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“It was just a dream, Autumn. It might be nothing.”

But her laughter filled him with pleasure. “The dream of a Sitheen is nothing to take lightly. You saw them, Kade. I’m sure of it. I’ll start researching as soon as I get home.”

Sharp intelligence gleamed in her eyes as the excitement visibly bubbled within her, pleasing him immensely. What he wouldn’t give to pull her into his arms and taste the happiness on her lips.

“You’re an amazing woman, Autumn McGinn. If anyone can find the stones, you will.” She wouldn’t find them, of course. Ustanis’s magical ability would lead him to the stones long before Autumn ever figured out where they were.

“Thank you.” Her gaze turned soft and shy as she smiled at him.

Every intent flew out of his head as the need to taste her became too great to fight.

And all he could think was that he was just about to say goodbye to the woman he’d been waiting for all his life.

PAMELA PALMER

Pamela Palmer admits to a passion for all things paranormal, fed by years of Star Trek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Tolkien’s classic The Lord of the Rings. Though she grew up wanting to be an astronaut (until she realized the space shuttle wasn’t likely to get her beyond Earth’s orbit), she became an industrial engineer for a major computer maker before surrendering to the romantic, exciting, otherworldly stories that crowded her head, demanding to be told. Her writing has won numerous awards including a prestigious Golden Heart. Pamela lives in Virginia with her husband and two kids and would love to hear from readers through her Web site, www.pamelapalmer.net.

Dark Deceiver
Pamela Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader,

My deepest thanks for your wonderful response to The Dark Gate. Your letters have meant more to me than you can imagine. This book, Dark Deceiver, is the sequel, the second book in what is now THE ESRI series. At the end of The Dark Gate, the humans feared that more of the inhuman Esri would infiltrate our world.

They were right.

I’m smiling as I write this, rubbing my hands together with devilish glee. I love conflict. Not in my real life. Like anyone, I want my days and my relationships to run smoothly. No, the conflict I love is the kind I create and direct through my stories. I adore throwing strong characters into impossible situations with no clue how I’m going to get them out. Or how they’re going to get themselves out. As my characters and I plot and strategize, we often find that escape requires them to do something they never thought they would, or become someone they never thought they could. And in the process, they grow into the people they were meant to be—heroes and heroines capable of great love.

I hope you enjoy reading Dark Deceiver as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. When you’re through, I’d love to hear from you. You can reach me through my Web site, www.pamelapalmer.net, where you can also sign up for my newsletter and learn more about me, my books and the world and characters of THE ESRI series.

All the best,

Pamela Palmer

To my husband, Keith, for laughter, love and

endless support. You really are my inspiration.

More than you know.

Special thanks to Laurin Wittig, Anne Shaw Moran

and Elizabeth Holcomb for keeping me on track

and dropping everything to read for me when I

needed you. Thanks also to my brilliant agent,

Helen Breitwieser, and my wonderful editors, Ann

Leslie Tuttle and Charles Griemsman. Working with

you is a joy.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Prologue

The King’s Court, Esria

The monster of the court had arrived.

Kaderil the Dark strode into the noisy and jubilant hall, half carrying, half dragging the captive at his side, turning gaiety into chaos with a single glower. Sweat dampened his tunic and rolled between his shoulder blades as he strode beneath the floating candles that lit the open hall. Kaderil demanded fear and knew how to get it. Seven tall feet of hard muscle, skin the color of coarse sand and hair as black as the king’s stallion, his appearance alone was enough to strike terror into the breasts of the fair Esri. But it was the reputation for violence he’d carefully cultivated over the years that sent the court’s finest scurrying for cover and had him nodding with grim satisfaction.

Above his head, yards of silk floated between the high marble columns, ribbons of color against the russet glow of the night sky. He’d traveled hard for seven days to the Banished Lands and back to fetch his captive for the king. Though he longed for a cool bath and a soft bed, both would have to wait. There were greater things afoot this night.

As he crossed the hall, one of the brightly dressed Esri lords—a man whose height reached nearly to Kaderil’s chin—failed to clear his path quickly enough. Kaderil clamped his hand around the man’s stark white neck and, with a flick of his wrist, he tossed him into the fleeing crowd. Frightened squeals filled the air, punctuated by the snap of bones and yells of pain.

