Prologue: The Secret in the Lies

I tread on treachery’s heels.

Tal Harrenfel, hero of fraud and deception, has reemerged in spectacular fashion. Not long ago, he appeared at the Coral Castle and made as much noise as he could, drinking wine until he could not stand and making a fool of himself by “practicing” swordplay in moonlit courtyards. 

Now, two short months after his arrival, he makes off with the King’s own minstrels on an unexplained trip to the elven queendom of Gladelyl.

And I travel with them.

To my immense honor, King Aldric himself requested that I join the retinue as his eyes and ears. “Watch, note, and write back to me,” he said, “and your abbot and gods will be well-pleased.” 

I did not question him, nor would I, even if I had not taken my vows. I do as my King orders, for Silence, Solemnity, and Serenity speak through him.

But even if I did not go by my King’s bidding, I confess, I would be curious to see Tal Harrenfel in Gladelyl. His history with the Eldritch Bloodline is speckled and strange. Harrenfel’s sword is said to be a gift from Queen Geminia for killing the demon Heyl when he first arrived in Elendol. Devil Killer, he’s hailed—and Falcon Sunstring would have us believe he killed the hellish fiend by himself, and with a single blow no less:

The demon saw him, riding at the fore
A human on a mare amid the elves’ white stags
And Heyl laughed—‘Look!’ he mocked. ‘Here comes my Killer!’
And so he permitted Tal to enter his bastion of flames

But Tal did not slow, but brandished his blade high
Summoning the magic in his blood, he struck at the fiend
And, in a single blow, cleaved the horned head from his shoulders
The burning crown fell, and the fires of Elendol died to ashes

All stared in silence until one among them called forth—
‘Devil Killer! Devil Killer! There, the Slayer of Heyl!’ 
Tal Harrenfel has saved all of Elendol!

All around him, the elves took up the call
And ushered Tal forth to the Elf Queen for his rightful windfall…

Though I’ve confirmed Tal’s presence in Elendol during the invasion, I’ve read no evidence that he struck the final blow, nor even dared to face Yuldor’s creature. And, from all I’ve seen, the man has not shown himself to be the bravest of men.

Though the slaying of Heyl is the most remarkable of the stories, there are other whispers about Harrenfel in Gladelyl. Of a secret affair with one high among the Houses—an elven princess, if you will. And of the Silver Vines, the agents of the Cult of Yuldor in Elendol, Harrenfel was said to have pulled them out by the roots two decades before.

But now, traveling to Gladelyl itself, I will uncover this corner of the truth—of who Tal Harrenfel is, and what secrets he’s buried beneath his legend’s lies.

—Brother Causticus of the Order of Ataraxis

1: A Dream of Vines & Flames

Far away in an autumnal wilderness, surrounded by old friends and new enemies, a man twitched in uncomfortable slumber.

Rising in a dream, he entered a room and stood before a silver chair and the man sitting within it. The man was no king or prince, yet the dreamer knew it was a throne in which he sat. Vines twisted through the silver spindles and around the arms, choking out the light glimmering from the metal. To either side, tapestries hung tattered from the walls, the tales they told of an ancient people lost. Smoke hung like fog in the surrounding air.

Silently, the man on the throne gestured him forward, and the dreamer went, kneeling and bowing his head. His senses strained to detect the slightest movement. His hand itched to seize the sword at his side.

“You disappoint me. I expected more of you, Skaldurak.”

The dreamer did not look up, did not rise, did not speak. He listened. He plotted. He waited.

The man’s robes rustled as he rose and stood over him. “By confounding my comrade, you raised my expectations. Yet here I come, entering your own mind, only to find no resistance.”

He had no response. The dreamer’s senses strained toward the man, waiting to catch his every word, fearful of missing a single one.

“How did you overcome him, I wonder? I shall not be able to ask him for many years now, thanks to your efforts. But there are other ways of discovering.”

The man stepped closer.

Now! the dreamer urged himself. Rise! His hand fell to his sword’s hilt, and he loosened the blade in its scabbard. But he did not draw it, and he did not rise.

The man’s voice was a harsh whisper above him, like a snake’s skin rubbing against bark. “I shall flay your mind of its secrets, Skaldurak. I underestimated you once before. But never again.”

His hand touched him. 

Flames lanced through the dreamer’s body, burning lines where his veins should have been. He tried to rise, tried to draw his sword, but his blood boiled, his skin beginning to split—

Tal twisted free of his bedroll and sat up, panting. 

The sweat that beaded his skin grew cold as the night’s air touched it. Shivering, he huddled back down into the thick, woolen covers and stared out over the darkness of the camp. One small campfire burned, a shadow huddled before it, revealing the poor chap who had drawn the short stick for the midnight watch.

A dream. Or a memory. Had it happened like that? He rubbed at his eyes, wishing the thought would leave him, but it needled him like a pebble in a boot. He’d been there, knelt in that room before that man. But those words, that word. Skaldurak. Even now as he formed it in his mind, it twisted like a viper threatening to bite.

Stone in the Wheel. 

And that man—he knew him, too. But he’s gone from that place; I drove him out. Unless...

Tal drew out his right hand, and despite the cold, held it bared to the night. Even in the darkness, the milky-white crystal band on his middle finger glowed gently.

Shaking his head, he hid it below the covers again, muttering, “What has the World become?”

He stared across the silhouettes of the wagons, gathered in a circle for protection of the caravan. Littered among them huddled other folks who, like him, slept outside on the ground, their wagons too full of articles to fit themselves inside. None who could avoid it enjoyed the chill, autumn air on their skin.

My friends. Despite his clouded mind, he smiled into the darkness. It had been a long time since he’d traveled with the Dancing Feathers, a long time since he’d been surrounded by friendly faces.

Or mostly friendly.

He didn’t know where the monk Causticus slept, but his gaze wandered over to where Garin lay. Before Hunt’s Hollow, the youth and Wren had often curled up together at night. But much had changed since they’d left their hometown behind. Now, the youth slept alone, and spent much of the days on his own, staring sightlessly ahead of them. 

Listening to the voice in his head? Tal wondered. Or plotting his revenge? Garin had never struck him as the vengeful kind.

Much had changed, indeed.

Tal closed his eyes against the old memories, but still they came, reminding him of the betrayal that had come between them.

Flashes of light in the dark tavern. Velori dancing and cutting. The black spray of blood.

His oldest friend dying on the ale-stained boards.

I killed him. He didn’t know if it had been his sword or one of Jin’s soldiers who had struck the killing blow in the sorcerous darkness. But it didn’t matter. That truth couldn’t erase the stain upon him.

His hands trembled, and he clenched them, the bones clicking. He had no time for weakness, no time to show the countless flaws running through his foundations. He had to remain Tal Harrenfel, legendary soldier and sorcerer. Or pretend to be.

Red Reaver. Magebutcher. The Man of a Thousand Names. 

“No more,” he growled to himself. Each name was only a facet, a single side of him. Somehow, some way, he had to put the fragmented pieces together.

But if five years of a quiet life hadn’t healed him, he doubted anything could.

* * *

He dreamed of fire and wind.

Garin floated above a burning forest, held aloft on invisible wings. The bones of a town lay below him, blackened and smoking.

A shadow swept over the land.

“Come.” 

Even in his dreams, he knew the Nightvoice, the Singer, though its sound had shifted. When it had first broken into his thoughts, it had been thin, little more than a whisper. Now, it held the rumble of thunder and stone, deep and sonorous, filling his mind with a single word.

“Come, little Listener. Come and see what we have become. Come and fulfill our final purpose.”

He nearly fractured under the Singer’s words, his tenuous consciousness threatening to fall as rain to the burning woods below.

“Come and see all we will make of you. Come and witness the power of our Song.”

Only then did he notice a figure among the inferno, their arms raised, slowly spinning in a clearing. The flames did not touch them, and where the tongues of fire neared their hands, they flared up all the greater. By a stray thought, Garin found himself floating down toward the shadow, and the dancing orange light fell upon the face.

Garin’s own face grinned up at him, eyes wide with a wild ecstasy.

“Come.”

“NO!”

