Note: Title page of story in Shattered Shields has "The Fixed Stars" with "An October Daye Story" underneath.

Synopsis: A short story prequel set in 572 C.E., more than a thousand years before the author's October Daye urban fantasy series. From the author's Web site: Long, long ago, when the worlds of Faerie and Man had not yet fully separated, a battle was fought to determine the shapes those two worlds would take. Firstborn against merlin; strongest against least. And between those two stood Antigone of Albany, who would later be known as the Luidaeg, and whose loyalty would inevitably sway the fortunes of war... There was a time when things were different. This is the story of the battlefield where it all began to change.