I turned to find Mabel watching us with her own sorrow on her face. She had to know what was coming.

"Is there anything I can do?" She looked back and forth between us, no comment on Max's bristling, armored state, nor on my steady resolve.

"Nothing," he said. "But care for our people. That has ever been your destiny."

She bowed her head to him, the song of the drach swelling as his people appeared, filling the dust ...