Garin jerked upright, fighting the constraints on him, only to realize it was his bedroll, tangled around his flailing limbs. He paused, panting for breath. No burning forest. No manic mirror-image of himself spinning among it. 

All of it, a dream.

A shadowed form shifted a few feet away. “What is it now?” Wren groaned. “Another dream?”

He settled back down. His heart still pounded, but he was too embarrassed to move. Only then did he realize he’d shouted aloud. “Yes. Sorry.”

“Try to have quieter dreams,” she advised snidely. “Of sheep and pastures and all that pastoral bilge.”

She turned her back on him.

He barely registered her grumpy comments. His mind was full of the burning forest in his dream and himself at its center. 

I caused it, he realized. In the dream, I am the one who starts the fire.

The Singer only spoke to him in dreams now. While awake, he could almost forget a devil inhabited him at all. He could almost forget why they traveled to Elendol.

But the truth always found him in his sleep.

Garin turned toward Wren and stared at her outline. The dreams made them sleep apart now. He’d woken her one too many times with an errant flailing limb or a shout. A distance was growing between them, and though the cause of it remained unspoken, he had a feeling they both knew what it was.

I’ll get rid of this demon, he promised her. And then, nothing will stand in the way.

He willed his oath toward her, urging her to hear it, until his eyes drifted slowly, inevitably closed.

* * *

Tal rose from his bedroll, eyes gummy and head aching with the lack of restful sleep. Yet, no matter the troubles that the night brought, a smile always found his lips.

It was another day on the road.

They’d been traveling the High Road for a month since leaving Hunt’s Hollow. It had been a varied three weeks, full of long days of riding and walking, longer evenings of music, revelry, and dancing, and unending nights of chilled sleeplessness. In southeastern Avendor, autumn was giving way to winter, and the cold had swept in the first of the frosts and snowfalls. Leaves, newly fallen from trees, crunched under feet, hooves, and wagon wheels as they inched along the packed dirt road, always moving east.

Toward Gladelyl, and all the elven queendom would bring.

The going was leisurely, if not outright lethargic. Not only were they burdened by the numerous implements of the trouper’s trade, but the members of the Dancing Feathers rebelled against anything resembling haste. They took frequent breaks throughout the day, and they rose late. Though Tal had gently urged Falcon to end the evening activities earlier, it had little noticeable effect on their habits. Eventually, Tal had resigned himself to the pace. 

You brought this on yourself, asking Falcon along, he’d thought to himself more than once, always with an indulgent grin.

Slowly, the troupers drew him back into the lifestyle he’d once occupied many years before. On more than one occasion, he’d obliged to sing by the fireside with the actors, and though his scratchy, unused voice appalled him, it drew enough applause and laughter from the others to placate his smarting pride. He took part in their mock fights, giving pointers on how to make them more realistic, while they gave him dubious advice on how to make it more dramatic. 

Mikael endeavored to teach him the ways of goblin humor. Ox showed him the ropes of the backstage overseer. Despite his supplications, Yelda refused to teach him how to act the leading lady. And Falcon reacquainted him with the finer points of poetry, high and low, in Reachtongue and Gladelyshi alike. Some of it was old knowledge learned again, and some of it new, for the Dancing Feathers had not been idle in perfecting their art in the intervening years since he’d ridden with them. Tal delighted in all he still had to learn, and even when he floundered, he rose from it with a grin and renewed resolve to try again.

Not since his time in Hunt’s Hollow had his life allowed him to fail without consequences.

But as his days lightened with levity, his nights grew ever more burdened. Then, his guilt seeped back in and infected his dreams. How Garin avoided him, spending time among the troupe only where Tal was not, and how much longer their estrangement might continue. How he’d done next to nothing with all of his hard-won knowledge and experience.

And, most of all, what Aelyn had bound him to when they arrived in Elendol.

The morning after his dream, Tal accepted a breakfast of porridge from Hilly, an actress with a talent for the harp and juggling knives, and wove his way through the camp until he found the mage. The elf often made his camp at the periphery of the others, and with no wagon to duck into, he shaped his own shelter from dead wood and sorcery.

By the time he found him, Aelyn was already sitting on top of his wooden shelter, his porridge half-eaten, his expression of distinct dissatisfaction growing sourer when he looked up to see who had arrived.

“So you decided you’ve frivoled away your time long enough, pretending to be princes and poets, have you?” the mage observed with a smirk.

Tal grinned as he sat next to him. “I doubt I’ll ever have enough of acting the prince. It fits me just as the curmudgeon fits you.”

Aelyn snorted. Lifting a spoonful of porridge, he dripped it back into his bowl. “Peer to the Realm, Emissary to the Queen, and a Master of the Onyx Tower,” he griped, “and I am forced to eat this.”

“I don’t remember you complaining about our fare on the way from Hunt’s Hollow.”

“Then, we made speed, not dragged on each interminable day to its breaking point.”

Tal clapped Aelyn on the shoulder. “Patience, my traitorous friend. We’ll arrive at your beloved Queen’s capital soon enough.”

“Traitor, am I?” He irritably shrugged off his hand. “Because I chained a stray dog to his hunt?”

Tal felt the smile leave his eyes, even as it remained perched on his lips. “I don’t know what you chained me to, Aelyn. But I’m very interested to find out.”

The mage’s gaze lingered on his, then he looked off into the snow-dusted woods, his spoon stirring in his bowl. “I am no traitor, Harrenfel. Not even to you. Before long, you’ll understand that.”

Tal ate and let the silence speak for him.

The day passed much as the others had. Tal rode his horse, whom he’d named Loyal in a fit of self-pity, for the morning saunter, then used his own legs during the afternoon to let his mount rest. Long before dusk, they stopped again and set to the long task of setting up camp. Hilly, in her informal capacity as the troupe’s chef, cooked their dinner of stew, filled with onions, potatoes, and salted mutton, and Tal gave her the sincerest false gratitude he could manage before sitting down to the dissatisfactory meal.

After an evening passed exchanging ribald jokes with Mikael and Falcon, Tal found his bedroll as the light faded completely to a moonless dusk. As with every night, an anxious vigilance rose in him as soon as everyone else became still. He didn’t know if it was the dreams that caused his insomnia or some long-latent awareness of danger lurking ever near. It didn’t matter that Ox sat at the watch. He was a good man and responsible in his duty, but at his core, he was still a trouper.

He hadn’t seen or shed the blood that Tal had.

Long into the night, he breathed in deeply to calm himself. The air was crisp with a cold that stung his nose, but underneath it, the scents of the night came to him. Hoping it might lull him to sleep, he made a game of identifying them.

The stink of his long-used bedroll.

The smoke of the sputtering watch fire.

The animal smell of the horses and mules.

A hint of sulfur.

Tal stiffened. A prickling of heat had started in his veins, familiar in its portent. Sorcery. He knew its stench, knew its touch upon his blood. And unless Aelyn were up to something this late at night, it could mean nothing well.

He extracted himself from his blankets and rose. Already clothed to keep out the cold, he drew on his boots, belted on Velori, threw on his heavy cloak, and seized his bow and quiver. Most likely, they’d be useless in the darkness, but as his old commander had often told him, We’re all morons for being out here, but we’ll be dead morons if we don’t come prepared.

As ready as he’d ever be, Tal crept out into the night.

* * *

“Awaken.”

Garin sat up, coughing, his heart racing. The flames of his dreams left white afterimages against the darkness pressing against his eyes. His throat felt raw, like he’d been breathing in smoke. A clashing din filled his ears. Screams, the harsh ring of metal, manic laughter—the Nightsong was unrelenting.

Another dream, he despaired. But just as he lay back down, he saw something that made him stiffen in terror.

A shadow stalked through the camp.

For a moment, he could do nothing but watch while his mind flitted through the possibilities. It’s just a trouper looking to relieve their bladder, he thought. Or to pay someone a late-night visit. Such liaisons weren’t unheard of among the Feathers, free-spirited as they were. More than once on their trip to the elven queendom, Garin had woken to sounds that made him feel both uncomfortable and shamefully intrigued.

But this shadow didn’t move like someone innocent. They moved furtively, like a cat through a cellar scrounging for scraps of food. They moved as if they wished to remain hidden.

