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a Dlardrageth or a fey’ri married into your family? If you go back that far, we all have hundreds-thousands—of ancestors, don’t we? Who can say whether we would be proud to be descended from each of them?” She shook her head. “Why, I’ve touched the lorestone myself, and it hasn’t harmed me. I might have a Dlardrageth ancestor, too.”
    “You’ve never touched it except when I was holding it. If I ever set it down, don’t lay a finger on it, Ilsevele. It will gladly destroy you. It would enjoy destroying you.”
    Ilsevele shuddered. “You keep it next to your heart. How can you abide that?”
    “It’s harmless to me. As long as it is bound to me, it cannot harm anyone else, not without a great deal of carelessness. And I don’t have any intention of being careless with this device.”
    “Still … if it’s dangerous, and you know it’s dangerous, why wear it at all? Maybe you should return the Nightstar to that vault Ithraides built for it.”
    Araevin reached inside his tunic and curled his fingers around the Nightstar. He brought out the lambent gemstone, holding it in his thumb and forefinger. The purple facets glimmered with an eldritch light.
    “I can’t do that yet,” he said. “The Nightstar has taught me much already, but there is more to learn. When I master the secrets of this stone, there is nothing Sarya Dlardrageth can do that I won’t be able to undo.”
    “What secrets?” Ilsevele asked. “You already learned enough mythalcraft to sever her from the mythal of Myth Glaurach. There is more?”
    He hesitated, and said, “Yes.”
    Ilsevele studied him for a moment, and her eyes hardened. “High magic?”
    Araevin nodded. “Yes. High magic. The Nightstar can give me Saelethil’s knowledge of high magic. The high magic spells and high mythalcraft in this stone will let me defend or reweave any mythal Sarya attempts to subvert. Or any other enemy, for that matter.”
    “I thought Philaerin and the other high mages directed you to wait fifty years before taking up the study of high magic.”
    “I don’t think they appreciate the dangers of waiting, Ilsevele. I have spent decades roaming the human lands of the North, and I’ve seen the works of Aryvandaar and Illefarn that sleep in the wilds of the Sword Coast. They are dangerous things, and they are growing more perilous every year.”
    “So you have decided that you know better than a circle of high mages?” Ilsevele was incredulous. “Araevin, did it ever occur to you that they wanted you to wait for your own good? How can you so lightly disregard their advice?”
    “Because I know what this lorestone is, and what it can teach me. If I waited fifty years to study it, I would be no more ready than I am now.” Araevin gazed into the Nightstar, then sighed and slipped it back inside his shirt. “You saw what I was able to accomplish with only a portion of the Nightstar’s lore. I banished hundreds of Sarya Dlardrageth’s demons at one stroke! Your father might have won the battle at the Lonely Moor without my help, but even if he did, how many elves would have died to destroy those monsters?”
    “Yes, you made good use of what you learned from the lorestone,” Ilsevele said. “But you can’t seriously be arguing that the end justifies the means! That is a very slippery slope, and you know it. What if you could have won the battle by casting some terrible spell of necromancy, animating the bodies of our own fallen warriors so that they would continue fighting? Yes, the battle would have been won, and yes, no more of our own would have died who hadn’t been killed already-but would it have been worth the price?”
    “Banishing demons is hardly comparable to defiling our own dead! You know I would never do something like that.”
    “Using an evil weapon to accomplish a good end is dangerous ground, regardless of the exact nature of the weapon or the end in question.”
    “Of course. But the spells and the knowledge