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Shana Rei.
    Osira’h still did not understand what deep connection existed between the faeros and Ildirans that Rusa’h’s agonized call could compel the elementals to respond. But they had come.
    She shouted both with her mind and her voice. The words burned out of her mouth. “The Shana Rei are a great enemy, but we will fight—and we beg you to fight them as well.”
    The fireballs swirled as if in alarm, resisting her. She felt waves of uncertainty. If beings as mighty as these trembled before the creatures of darkness, then the Shana Rei must be far more powerful than any enemy they had fought during the Elemental War.
    Jora’h drew strength from his mastery of the thism. “The blood and agony of Rusa’h called you—and I bind you by it. You must listen to me.” His command sounded powerful, but Osira’h felt that his control was strangely slipping. She added her strength to his and drew more from Gale’nh and Muree’n.
    Jora’h opened his eyes under the orange blaze of faeros, and she was startled to see that her father’s normally bright irises were now obscured by an oily black sheen of darkness that seemed to well up inside him. Beside her, Muree’n saw it as well and recoiled, but Gale’nh’s eyes were closed. Still recovering from the Shana Rei and now in the presence of elemental beings of pure fire, Gale’nh fought to focus on his inner strength.
    Under the onslaught, the Mage-Imperator shuddered, ready to collapse, but then the blackness in his eyes washed away. Osira’h gave her father all the secondary strength and focus that she could summon, and her mental voice intertwined with his. “If you refuse to fight the Shana Rei with us, then the entire cosmos will be unmade. You cannot ignore this threat. Help us! We share the same enemy.”
    The Mage-Imperator’s eyes were clear now; Osira’h had steadied him. He looked to her, and then all of them stared up at the fireballs. Together, their single voice rang out. “You cannot hide from the Shana Rei. We beseech you to fight them with us! Come when we call you. We bind you with the agony that brought you here.”
    The Saga of Seven Suns described how Mage-Imperator Xiba’h had set himself on fire to call the faeros, which held them in thrall long enough to battle the Shana Rei. That tactic had worked millennia ago, but perhaps the Shana Rei were stronger this time … or the faeros were weaker after the Elemental War.
    Now the fiery elementals brightened under the demand, like stars ready to explode. Osira’h could sense how they fought against the command, and she was afraid they would lash out at anyone who tried to force their will upon them.
    For a long moment the firestorm seemed to be approaching a critical state.
    Then the faeros backed away and rose up from the Prism Palace. She couldn’t tell whether or not they had agreed to anything. The fireballs hovered high above them, and all the Ildirans in the Foray Plaza below watched the ominous blaze in the sky. Osira’h could feel a pounding, thrumming mental turmoil of churning faeros thoughts.
    The fireballs streaked away, rising up and out of sight.

 
    CHAPTER
    9
    ADAR ZAN’NH
    Adar Zan’nh had assigned his battered warliners to stand guard over Ildira, because he knew the Shana Rei would return. He had hoped for time to strengthen the Solar Navy after the great battle at Kuivahr, but he never expected mad Designate Rusa’h to summon another enemy to Ildira.
    The Solar Navy had been gravely damaged at Kuivahr. Even so, their laser cannons and enhanced sun bombs had wrought tremendous devastation on the Shana Rei and eradicated the malicious black robots—though at great cost. Now his warliners needed to be repaired, their laser cannons recharged, their sun-bomb stockpiles reloaded.
    They were not ready for the faeros.
    Perimeter sentries on the edge of the system