As soon as they’d passed out of sight, Garin rose, his hand clasping his belt knife. He shivered as the late autumn night rushed over his exposed skin, and he quickly drew on his boots and cloak before he followed.

He caught sight of the shadow as soon as he peered around the wagon that sheltered Wren and him from the wind. They had paused at the outside edge of a wagon and seemed to look into the woods. 

Perhaps giving a signal to others? 

Garin knew he was probably overreacting. In the months of travel, those on watch had never glimpsed anything more suspicious than a squirrel. But as his eyes adjusted to the fire-limned darkness, he made out the unmistakable shape of a longbow in the shadow’s hand, and the glint of a notched arrow.

Before he could decide what to do, the sneak moved away from the wagon and toward the woods, silent and half-bent. They disappeared among the trees.

Tal. He suddenly knew it was his old mentor who had been warily watching the shadows. But what had he seen that alarmed him? What did he now mean to do?

Shivering, Garin stared out after him and waited.

* * *

Tal ghosted around the closest wagon. Without the light of the moons, he could see little, and he lacked the ingredients for a spell to improve his vision. So he contented himself with listening.

A snow-hushed forest surrounded them. The birds, squirrels, and deer had already departed before the coming winter months. An almost deafening silence filled the air, broken only by snores or the faint singing of Ox as he sat the watch.

Then a branch snapped from deep within the dark woods.

Tal withdrew behind the wagon and notched an arrow. Despite the cold of the night, a faint warmth coursed through his blood, unwelcome in what it signaled. He crept forward again, stepping carefully to avoid crunching any fallen leaves or twigs, but his footfalls remained loud in his ears, even above the blood hammering in his temples. He strained his senses forward, breathing in deeply, eyes wide, ears perked—

Crunching footsteps sounded ahead.

Tal crept closer, positioning his approach so that the small fire from the caravan didn’t reveal him. He heard the footsteps constantly now, many pairs of them. Five? Ten? As he continued forward, their muttered speech became audible, though it was in a language he’d rarely heard.

Darktongue. 

His blood burned in his veins now as he stared at the blackness where he knew they must be, steadily approaching the caravan of the Dancing Feathers. His mind spun. What were Easterners doing here within Gladelyl’s borders—their western borders, no less? The road was supposed to be safe from Halenhol until Elendol, or so King Aldric and Queen Geminia claimed.

But, like so many promises from kings and queens, Tal was finding they were less than certain.

2: Perils of the High Road

Tal clenched his jaw as he considered their predicament. 

How many can I kill?

The troupers were no fighters. The only weapons they possessed had blunted edges, suitable for the stage rather than combat. And what training they had was for showmanship, not killing. Among them, only Aelyn, Wren, and Garin would put up a stout resistance.

It had been a blessedly long time since he’d killed those of the Bloodlines. But now, he had to remember when his blade had been regularly red with their blood. He had to become that man again, to save all those he’d brought into this danger.

Tal smiled into the darkness and felt again upon his lips the wild, mad grin of the Red Reaver.

He remembered climbing hand over hand onto the ships. Dodging, slicing, chopping limbs. The frantic caper of death, always balancing on its edge, and the barest slip could have sent him falling. But he’d always kept the advantage with a weapon none of his opponents possessed.

Moving the bow and arrow to one hand, he reached forward, and his hand met the cold, dried bark of a tree. Running up it until he reached the branches, he concentrated on them and imagined them burning, orange flames rippling along their silhouetted form.

“Kald,” he whispered, then threw himself away.

Almost as soon as the flames had risen from the branches, he heard the snap of a crossbow, then the hiss of the bolt falling into the woods. As he stumbled to his feet and moved deeper into the forest, he glanced back at the tree to see fire quickly engulfing it. By the flickering light, he could see many silhouettes rushing away from it, down toward the caravan.

“Not yet, you bastards,” he muttered. 

Tal ran, finding another tree and setting it ablaze, then several strides further he ignited another. With each burning tree, his adversaries were revealed, their silhouettes more apparent to the caravan below. Not only would it warn them of the danger, but they’d be able to more clearly see their enemies.

But with each tree, he also became more visible. 

More bolts whistled toward him from the darkness, but the flickering shadows must have confused their vision, for all of them missed. For now. Breath hissing through his teeth, Tal ran further into the murk, trying to get around where he’d last seen his quarry. He heard them distinctly now, shouts breaking out among their ranks. They were angry and scared—no soldier enjoyed facing a sorcerer, and there was no doubt what Tal was now.

Positioning himself to silhouette them against the fires, he tried counting the assailants. A dozen at least—probably more. He didn’t doubt they were hardened soldiers, well beyond the experience and capabilities of Wren and Garin.

Wren and Garin. Falcon and Aelyn. He alone stood between them and the Easterners. He couldn’t fail them.

Behind the partial cover of a trunk, Tal lifted his bow and drew back the string in one smooth motion. The wood tensed under his hand, and his body quivered for a moment with the strain of holding it. As he sighted a silhouette, the point of his arrow slowly dropped to the appropriate angle, close to parallel to the ground in the windless forest.

He let loose.

The arrow whistled out of sight, and a moment later, a screech of agony came from one of the Easterners. Tal pivoted back behind the trunk as he notched another arrow, then drew back as he turned around the other side. A bolt nearly found him, whistling a hand’s length away from his face. He didn’t flinch back, but sighted another target, aimed, and fired. A second scream joined the first.

They were coming for him now, dark shapes racing in front of the flames toward him. Tal dropped his bow and drew Velori, keeping the sword’s glowing runes hidden beneath his cloak. 

The enemies were closing in on his tree. One slipped and nearly fell flat on the icy ground while the other two continued. In the darkness and snow, there was no room for fancy footwork and fine swordplay. Only timing, luck, and savagery remained.

The first two came into view around the trunk, and Tal bared his blade and swung with all his strength.

The blue runes along Velori’s steel went dark, and the shadowed Easterner howled as the blade cut clean through. Seeing him fall, Tal spun away to hack at the second silhouette.

The World reeled.

Pain burst through his jaw from an unseen fist, and his vision, already limited to begin with, specked with black dots. But he saw enough to duck the wild swing that whisked overhead. Tal jabbed forward into the black form before him and was rewarded by a sickening squelch and a man’s whimper. Tal pulled Velori free and, stepping away, looked around for the last assailant.

The axe swung so close he heard it whistle by his ear as he jerked out of the way. Tal grinned with fear as he staggered, his balance lost on the frozen ground, then again found his footing. The Easterner readied another swing even as their own footing shifted beneath them. Tal waited for the inevitable blow.

The axe was little more than a glint in the darkness, fire catching on the blade. Luck as much as a keen eye guided Tal as he pivoted, caught his footing again, and retaliated. The assailant, whether from the icy snow or inexperience, had continued forward within reach, and he slid onto Tal’s jabbing blade. By the firelight, Tal saw Velori projecting from his throat before he yanked the blade loose.

Seeing no others advancing, Tal retreated behind the nearest tree and breathed hard as a smile found his swollen lips. He wiped a trail of blood from his chin. The fighting continued a moment longer as the invaders fought among themselves, not realizing who their assailant was. A second after, a harsh command called out, and the melee ceased. A torch lit among the Easterners, then two, and Tal took the full measure of the company.

Two dozen. Even with five men down, they still outnumbered the troupers. And all of them knew how to wield a weapon.

Instead of chasing after him, the enemy company raced toward the caravan. Cursing under his breath, Tal slipped and slid through the forest in pursuit.

* * *

As soon as the first fire ignited among the trees, Garin raced back to his bedroll.

“Wren!”

Her eyes flew open. Before he could say another word, she’d thrown off her blankets and was standing, sheathed rapier in hand. Her hair was a mess and her eyes still swollen from sleep, but she already looked readier than he as she studied the camp and surrounding forest.

“We’re under attack?” she asked, bending to pull on her boots.

“I think so.” He quickly explained the little that he knew.

She nodded, taking it matter-of-factly. When she’d secured her boots, she motioned to his bedroll. “Shouldn’t you be armed, then?”

Cursing himself for a fool, Garin scrambled to grab his sword and shield, forgotten in his shock. As he hefted the shield, the muscles in his left arm felt tight with the scar he’d earned at the Ruins of Erlodan. He shivered at the memory of that day, and at the prospect that similar horrors awaited them.

