And-here was the truly amazing thing-he'd seen that portal before. It was the one he'd led his sister and her companions to, three years ago, as they fled the collapsing city.

He rocked back on his heels, amazed at the coincidence.

Remembering.

The portal had been inside the Dangling Tower. Q'arlynd had led Halisstra and her companions to it, only to be confronted by the portal's protector, an iron golem. The golem had attacked the group, driving them back from the portal and seizing Q'arlynd. When a fissure opened in the floor beneath the golem, it had fallen through, dragging Q'arlynd along as well. Q'arlynd had been in the clutches of the golem, falling, as the stalactite that housed the Dangling Tower tore free of the cavern's ceiling and plunged down through the city, careening off the streets and buildings below. He'd escaped the golem by teleporting away in mid-fall.

He'd assumed that his sister and her companions had been killed when the tower smashed to pieces on the cavern floor far below. He hadn't even bothered to search for Halisstra's body, thinking it would lie buried deep in the rubble, but the survival of the portal presented a new possibility. Perhaps Halisstra had managed to escape through it as the tower was falling. If so, she might still be wherever it led. She, too, would have assumed her sibling was dead. The last she'd seen of Q'arlynd he was in the grip of a golem dragging him to a certain-death fall. She likely would have heard of the city's complete destruction-which would explain why, if she was still alive, she hadn't returned to Ched Nasad.

If Halisstra was alive and Q'arlynd could locate her, he might be able to improve his lot. Instead of being a vassal to another House-little better than a slave, really-he would once again be part of a noble House. It would, of course, be a House of two, but time would remedy that. House Melarn would rise again.