The cries died almost as soon as they began, for the only injuries the immortal Esri could not heal within seconds were the scuffs and rips to their jewel-colored tunics or sheer, glimmering gowns.

With a satisfied grunt, Kaderil dragged his hairless and quaking captive across the hall. Furtive looks, sharp with terror, speared him from every direction, filling him with calm satisfaction. Their fear protected his secret. They dared not challenge him and therefore had never discovered that the unknown human ancestor whose blood tainted his veins had cursed him with more than his barbaric human looks. He’d left him with little magic—the true power of the Esri.

Kaderil the Dark, the one most feared, was the weakest of them all.

As he approached the throne, which was surrounded by an arc of guards in silver tunics, King Rith beckoned impatiently. “Come, come, Punisher. Bring me the slave.” The king’s white face was long and lean, the ethereal look at odds with the ambition that shone with a chiseled edge from his eyes. He wore a cloak of pure gold and in his straw-blond curls, a shimmer of emerald beads.

But it was not his king Kaderil watched with careful measure, but Zander, the captain of the royal guard, the only one in all of Esria who had the gift of sensing power…and lack of power…in others. The only one who knew Kaderil’s secret.

Kaderil’s blue gaze clashed with Zander’s hated yellow, then broke away as he tossed the slave onto the low dais before the king. Behind him, he felt the throng of Esri fill the cleared path, pressing forward, their fear already forgotten in their growing excitement over the slave’s arrival. He was tempted to whirl and fling another couple of bodies, but refrained, given the extraordinary nature of the gathering.

Around the hall, whispers darted from person to person like hummingbirds set loose on a garden of flowers. “The lost gate has been found!”

King Rith raised his hand, demanding silence, then speared the small man at his feet with an eager gaze. “Your master is dead.”

It was not a question. All Esri knew the moment one of their own was killed, as well as the identities of both murdered and murderer. A month ago, the court had fallen silent, rocked by the knowledge that after fifteen hundred years, one of their own had been killed by humans.

“Aye, sire.”

“And do you know the location of the lost gate?”

The slave touched the floor with his forehead, then lifted his bald head. “Aye. I have been through it myself.”

Incredible, Kaderil thought, his mind racing even as he stood at attention, his feet spread, his arms at his back. Fifteen hundred years ago the seven stones of power were stolen into the human realm and used to seal the gates from the other side. Rumor had always claimed that a single lost gate had been left unsealed, but it had never been found.

Until now.

The king grabbed the slave by the tunic and dragged him forward. “And what of my seven stones?”

The slave’s arms waved in agitation. “Only the draggon stone was found, sire. ’Twas the smell of the stone’s power that led my master to the gate. But the stone was lost, sire. Lost to the humans who killed him.”

King Rith released the creature with a shove. “How is this possible? Humans cannot kill an immortal without the death chant. Surely no humans exist after all this time who remember that bit of magic.”

The slave prostrated himself, his voice muffled by the floor. “I beg your pardon, sire, but there are a few. They are the descendants of the mixed bloods, the mortal children of both human and Esri. The humans we once called Sitheen.”

Mortals with a drop of Esri blood, Kaderil thought. Just as he was an immortal tainted with human. But the only things they had in common were a lack of true power and the look of the humans. The Sitheen would blend into their world as he never had into his own.

“The Sitheen must die. All of them. They will not thwart us again.” King Rith slapped the carved arm of his throne. “I will have my stones. Zander, come forth.”

As Zander stepped out of the arc of silver tunics and came to stand beside him, Kaderil clenched his jaw. Zander made no secret of his hatred for the human-looking Punisher, yet he had never told Kaderil’s secret. Why? Kaderil had spent centuries waiting, tense and wondering, for the day Zander would bring his world crashing down around him.

The king nodded to the captain of his guard, ambition glittering in his eyes. “You will fetch me the seven stones, Zander.”

“Aye, sire.”

“You will take a team of stone scenters into the human realm at the gate’s next opening to find my power stones. I leave it to you to find and kill the Sitheen.”

“Yes, sire. But if it please your highness, I should like to take one more.” Zander glanced at Kaderil with a gleam that sent a chill of foreboding down his spine. “I would take the Punisher, my lord.”