Even as he stood, Wren dashed away, and he had to sprint to keep her in sight.

Wren turned a corner, and Garin followed, only to skid to a halt. A broad figure, silhouetted by the fires from the forest, charged toward them. He looked as if he wore a horned helmet, and steel glinted above his head.

Garin’s brief training came to the rescue. As the assailant struck, Garin raised his shield while his sword dove toward the attacker’s knees. “High-Low” it was called by Master Krador, the Master-at-Arms of the Coral Castle, who had drilled them endlessly over it in the castle’s courtyard.

But their training had been against youths, and this attacker possessed far more than a boy’s strength. Garin’s shoulder exploded with the impact of the blow, and bright spots appeared in his eyes. Yet he managed to cut into his opponent’s leg, and his blade jarred against bone. His assailant roared as he collapsed, a sound almost inhuman, then cut off abruptly as Wren leaped forward and stabbed her rapier through his neck.

Rolling his smarting shoulder, Garin stared down at the man they’d killed—if he could be called a man. His body had the shape of a human, but instead of wearing a helmet, he found the horns were part of its head. He closely resembled a bull, down to an iron ring through its nose.

“What is it?” His voice shook as the realization of what they’d just survived sunk in.

“Minotaur.” Wren spat on the corpse and looked around. “Damned Easterners. Come on—we have to find Falcon and the others.”

Though a large part of him wanted to flee the other way, he followed Wren around the caravan toward the sounds of fighting. Coming around the edge of a wagon, he gained a view of the middle campfire and stared, trying to make sense of what he saw.

Tal stood with his back to the fire, his runic sword raised before him, while four shadows flanked him. The attackers’ faces were strange and horrific in the flickering light, their features coming in flashes—the slitted, yellow eyes of a serpent; the horned countenance of another bull-man; the glowing eyes of a devil set in a face lost in darkness; and the white, shimmering tattoos inked over human features.

“We have to help!” Wren hissed.

For a moment, Garin debated if he should. What did he owe Tal Harrenfel? But then his gaze fell on someone he hadn’t seen at first glance, who cowered next to the wagon behind Tal. Falcon Sunstring. 

He’d already made his choice.

“We need to get behind them,” he told Wren, pulling her back around the wagons.

“But they’re closing in!”

“They’ll hold out for a second. Trust me.”

To his surprise, she relented, and they set into a stealthy run.

* * *

“I don’t like the look of this,” Falcon said at his back, a whine sneaking into his voice.

“You think I do?” 

Tal gritted his teeth against the pains announcing themselves along his body and eyed the Easterners penning them in. A Nightelf, a medusal, a minotaur, and a human, they were the last of their attackers. Those whom Tal hadn’t hunted down had fallen prey to Aelyn’s sorcery, for the Nightelves in the enemy company posed no match for the mage’s prodigious skill. But Aelyn was busy protecting the rest of the troupers—there’d be no help forthcoming from him.

“I only have one hand, you know,” Falcon called to their assailants. “You wouldn’t kill a man with one hand, would you?”

The minotaur snorted, its dark eyes unreadable in the scant firelight. The medusal’s tongue flitted out to lick one yellow eye, the slitted pupils dilated. The serpentine Easterner and the Nightelf were nocturnal and could see Tal and Falcon much better than they could see them. He had to take them out before the Easterner human and the bull-man.

If they’d only give him the opportunity.

For the moment, they all waited, sizing each other up, edging around so they surrounded Tal and Falcon. Tal’s breath hissed in his throat. His eyes were dry from the flames’ heat and the smoke and staring unblinking into the darkness. Yet he couldn’t allow himself a moment’s respite.

Then he saw it—little more than a hand flexing—and his four enemies charged.

Blood burning through his veins, Tal thundered, “Mord!” and dove to one side.

Inky blackness, impenetrable even for Nightborn eyes, fell over the camp. Though the campfire still cast off light, it was muted, barely reaching beyond the burning wood. Tal, blind as the rest of them, tried to recall the layout of the camp as he stumbled around obstacles. His assailants did the same—with much less success, from their hissed Darktongue curses.

A foreign word sounded from the darkness, then a ball of werelight appeared, revealing the Nightelf’s hunting pink eyes. Tal ghosted out his line of vision, but heard other prey closer at hand, the heavy breathing of a minotaur mere feet to his right.

“Fuln!” 

In the blinding flash of light that followed, Tal lunged at the silhouetted enemy and felt Velori shudder with impact as the blade ground against bones. In his sparking vision, Tal saw the counter-swing and tried to dodge, but still felt the strange, familiar splitting of flesh over his left shoulder. Gasping at the fire spreading down his arm, Tal fought the fog in his mind as he jerked his sword free and, with a parting slash, extinguished his light to retreat into the darkness.

But the Nightelf, still wreathed in phantom light, was closing in. Likely, the other two Easterners neared as well. Tal tried to quiet his breathing, but the pain from his shoulder undermined his efforts. He could only hope the pain-filled grunts of the injured minotaur nearby masked any sound he made.

As a trembling shout came from further away, the Nightelf turned, its attention drawn. Tal almost cursed aloud. Falcon, you thrice-damned fool, he thought, then lunged.

Velori’s point sought the artery in his enemy’s leg as he gashed it open. Crying in pain, the Nightelf tried to spin around and slash at him with his sword, but his leg collapsed beneath him, pitching him to the ground.

Tal was already withdrawing. At the edge of the Nightelf’s werelight, he saw the last two of his enemies stalking forward. The black, slitted pupils of the medusal were wide in its yellow eyes, staring at exactly where Tal moved.

“Yuldor’s prick,” he muttered, then lifted the darkness.

In a moment, he took in the surrounding scene. The minotaur, a dozen paces to his right, clutched his side in one massive hand and leaned against a wagon. The Nightelf, both hands to his thigh, crawled away more sluggishly with each moment. The last two Easterners, the medusal and Imperial woman, stalked toward him, the medusal carrying a single, curved scimitar, while the human bore both spear and shield.

Behind them, Garin and Wren crept forward, blades bared.

His heart leaped into his throat. The two youths might have faced undead soldiers without fear, but these were no mindless draugars—they were trained killers, some of the best the East had to offer, if his suspicions were correct. Should Wren and Garin attempt to fight them, they’d be killed.

“Kald!” Tal shouted, and flames licked up Velori as he charged.

Neither the medusal nor human flinched before his sudden assault, but instead fanned out to either side. Cutting his dash short, Tal lunged at the medusal, hoping to strike and retreat before his companion could get within range. But the medusal slipped his sword around to turn Tal’s aside, disregarding the flames running down the steel and forcing him to retreat.

Sidestepping, Tal spun away from the woman warrior’s lunging spear and felt his legs nearly give way. In addition to his shoulder, a dozen wounds bled across his body. Exhaustion dragged at his limbs. He had to end this, and quickly.

Sensing weakness, the Easterners attacked, the human leading with her spear and the medusal following. Tal extinguished Velori’s flames as he turned the spear aside and backed away, then brought his blade around for the medusal’s assault. Their blades met, and the medusal drove against him until their crossguards met, then punched a scaled fist into his side.

He bore no open injury there. But deep in his flesh, an old wound remained, a scar that had never fully healed. 

As the medusal’s fist found it, he crumpled.

Next that he knew, he was down on his knees. His vision blurred. All the strength went out of his limbs. A last thought flickered through his mind. 

Once more, Tal Harrenfel had failed to live up to his legend.

* * *

Garin and Wren charged toward where Tal knelt before his two assailants.

As Wren lunged at the spearwoman, Garin darted toward the lizard-man, the colorful mane of feathers running down its back making it stand out even in the scant light. Before he could reach it, the Easterner batted aside Tal’s half-hearted retaliation and kicked him in the chest with a wickedly clawed foot, hitting him in the side again and leaving bloody marks in its wake. The side with his old wound, Garin remembered, and understood now what had felled his old mentor.

