, his dreams. A place that wasn't real, couldn't be real, a world he'd copyrighted for God's sake, and written seven books about, and…