Kaderil jerked. What was Zander up to? Zander knew, as no one else did, he was unsuited for this task. He had no gifts of power, nothing save his great size and strength.

“’Tis well known Sitheen cannot be fooled by glamour,” Zander continued. “With Kaderil’s barbaric human looks, he has no need for that fine magic.”

Zander’s voice fairly brimmed with unnatural enthusiasm, igniting Kaderil’s wariness, as well as his annoyance.

“Kaderil is the perfect man to infiltrate the Sitheen and retrieve your draggon stone, my king. They will think him one of them, allowing him to infiltrate their band and slaughter them with ease.”

Kaderil opened his mouth to object. There was little to be gained by the time-consuming and dangerous ploy of infiltrating the barbarian’s band when the others could fulfill the mission through the power of their gifts. There was little to be gained and much to be lost. If the Sitheen discovered his ruse, they would sing the death chant for him.

Before the words could escape his lips, he felt Zander’s palm clap him on the shoulder, silencing him with a river of fire that stole his breath and streaked his vision with jagged flares of light.

Fighting the blinding pain with every scrap of strength he possessed, Kaderil snatched the hand off his shoulder. As he sucked air into his burning lungs, he snapped the man’s white forearm with a satisfying crack.

Zander gave a shout and sidestepped Kaderil’s reach with a look of venom. “Kaderil will fetch your draggon stone quickly, sire. Between one full moon and the next.”

One month. Kaderil struggled against the nearly overwhelming urge to snap Zander’s neck and every bone in his body. One month to do a nearly impossible task. He knew now what Zander was about. His enemy was setting him up to fail.

The king nodded greedily. “Aye. Aye, indeed, I will have my stones by the next feast.”

Cold tension wove through Kaderil’s muscles at the full measure of Zander’s treachery. The Esrian king was notoriously unforgiving. Failure resulted in banishment. And banishment, for Kaderil the Dark, would mean complete and total isolation for the rest of his immortal existence, for who would welcome the Punisher?

Fury burned through him, binding his hands into fists. He would not let Zander win.

Slowly, his fists eased, his heart pumping with cold determination. His mission would be difficult in the extreme. But not impossible. Never impossible. And the ultimate revenge against his conniving foe would be utter and brilliant success.

Chapter 1

Washington, D.C.

Autumn McGinn grimaced with embarrassment as she crawled through the rain-soaked grass, frantically searching for the lighter she’d accidentally sent flying for the third time.

“You okay, Autumn?” Larsen Hallihan’s voice darted across the rainy Dupont Circle Park, cutting through the gloom. Light poles bordered the concrete circle at the center of the grassy park, illuminating the huge marble chalice that stood in the middle—the beautifully carved fountain that shared real estate with the invisible gate into Esria.

“I’m fine!” Autumn called back.

Why couldn’t she have left her inner klutz home just this once? For four months, she’d angled for an invitation to help guard the gate, ever since the first Esri, Baleris, had found his way through. For four weeks, Baleris had terrorized the nation’s capital, raping young women and enchanting armed cops while he tried to destroy the handful of humans immune to his magic. The humans the Esri called Sitheen. In the end, the humans had won. Baleris was dead.

But the gate remained unsealed. Apparently, it had always been unsealed, but the Esri hadn’t known about it until Baleris had stumbled upon it by accident. Unfortunately, after Baleris died, one of his slaves had escaped back through the gate before they could stop him. Chances were good he’d told others and the Esri would invade again.

Fortunately, the gate only opened during the midnight hour of a full moon. One hour a month, four humans who could resist the spell of enchantment guarded the Dupont Circle Fountain. That is, they had until this month, when two of the four Sitheen had been called out of town.

Autumn had been invited to help, finally, though not quite the way she’d wanted. Ordered to stay far back from the fountain, she’d been enlisted as an extra pair of eyes. If one of the creatures came through, her only job was to watch where he went. Not the greatest responsibility in the world, but she wasn’t Sitheen. Even though she wore a bracelet of holly which supposedly gave her immunity, they still feared she could be enchanted.

She sighed as she crawled through the soaked grass. If only she could do something truly important for once. But considering she was spending most of her time on her hands and knees, watching was probably the safest job for her…for everyone’s sake.