As the lizard-man drew back its sword for a strike, Garin raised his shield and threw all of his weight into it. As the blow connected, they were both sent staggering, his tortured shoulder screaming once more. Ignoring it, he used “Fort-Strike-Fort,” another of Krador’s techniques, his sword darting around his shield to stab at the warrior. It had looked like an easy strike, but somehow, Garin’s sword skittered down the Easterner’s scales. He barely raised his shield to accept the return blow, stumbling under the force of it.

He backed away, the lizard-man darting in strikes that he barely blocked. His breath came quicker, his reactions slower. Fear weighed down his limbs as much as exhaustion.

Let me assist! the Singer suddenly roared through his mind, his voice a blistering gale. Cede me control!

“No!” Garin cried his defiance with both his mind and mouth. 

The tip of the curved sword darted over the top of his shield before he pushed it back. But the sudden movement threw him off balance, and as he stepped backward, his heel caught on something solid. Garin went sprawling, his shield and sword thrown wide as he tried to stop his fall.

The lizard-man stood over him. Its sword fell toward him.

Without thinking, Garin threw up his shield to block while his sword darted around. The lizard-man’s yellow eyes widened, and a surprised hiss escaped its lips. The Easterner stumbled backward, Garin’s sword sliding from its gut.

Movement flashed in the corner of his eye, then Wren was there, cutting the legs out from under the Easterner. The lizard-man’s tail lashed the air as it fell, screaming its pain, and Wren darted back, her rapier held up warily before her as she watched it die.

Garin rose to his knees and stared at the dying creature. The stench of blood and piss and smoke were thick in his nostrils.

He looked away, and his gaze fell on Tal.

The man was still curled around his wound. His eyelids flickered, but his former mentor seemed unconscious. His sword lay by him, the runes glowing a faint cerulean amid a lattice of blood.

Kill him. Kill him, as he killed your father.

He didn’t know if the voice was his or the devil’s. He didn’t much care. They had the right of it, didn’t they? He could pay Tal back the debt he owed him and be done with it.

All he needed to do was let his blade fall.

From a distance, he heard Wren speaking, but he ignored her. This was his decision. Only he could make it.

He took a step toward him, his sword rising.

A flicker of motion caught his attention, and Garin raised his gaze to the burning trees ringed around them—and like a hammer-blow, the dream came back to him.

The burning forest. His double, spinning amid it, glorifying in it, his face contorted with wild pleasure. The power promised to him.

Garin lowered his sword and turned away as Wren seized his arm.

“Garin!” The urgency in her voice made him meet her eyes, and the fear in them brought him fully back to himself. “Are you hurt?”

He heard the unspoken question in her words: Did the devil take you again?

“I’m still me.” His words came out harsh, his throat tortured from the smoke and fighting, and he pulled roughly away.

Wren didn’t follow as he shuffled through the ashes of their camp.

3: Ashes of the Past

Phantoms moved around him, speaking softly as if from far away. Tal tried to focus on them, to reach out and touch them, but his fingers found nothing. They were just out of grasp, if they were there at all.

“Ashelia?” he whispered.

The blurred face above him resolved, and he recoiled. Its skin was hard and edged in rough layers like the bark of a gnarled oak. Its eyes were laced with green veins as if vines grew through them. As the maggot lips smiled, the teeth were black and barbed like the stingers of bees.

“Wake up, Tal, you cursed fool,” a familiar voice came from the oaken face.

Tal blinked, and the horrific face resolved into Aelyn’s scowling countenance. The mage’s head was bare, his pointed ears on display through his black, braided hair, and his bronze eyes narrowed as he stared down at him. 

“What happened to you?” Aelyn demanded. “I purged the common corruptions, but you remain delirious.”

Tal closed his eyes as the World slowly continued to spin around him. 

“It’s not a new poison, but an old one,” he muttered. Each word came out garbled, his tongue and mouth defying his will to form them. His skin felt both feverish and chilled, and his body ached to the bones with the fire burning inside him.

“My side,” he tried to clarify as he squinted up at the mage, willing him to understand.

“The wound you took from the Thorn?” Aelyn’s mouth twisted as he matter-of-factly lifted Tal’s shirt away, cutting where it stuck to bloody wounds, then bent forward to examine it. “Hm. It’s open again, though only slightly. You’ll need the runes repaired.”

He worked his tongue over his chapped lips. “Only one person should repair those.”

“Yes. The one who first wrote them.” The elf’s smirk widened. “It seems you cannot stay away from my House-sister after all.”

Tal groaned, and only in part from the pain wracking his body.

He slowly took in their surroundings. They were in one of the covered wagons. Bags of foodstuff—including onions, from the stench—lay underneath him as a makeshift bed. Aelyn, tall as he was, had to remain stooped to continue his healing. The flap was closed, but he could see a faint brightening against the canvas that was more golden than a fire’s glow. Day was breaking.

The night’s activities reasserted themselves. He found Aelyn’s gaze. “They’re all dead?”

The mage nodded. “Or fled. Unless more hung back, only two at most escaped. You performed well, Magebutcher. And you know I don’t hand out compliments.”

At another time, Tal would have lorded the moment of civility over him. But fear and pain weighed down his levity. 

“Our people?”

Aelyn’s smile fled. “There were some... casualties.”

His chest clenched too tightly to breathe. “Who?”

The elf looked aside. “We fared well, all things considered. Falcon is alive, as are Wren and Garin. But we did lose one: Mikael, the goblin, stabbed an Easterner from the shadows and paid for it. Some others took minor injuries, while the Befal human, the one they call Ox, took many wounds protecting the others. But he’ll survive.”

Tal stared at the canvas above him, not bothering to wipe his eyes. Mikael, the laughing jester... No more pranks for him, he thought bitterly. You made sure of that.

He’d had his fair share of deaths settled upon his shoulders. But he’d thought those days were past. Yet here it was, the blame clear and unavoidable before him. He’d asked Falcon to bring the troupe with them to Elendol as a cover for their true purposes. He’d brought them into this peril.

He’d killed Mikael as surely as if he’d driven a dagger through his heart.

Tal sat up again, fighting through a sudden wave of pain and nauseating heat. A trickle of wetness down his side made his torn shirt stick again to his skin.

Aelyn watched him with a twisted smile. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To protect the caravan,” Tal wheezed as he put one leaden foot under him, then the other, and levered himself up. “There might be others out there.”

“If there are, I doubt they’ll attack again. Prime Helnor is at least capable of handling a perimeter defense.”

Tal had to steady himself against the wagon’s wall and nearly fell over as his hand sunk into the canvas. “Helnor?” he managed. “He’s here?”

“He arrived an hour ago, just after we’d put out the fires. Too late to be of use, I might note.”

Tal ignored him and kept his gaze on his feet as he navigated the haphazard floor. Finally, he reached the wagon’s flap and nearly fell out as he pulled it back. The camp swarmed with people, the figures swimming before his unsteady vision. He could see well enough to notice most of them were strangers and clad in a way he hadn’t seen in many years.

He knew them to be Warders, the guardians of Gladelyl’s borders. Equipped both to ride for days at a time upon stors, their stag-like mounts, to fight any enemies they encountered, their protection consisted mostly of brown leather and amber-hued, petrified bark. The bark, made light by enchantment and cleverly arrayed like scales, came from their massive trees, the elder mangroves called “kintrees” that formed the bones of their cities and towns. It could as easily stop an arrow as a blade. Each had a sword belted at their side, light, single-edged sabers similar to those borne by Avendor’s cavalry. Some Warders still wore their helmets, most made of leather and bark, each of them unique to the individual. The rigidity of uniform that plagued the armies of the human realms of Avendor and Sendesh didn’t hold sway among the Gladelysh protectors, perhaps because their service could last for a century.

“Tal Harrenfel, you damned hero—come here and sit before you fall over!”

Tal turned to see a familiar Warder approaching him. Prime Helnor wore a broad grin as he approached, though in the reserved fashion of the elves, he made no move to touch him. The growing dawn’s light caught in his loose, long curls, turning the blonde hair golden and brightening the tattoos inked across his face to the yellow-green of newborn leaves. Though his face was ordinarily smooth but for his white-lined scars, his brow creased as he looked Tal up and down.

“Mother’s name, Tal, but what happened to you?”

He had only enough energy to shrug. “You’ve seen the camp.”

