Location:Zhū'kethara
Date/Time:Late Sparkfall, 9939 AZI
Realm:Demon Realm
The problem was thirty-six thousand years old.
Sethrak stood in the corridor outside Ilythara's quarters, holding a carved gemstone he'd spent three days selecting and two nights polishing, and tried to remember the last time his hands had shaken. The Fourth Zartonesh War, possibly. When Vaelith's quintet had held a ridge for nine days against forces that outnumbered them forty to one and the ground had been so thick with blood that the stone wept red for a century afterward.
That had been easier than this.