Her numb fingers finally brushed against something hard as the rain beat a tattoo against the raised hood of her jacket. With relief, she grabbed the renegade lighter and scrambled to her feet, her soaked jeans clinging to her legs.

Fire, combined with the Esri death chant, was the only known weapon against the Esri. Logically, she knew her little lighter wasn’t going to do an ounce of good in the rain, especially since she didn’t know the death chant, but she felt safer with it in her hand. If she could just keep hold of the darned thing.

“What time is it?” Larsen called from the other side of the park. Larsen Vale, now Hallihan, had been her roommate in college and one of her best friends for years.

“One-thirty,” Larsen’s husband, Jack, replied. The two of them stood on opposite sides of the fountain, each a distance from Autumn. “We’ll give it another ten minutes, then call it quits for the night.”

Autumn sighed. She hadn’t really expected to see an Esri tonight—none had come through the gate the past three full moons. Still, she’d hoped. As a curator for the Smithsonian, she was too much of a history and folklore buff not to be excited by the prospect of other-worldly creatures, even if they were armed with powerful magic and malicious intent.

“I’m heading straight for a hot bath when we get home,” Larsen said.

Autumn couldn’t hear Jack’s reply, but knew it was something suggestive. Jack and Larsen had only been married a couple of months and couldn’t seem to keep their eyes—or hands—off one another. Autumn was happy for her old friend, but sometimes life was so unfair. Larsen was blond, beautiful, married to one of D.C.’s hottest cops, and Sitheen. Autumn was six foot four with flaming orange hair, two million freckles and a gene for klutziness. Where was the fairness in that?

The rumble of thunder shook the ground as the rain turned to a downpour. Cold and miserable, Autumn huddled beneath the hood of her raincoat while heavy drops beat at her shoulders and back. Okay, now she was ready to call it a night. Clearly, the Esri weren’t coming.

Jack’s shout made her jump. She jerked her gaze to the lit fountain just in time to see a large, dark-cloaked figure leap from the marble base as if he’d been encased in stone all these years.

An Esri!

The creature, taller than Jack, jumped over the low wall of the fountain’s pool and took off running at warp speed. Jack sprinted after him, his flamethrower arcing at his side.

A real live Esri.

Excitement pounded through her as she watched the chase until Larsen’s yell snapped her attention back to the fountain where three more cloaked figures jumped from the marble base and scattered. Larsen pointed her flamethrower at the nearest one, but the pouring rain doused the fire before it could reach the fleeing target.

Autumn stared in stunned wonder until she realized the smallest of the three was headed straight for her! Her mind screamed at her to run. But as the creature passed within feet of her, some inner need to prove herself had her racing forward on frozen feet to tackle the slender creature to the ground.

As she struggled to catch her breath, she stared down into the face of a skinny, white-as-a-sheet teenaged boy peeking out of a coal-black cloak. Eyes that glowed as orange as her hair stared back at her in furious terror.

What had she done? The hair rose on her arms as she met the gaze of this inhuman monster.

The creature struggled against her hold, his face contorted with his futile effort. Either she was in serious need of a diet, or the kid had no muscle mass. His white face twisted in terror and bravado even as he blinked against the onslaught of rain.

“We’ll find the power stones,” he sneered. “All of them, as my king demands. You’ll not stop us even if you kill me!” His eyes flooded with moisture that had nothing to do with the weather.

Autumn stared at the creature beneath her. He was crying! She’d made a monster cry. This had to be a new low in her life.

“Stop it! I’m not going to kill you.”

Beneath her, the Esri youth stilled. “I don’t believe you.” He continued to thrash until she was sure he was going to give her a headache. “You’ll set me aflame as you did Baleris. You…dark blood. You human!”

She stared at the angry hopelessness that twisted the kid’s mouth and felt a sharp stab of pity. She’d told him she wasn’t going to kill him, but he was right not to believe her. She might not kill him, but Jack and Larsen would. This was war and there was no taking an Esri prisoner. Jack had tried that once. He’d locked up Baleris in the police station overnight. By morning, the Esri had managed to enchant the entire D.C. police force, turning them into his own personal hit squad.

They had to kill him. And yet…he was just a kid.