“And could scarcely believe my eyes. Do you know how many of the kolfash bodies we found? Eighteen. Eighteen, Tal!” Helnor laughed, and his eyes, silver dancing through amber irises, were bright as he stared at Tal. “I would have been hard-pressed to accomplish the same myself!”

Tal winced, and not only at the praise. “I’d prefer you didn’t use that word around me, Helnor. You know who my friends are.”

The laughter died in the Prime’s eyes. “Kolfash? Yes, I suppose I know. And for you, I’ll keep the Mother’s own patience. Besides, your half-kin friend isn’t the worst to walk the streets of Elendol these days.”

“I’ll hear more of that later. But as good as it is to see you, old friend, I have a charge to look after. I assume you’ll escort us?” 

“Kolesa would never forgive me if I didn’t, would she?”

Tal gave a wan smile, trying to hide the nervous thrill his allusion sent through him, then he made to move past Helnor. But no sooner had he placed his foot than all the strength went out of his leg.

He didn’t quite reach the ground, for steady arms caught him. 

“Never did know your limits,” Helnor chastised.

The Prime Warder lifted him up, the tall man making easy of the task, and Tal groaned a protest. But even his dignity seemed too much effort to maintain.

“Tal!”

Though drowsiness was quickly overtaking him, he let his head fall to the side and tried focusing his vision. Wren and Falcon stood next to him, eyes spinning with concern.

The minstrel placed his one hand across Tal’s forehead and shook his head. “Hell’s fires, my friend, but you’re a damned fool. Why didn’t you stay put? Too good for a bed of onions?”

“I still have standards,” Tal wheezed.

“Standards get you killed,” Wren observed sagely with a raised eyebrow. But she briefly pressed his hand before stepping back.

Tal moved his eyes sluggishly around. “Garin?”

Wren and Falcon exchanged a glance. 

“He’s busy helping pack up camp,” the lass said.

Tal had to give it to her—he couldn’t hear the lie in her voice. He closed his eyes. “As long as he’s safe,” he murmured, “I haven’t entirely failed him.”

Then he remembered who he hadn’t saved. “I heard about Mikael. I’m sorry, both of you. I couldn’t protect him.”

He felt his hand squeezed tightly. “Stubborn old fool,” Falcon said, his voice choked. “We all knew the risks.”

And what’s life without the spark of risk? As his own saying came back to him, and a mocking smile curled his lips just before oblivion swallowed him once more.

* * *

Garin watched as his one-time mentor went slack in the arms of the warrior elf. His feet longed to move, his hands twitched for something to do, but he kept himself hidden behind the wagon. Tal hadn’t seen him, and he had no intention of letting him.

I just don’t want him to die by someone else’s hand, he told himself.

The silence seemed to mock him.

Turning away, he began ambling around the camp. Ashes sifted beneath his boots, rising in small squalls to further stain his pants. Even in the dawning light, the surrounding trees looked like deathly specters, black, jagged shapes charred from the night’s fires. Some of the encompassing forest had caught, but the magic of the elven scouts—Warders, he’d heard them called—had extinguished them before they’d spread much beyond their camp.

Garin looked up to find someone watching him, and he abruptly turned away. Brother Causticus’ gaze was never comfortable, but it was all the less so with the black thoughts on his mind. The monk’s eyes followed him until he turned out of sight behind a wagon.

Even as he breathed a sigh of relief, his thoughts turned down other dark paths. The Singer had tried to lure him again and gain control. He wondered how long it would be before he gave in. Was defeat inevitable? 

He knew little of the devil, and less of the Nightsong. How were they connected? Did the devil “sing” the Song? Or was it the other way around, that the Nightsong caused the Singer to exist? 

More than ever, he longed for answers. But he who might know more was the one person he couldn’t speak to.

“Young lenual. Are you well?”

Garin startled and turned toward the lilting voice. A female Warder leaned against a wagon, her light gray eyes swirling with the gray of thunderclouds as she studied him. As with most of the elven warriors, she was taller than him, yet slender despite the toned muscles evident beneath her armor. An emerald tattoo, as intricate as the lace on the noblewomen’s dresses in the Coral Castle, spiraled across the earthy brown skin of her face, forming patterns Garin could almost recognize. Her tightly curled, brown-blonde hair was bound in thick braids.

The Warder smiled, and Garin felt his tongue tie itself into further knots. She was enchanting in a way he’d only glimpsed in Wren before. A few of the women in Halenhol had been beautiful, but buttresses of paints and powders had supported their delicate elegance. This warrior elf’s features were far from soft, yet she possessed about her a wild allure he couldn’t explain, like the thrill of standing on a bridge over a surging river.

The elf finally broke the silence. “I’ve startled you—my apologies. I only wished to see if you were well.”

Too late, Garin tried to dredge up his manners. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

She waved a hand. “No need for that. It was a shocking night for you.”

Her words were lightly accented, pleasantly curling familiar words in his ears.

“Yes,” he mumbled.

“You are Garin, are you not?”

His ears burned. “How did you know?”

She smiled again. “We had word of your coming. And there are few lenual youths among your party.”

“Lenual?”

“’Human’ in Gladelyshi. The first of many words you’ll learn in my tongue, if you stay in Elendol long.”

He hoped she didn’t know why he’d come. If they’d been warned to expect him, it couldn’t just be for the “dancing lessons” that King Aldric had been told he came for. But under her stormy gaze, he smiled all the same.

“Garin?”

He spun and saw Wren coming around the other end of the wagon. Something behind her eyes eased as she walked toward him, at least until she saw the elvish warrior.

“Hello,” she said warily, stopping at a distance.

The Warder only smiled. “Don’t worry, little half-kin. I don’t share the outrage of my peers. I serve as a Warder, don’t I?”

Garin knew he should keep out of whatever hovered between Wren and the elf, but he couldn’t help himself. “What do you mean?”

The woman’s eyes came back to him. “Elves are even more rigid in their beliefs than humans. While women often keep to certain roles, and they may be frowned upon when deviating from those, there have been exceptions in your history. The Warrior Queen Jalenna, for one, and the Witch of Jalduaen, who purified the Scourge from the Nortveld Barrows. But among our people, each is held to their caste—male and female, Highkin and Low.”

“And kolfash,” Wren observed coolly.

The Warder regarded Wren, her expression unchanging. “And half-kin, too.”

As much to break their gaze as out of curiosity, Garin asked, “Do women not become warriors in Gladelyl?”

“Until recently, they were not even allowed to hold a sword, nor any blade larger than a table knife,” the elf replied. “No woman has been a blacksmith, warrior, or even a tanner in the length of our history.”

Garin frowned. “But a queen rules you. If women wanted to do those things, wouldn’t she change the rules?”

The Warder shook her head. “Even a queen’s command is limited by the ignorance of men. And not men only—many women, too, wish for things to remain as they are. In Gladelysh society, change comes slowly. Perhaps they feel threatened by the possibility of all they could have become, but now believe they cannot.”

“You carry a sword,” Wren observed snidely.

“Yes.” The Warder’s hand fell to her hilt, not threateningly, but almost as a caress. “Some time ago, long by lenual reckoning, I convinced a man to teach me the blade, even though it was forbidden. Ever since, I’ve observed the best dancers among us and practiced what I’ve seen. A poor education, but it was the best I could manage. Yet it was enough that when the Peers’ House came to Queen Geminia with their demands to open the borders to the Empire, she countered with her own requirements: that the castes, too, be opened, and the limitations of gender with them. In one fell swoop, Elendol as we’ve known it changed. Time will tell if it was for the better.

“But change didn’t come quite so easily. When the Peers demanded that Her Eminence show them a woman who could wield a sword, Queen Geminia, in her prescience, called me forward. I was given a blade and put before the finest of our dancers, Ulen Yulnaed—Windlofted, in the Reachtongue.”

“And you bested him.” Wren gave the Warder a droll smile.

The elf didn’t return it. “I did not. Ulen was gentle and did me no permanent harm, but his House is among the Eastern Sympathists, and he didn’t spare me any humiliation. But when I could no longer hold a sword, the Queen held up her hand and pointed to me, and said, ‘She is a healer. She is a mother. She is a woman. Yet see her fire, her spirit, burning as bright as any male’s. Had she been trained all her life as Ulen Windlofted has, I do not know that even he could have bested her.’

“I thought they’d laugh and jeer. I lay bruised and beaten before the Queen’s court, so ashamed of my poor performance I could not lift my eyes. But at that moment, no one spoke against Her Eminence’s words. And so she decreed that any woman who wished to learn to dance, or forge a blade, or skin a hunt’s prey, could do so.” The Warder’s chin lifted, and the dark gray in her eyes swirled as if daring them to challenge her.

Garin wouldn’t have dreamed of it, even if he’d had the words. And a glance at Wren showed a new emotion shining in her eyes.

“Warder Venaliel!”

The Warder pivoted, suddenly stiff at the sharp command. “Prime.”

The Warder in charge of the others, Prime Helnor, stepped into view. Though a smile had often been on his lips as he’d taken over command of the caravan, his bright eyes were hard as they fell on the elvish woman. Garin’s gut tightened. He longed to rush to her defense, even as he knew how little good that would do.

“If you insist on acting the Warder,” the Prime said, “then you must at least pretend to play your part.”

The Warder’s eyes swirled. “I was looking after the youth, Helnor. Or were we not told to ensure Garin’s safety?”

“Delaying the caravan’s departure does nothing to help that. And you’ll use my title when we’re on patrol, Kolesa, or this will be your last.”

“I will, Prime Venaliel. So long as you treat me as you do the others.”

Helnor looked as if he would say more, but he instead clamped his mouth shut. As Garin looked between them, a realization slowly dawned on him. Their features, their tattoos, and most of all, their shared name revealed who they were to each other.

“You’re related, aren’t you?” he said, only thinking better of it after the words left his mouth.

Both elves turned to face him, and it was all Garin could do not to wince.

“Unfortunately,” the Prime responded. His gaze snapped back to the woman. “If you can leave off your act for a moment, you might apply your Mother-given talents somewhere they’re needed. He’s suffering, Kolesa. And if he knew you were here and didn’t come—“

“I told you, I can do nothing for that wound that our belosi could not. Once we reach civilization, I will treat him.”

Helnor held her gaze for a long moment, but when she didn’t move, he exhaled sharply, turned, and strode away. The female Warder looked after him for a long moment before the rigidity left her. Her eyes fell to her boots.

Garin glanced at Wren. Her eyes were wide and her mouth slightly parted. Before he could whisper a question, though, the Warder spoke.

“Helnor may be stubborn, but he’s the Prime. You should both find a wagon to ride in—the Easterners released most of your horses during the attack, so there won’t be any to ride.” 

With that, the Warder turned and followed after Prime Helnor.

His mind turned with all he’d discovered. “Do you know what just happened?” he asked Wren.

She looked at him like he was dim. “They’re related, Garin, like you said. Even more, they’re siblings—kolesa means ‘sister.’”

“I’d figured out that much. But—“

“You still don’t know who she is, do you? Venaliel, her House-name, means ‘Starkissed’—does that ring a bell?”

A memory, a faint melody, came slowly back to him. In a lilting, half-singing voice, he murmured, “He came to her in the night, the moon lighting his way.”

Wren took up the verse, gold spinning in her eyes. “Though love to them was forbidden by day.”

“With leaves as their blankets, and boughs as their shields.”

“Each took to the other, and gave all the World would not yield.”

“And when only the stars remained awake.”

“He whispered her name with a thirst he could not slake.”

“’Ashelia Starkissed,’” Garin murmured, “her very name, his wedding bell.”

“But in the end, love would be denied both her and Tal Harrenfel.”

Though anger stirred in him at Tal’s name, Garin focused on their discovery. “Ashelia. She’s his long-lost lover of legend. But was it true?”

“Father always said it was.” Wren shrugged. “But we both know you can’t believe much of his stories. We’ll think on it later. You heard Prime Helnor—it’s time to leave. Mikael wouldn’t want us to linger.”

The goblin’s death coming to the fore of his mind again, Garin’s shoulders sagged. He nodded and followed Wren back among the caravan.

4: A Healer's Touch

She slid from his sword and crumpled to the floor.

Bloodied blade falling to his side, Tal watched as the red, killing mist rose from her body. For a moment, the fog formed into a mockery of her figure as it had been in life, and seemed to meet his gaze, accusation clear in its murky eyes. 

Then it turned and descended on their enemies. 

One by one, the unholy revenant dove into the Easterners, streaming in through their mouths, their noses, their eyes. As it entered, their expressions froze in sudden horror. When it eased back out, each man fell, never to rise again.

Only when the mist had murdered all the others in the chamber did it rise in a crimson cloud before Tal again. Still he stood motionless, not moving to protect himself.

From the bloodshade issued forth a voice, aged and nearly unfamiliar with the time that had passed since he’d heard it. Even so, he recognized it as Keeper’s. 

“Damned fool. I died so you could possess my sister’s knowledge. And what have you done with it? What have you done with your Blood?”

Tal fell to his knees, his head bowing. He did not speak.

“You are the Heart’s Blood,” Keeper continued, merciless. “But you are not worthy of it coursing through your veins.”

“I know.”

As she gave him one last accusing look, the dream dissolved, and his eyelids fluttered open.

Even the dim light through the canvas of the wagon pressed painfully on his eyes. Groaning, Tal closed them again and shifted, trying to find a spot where the shuddering wagon beneath him didn’t jolt his wounds so painfully. He didn’t succeed.

A dream—it was only a dream. Yet just as with his dream the night of the attack, it had felt so vivid and real, all of his senses awakened to the scene. He’d smelled the smoke of the fires from the traps triggered in the tower below, felt the sweat beading down his unwashed skin. The metallic tang of blood sat on his tongue.

A bitter smile touched Tal’s lips. “I’m mad,” he murmured. “Even more than I was before.”

Though he recognized the dream as taking place in the Blue Moon Obelisk, a place he’d long ago visited, it had been a parody of the true events. The bloodshade of Keeper, the Nightelf who had maintained the derelict tower, had never spoken. Tal hadn’t just stood still as the shade slaughtered the Easterners, but had fought for his life. Yet it hadn’t stopped his latent guilt from sending him a poignant message.

All I’ve learned, all I’ve striven for—and what has it gained? 

He shifted uncomfortably on his bed of onions as he stewed. He’d hidden away in Hunt’s Hollow, assuring himself it was to translate the tome Keeper had entrusted to him, A Fable of Song and Blood. But when he’d finished, he’d stayed, spinning its words repeatedly in his head. Founts of Blood, Founts of Song—what did it mean? Was any of it real, or the delusions of a Nightelf as devil-touched as himself?

Yet if Tal’s experiences hadn’t proven the truth of Hellexa Yoreseer’s Fable, Garin’s tribulations had. And, for the youth’s sake, he could no longer delay acting.

Delay doing what?

No answer came, and inevitably, he drifted off again. In and out he came from a dreamless slumber, and the light through the wagon’s canvas faded. He only jolted fully awake as the wagon rumbled to a halt.

The flap opened, and Tal squinted through the painful light to see Wren peering in.

“He’s still alive,” she called back.

“Thanks for the wager of confidence,” Tal muttered as she climbed into the wagon and began shifting him around.

“With you reeking of onion, you’ve got enough to thank me for already.”

As Tal grimaced, a Warder he didn’t recognize peered in. “The Prime told me to carry him,” the elf said shortly. 

Wren barely glanced back at him as she gestured to Tal, then moved out of the way. Another Warder joined the first, and between the two of them, they scooped him up in their arms and began moving him out, jostling him and sending fiery, mind-numbing stabs of pain cascading from his side throughout his body.

Tal realized he’d fallen unconscious when he woke again, swaying back and forth, cloth stretching beneath him. Feeling with his clumsy hands around him, he guessed he was on a makeshift pallet. He opened his eyes and saw the forest canopy disappearing before the high boughs of an impossibly large tree. A kintree, he recognized, and despite his pain and weakness, a smile curled his lips.

The kintrees, rising hundreds of feet high and as thick around as a wealthy merchant’s manor, formed the homes of the Gladelysh nobility, the Highkin. Unless Tal had been unconscious much longer than he knew, this kintree was the provincial estate of a Highkin House. But though he wracked his faint memories of the Gladelysh noble families, he couldn’t remember to whom it might belong.