Her mind aimed a swift kick at her heart. She couldn’t be soft on this. If she screwed up now, Jack and Larsen would never let her help again.

“Autumn, hold him!” Larsen’s voice carried through the rain.

The Esri struggled beneath her. “Release me!” But the anger in his voice was crumbling beneath his fear. “I beg of you, release me. I do not wish to die.” The tears ran freely from his eyes, now. “Please, my lady. Please. I mean you no harm.”

Dear God, what was she supposed to do? He was Esri. Evil.

He was just a kid.

With a groan of despair, she knew she couldn’t be the reason he died.

“If I let you go, you have to go back through that gate. Right now.”

The boy stilled, his orange eyes widening with hope. “Aye. I shall go back. You’ll not regret it. I’ll make it up to you. I give you my vow.”

“Right. Just make sure you go back through that gate. If you don’t, my friends will catch you. And then you will die.”

She rolled off him into the muddy grass, knowing she was going to regret this. Jack and Larsen were going to be furious. The kid leaped to his feet and made a dash for the fountain as Larsen tried to intercept him with her flamethrower. But the kid was fast. Before Larsen could catch him, he dove into the fountain, his cloak billowing out behind him for one brief moment before he disappeared.

Autumn rose from the soaked grass, her shoulders heavy with guilt.

“Damn, damn, damn!” Larsen’s epithets rose in volume as she ran toward Autumn. “Did he hurt you?”

“No.”

“Do you know what just happened?”

Autumn cringed. “If you’re asking if he enchanted me, I don’t think so. I’m still wearing my holly.” She held up her arm, displaying the rough band of wood she wore around her wrist. Holly was the only thing they’d found that protected true humans from the Esris’ mind control. “I know I had him. I know I let him go.”

“Why?”

All her life Autumn had longed to be smaller. Now she felt about two inches tall. And it hurt. “Larsen, I’m sorry. He looked like a fifteen-year-old kid. And he was crying.” Even to her own ears, her reasons sounded lame.

Larsen looked around with a deep sigh, her expression one of frustration, her movements agitated. “All right. Well, it’s done.” Larsen dug in her pocket and handed Autumn a set of keys. “Go get in the car and lock the doors. The others may come back and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Autumn pressed her lips together, wanting to argue that she could help. But she’d just proved she couldn’t be trusted.

“Larsen, he said something that might be important. He said they came for the power stones.”

Larsen’s gaze jerked to hers. “Stones? Are you sure the word was plural?”

“Positive.” Autumn shoved the keys and her cold fists deep into her pockets. “He said they’d find them all.”

“We thought there was only one. We have only one.”

“Yeah. That’s why I thought it might be important.”

“I really wish you hadn’t let him go, Autumn.”

Autumn met her friend’s rueful gaze. “Me, too.”

“There’s Jack! Did you catch him?” she called to her husband, but he just shook his head.

As Larsen ran to join her husband, Autumn turned to make her way to the car, her heart heavy with the knowledge she’d finally gotten the chance she’d been longing for. A chance to make a difference. To be a hero.

And she’d blown it. Not only had she failed to be of help, she’d become something far, far worse.

She’d become a liability the Sitheen could not afford.

Two weeks later, as the sun set amidst painted clouds, Kaderil strode across the busy street near the D.C. waterfront to the squeal of brakes and the honks of impatient human drivers. He’d learned enough during his short time in the human realm to know he was expected to give way to the vehicles, but he’d spent fifteen centuries making others—powerful immortals—cower before him.

He refused now to submit to humans, regardless of the armor they wore, though he had to admit to a certain fascination with this armor. Cars, they called them. And trucks, minivans, SUVs, convertibles. The humans had a different name for nearly every one and he knew them all.

A cold breeze ruffled his hair as he stepped onto the curb and started across the parking lot to the low-slung building of the marina’s offices. The human world was not what he’d expected. The humans were not the unintelligent, animal-like beings of Esrian legend. When they were free from enchantment, they were, in fact, surprisingly quick of mind. Much to his relief, he’d discovered that he possessed some small talents against them, talents he hadn’t expected. Although he could not fully enchant them as other Esri could, he was able to push thoughts into their heads and borrow knowledge from their brains with a single touch.

Knowledge that had told him he needed documents and a fictitious background that would withstand thorough investigation if he wanted any hope of fooling the Sitheen. A single misstep and he could well find himself burning beneath a death curse.

He’d bullied Ustanis, the third in their party, into setting up his documents and history since he was fully capable of enchanting the humans, forcing them to do his will, and Kaderil was not. It had taken Ustanis nearly a fortnight to accomplish the task, though Kaderil suspected Zander had played a large part in the delay.

He’d worried that a month would be too little time to infiltrate the Sitheen and earn their trust. Now he had only two short weeks.

His stomach burned with tension. The only thing the slave had been able to tell him about the Sitheen was a name, Larsen Vale, and this place, the Top Sail Marina in downtown D.C. They were his only clues. If he failed to find her here, his mission might be lost before he ever started.

Hoping that wasn’t the case, he strode up the path toward the door that said Office. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, caging the Punisher. It was a struggle to fight the deeply ingrained need to fling bodies and demand fear, but he was learning. Humans were fragile creatures, far too easily alarmed by violence. And he had to pretend to be human.

Kaderil opened the door and walked into the marina office.

A solitary, bearded man glanced up from behind the long counter. “Can I help you?”

Kaderil forced his mouth into a semblance of a smile and thrust out his hand. “It’s great to see you again!” Human males, it seemed, were incapable of ignoring the invitation of an extended hand.

The bearded one’s mouth smiled in a poor attempt to hide his lack of recognition. The moment their hands clasped, Kaderil pushed thoughts into the human’s head. His name is Kade and I know him. I trust him.

“Kade!” the bearded man exclaimed, the cloud of confusion lifting from his eyes. “What brings you here?”

“Which boat is Larsen Vale’s?”

The man motioned Kaderil to the window and pointed to the boat in the last slip. “That’s hers down there. That’s not Larsen on the boat, though. Looks as if she has company.” A lone person walked across the deck, a tall woman with hair like flame. A woman who was not, apparently, his quarry. But she was on a Sitheen’s boat. As good a place to start as any.

His pulse leaped with possibility. Even if she wasn’t Larsen Vale, she might know her, or be a Sitheen herself. Already, the day was looking up.

Kaderil turned and left the marina office. Behind him he heard a distant, “Good to see you again, Kade. Always a pleasure.” Belatedly, he remembered he should have said thank-you or goodbye.

But his patience for the trivial was thin. He had a draggon stone to track down and Sitheen to destroy. And two short weeks to accomplish both.

Long enough, perhaps, for he had an advantage they would never suspect. He looked like them. They wouldn’t know he was Esri.

Until too late.

A siren sounded in the distance, rising over the clank and splash of the tie lines, making Autumn’s stomach hurt. Every time she turned on the news, another bizarre death was being reported in D.C. Every time she heard a siren, she wondered how many more people had died because of the Esri. How many more murders she might have prevented if she hadn’t let that kid go.

A chilly breeze blew a loose wisp of hair in her face as she made her way across the swaying deck of the houseboat to the makeshift desk she’d set up near the back rail. The setting sun over the water blinded her with its brilliance. She grabbed her chair, as much to secure her balance as to move it to the other side of the small table that held her laptop.

Larsen had offered up her unoccupied boat when Autumn had needed a place to stay for a few weeks while her apartment was being repaired after a pipe burst in the unit above hers. In hindsight, she wished she’d taken her less-than-stellar coordination into consideration when she’d decided to live in a moving house. The boat was one of dozens moored at the Top Sail Marina on the Potomac River. Across the river rose the office towers of the very urban Virginia suburbs.

Autumn plopped down in front of her laptop as a pair of gulls cried overhead. For two weeks she’d been trying to find a clue to the other Esri stones. She might not be much of a soldier, but she was a crack researcher, and finding the stones was her only chance to make up for letting that Esri kid go.

Her current research path followed the acquisition records for the Stone of Ezrie: the stone whose scent Baleris had apparently followed to find the gate between the worlds, the stone the Esri called the draggon stone, according to Tarrys. Tarrys was the second of Baleris’s slaves, a pretty little thing, barely five feet tall, who had actually helped them defeat Baleris, then stayed after his death.