Four Warders carried him into the shivering shade, all the way to the grand trunk. Then the litter took on an angle as they ascended a long, curving flight of stairs around the kintree. Tal tensed at each jostling step of his escort, but he couldn’t keep the pain from steadily rising and claiming him again.

When he next woke, it was to a blessedly soft surface and suffocating blankets. Groaning, he pushed the quilts off half of his body, then lay panting and reveling in the cool air against his feverish skin. Someone had removed his clothes, and except for the blankets, he was exposed. The curtains had been drawn, but a faint glow escaped through them, golden with the last light of day, or perhaps the next morning. Tal’s stomach rumbled, reminding him how long it had been since he’d eaten.

He heard the bare squeak of a door’s hinge, and he stiffened, listening. His eyes wandered next to him, searching for a knife, or Velori, or anything he might use as a weapon. It didn’t matter that he was among friends. He was vulnerable. It would be far too simple to rid the World of Tal Harrenfel.

A figure with a small, yellow orb of werelight in hand came into view, and Tal half-lidded his eyes and lay prone as he watched them approach the bed. In their other hand hung a heavy bag.

The figure came closer, and Tal knew once again he dreamed. He opened his eyes wide, yet she didn’t disappear.

“Ashelia?” he whispered.

Her eyes, like a storm-riven sea, stared down into his. “Tal.”

They held each other’s gaze for a moment. Then she turned away and set the satchel on a small table behind her and began ruffling through it.

Tal stared at her back, at the braids of hair that tumbled down like vines on a tree. Silhouetted, he could only tell that she wore a set of tunic and trousers and not the dresses he’d grown accustomed to seeing her in. It didn’t matter. The sight of her set his heart galloping and his mind soaring far beyond the reach of words.

Ashelia rustled through the bag for several minutes, then turned back. In one hand, she held a small pouch, its ties loose, while the other clutched a short blade. Tucked under an arm was a wooden dowel.

For a moment, Tal grappled with the realization of her intentions. “Don’t you have anything to say first?” he finally managed.

“Put this between your teeth,” Ashelia responded, setting the pouch down on his bed and handing him the dowel. “You’ll need your tongue if we’re to speak later.”

His mouth worked for a moment. His voice came out in a choked whisper. “You’re repairing the runes, aren’t you?”

“Yes. But I must purge the wound again first.”

There was nothing more to say. He accepted the dowel and put it securely between his teeth, his breath rasping around it.

“Kald,” he heard her say, and the hearth across the room erupted into flames. Then she stooped over him and sprinkled a white powder over his side.

Her other arm descended, then she paused. “It will only hurt a moment,” she murmured.

The knife entered the wound, and lightning surged through his veins.

* * *

You’re a coward, Garin told himself once more as he paced back and forth. Only a coward would still be here.

Long after Tal’s screams had stopped, Garin lingered outside his door. He’d said he stayed for Wren, who leaned against the wall next to him, running a coin over her knuckles again and again with a jester’s dexterity. Falcon waited next to his daughter, unconsciously touching the stump of his missing hand, then quickly pulling it away.

Garin said he stayed for Wren. But though he told the lie to others, he couldn’t deceive himself.

An hour had passed, and night was swiftly approaching. Garin paused to stare out from their high view. Another time, he would have marveled over the sights he’d seen since crossing the border into Gladelyl’s woods. The trees grew taller and thicker than any he’d seen, and the East Marsh of Avendor held its share of giants. But none came close to the size of the kintree that housed them. Its furthest boughs stretched half a mile away, keeping them in permanent shade. They’d ascended the winding staircase higher than any tower of the Coral Castle, and his stomach turned every time he looked at the distant ground below.

But he couldn’t deny that it was spectacular to behold. The woods smelled rich and earthy, full of life in a way even the wild East Marsh couldn’t match. The trees were in the peak of their autumnal colors, and a tapestry of fiery orange, golden yellow, and apple red spread as far as the eye could reach, swaying and rustling in the constant wind.

He turned away and began pacing again. The platform didn’t creak underfoot as he expected. Like the room Tal occupied, it seemed more grown from the tree than carved or formed of planks. The stairs, too, were like smoothed nubs that had emerged from the trees. According to Falcon, they were shaped by the mages of the Emerald Tower, one of Elendol’s Chromatic Towers, where elves learned to harness their inherent sorcery. 

He’d heard tales of the tree-city of the elves all his life. To be standing now on one of the kintrees themselves would have once filled him with profound wonder and awe. But that had been before the devil had clawed its way into his mind. And before Tal’s confession.

The door behind them opened, and Ashelia stepped out from the rounded opening. Garin had turned toward her with as much rapt attention as Wren and Falcon, but he quickly smoothed his expression.

Ashelia wasn’t looking at him, but at Falcon. From what Garin knew, they’d had little interaction before that day, only once during the Court Bard’s brief visit to Elendol some months before. But each knew what the other meant to Tal.

Garin scowled and turned his gaze over the railing, staring at the shifting sea of fall leaves below.

“He survived,” Ashelia announced. “He should recover swiftly now.”

From the corner of his eye, Garin saw Wren step up next to her father and clasp his hand. Falcon raised his right arm toward Ashelia before jerking it back, once again forgetting that no hand lay at its end. Still, the minstrel recovered his composure and, with a series of flourishes with his other hand, bowed as deeply as he had to King Aldric.

“Thank you, m’lady. I expected nothing less of the prodigious healing hands of my friend’s legendary lover, but all the same, I admit I’m relieved.”

Ashelia’s skin darkened even as her eyes narrowed, and the silvery gray in them whirled. “’The legendary lover’—I have you to thank for that title.”

“Perhaps I had a hand in it once.” He held up his handless arm with a weak smile. “But those days are past me. May we enter to see him?”

Ashelia’s eyes flickered to his stump, perhaps only now realizing the bard had only one hand. Garin’s lips twisted, wondering what she’d think of that story.

“Yes,” she said. “But only briefly. And do not wake him.”

Falcon and Wren moved past her to enter, but Garin remained where he was. Part of him longed to go in and see Tal breathing for himself. The greater part of him wished to flee down the kintree and never look back.

Ashelia neared him. “Will you go to him?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but the words caught in his throat.

She waited a moment before speaking again. “I don’t know what happened between you two. But from all I’ve heard, Tal had taken you under his wing. Is that right?”

“It was. Now…” Garin shrugged, unable to put words to all he felt.

Ashelia stepped up to the railing next to him, staring over the colorful canopy. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t care for him, and him for you. He almost died keeping you and your friends alive. The least thanks you can give him is to see him now. He need never know.”

He knew that Falcon would tell Tal if he asked. But all the same, he nodded.

Coward, he accused himself as he entered the door behind Ashelia.

The room was dark, the great window on its far side covered with heavy curtains. A fire burned in the hearth, illuminating the room in a faint yellow glow. On the opposite side, a four-poster bed lay with a figure prone in it, partially obscured by Falcon and Wren standing over him. From the corner of his eye, he saw bloodied bandages gathered on a small table in the corner.

A lump in his throat, Garin approached, peering between the minstrel and his daughter to glimpse Tal’s face. His brow creased slightly amid the shallow wrinkles of age and the scars of old battles. His chest rose with steady breathing under the blankets. His hands rested above the covers, bared of his gloves for the first time in weeks.

And glimmering on one finger was a Binding Ring.

His heart hammering, Garin turned to find Ashelia behind him. They stared silently at each other for a long moment. He wondered if she knew what that crystal band meant. Falcon and Wren might not—there’d been little reason to mention it back in Halenhol, and even less since they’d freed Falcon from his long entombment.

“I’ve seen enough,” he whispered, and headed for the door.

He breathed in the fresh air outside, a fine change from the warm, stuffy air within the chamber. One question plagued him, spinning around and around in his head.

Who bound him?

It wasn’t long before the other three joined him outside. He longed to ask Wren about it, but knowing he should question her alone first, he reluctantly let the thought go. 

“Now that he’s stable, I need to greet our benefactors,” Ashelia said. “The Lathnieli are not known for excusing lapses in courtesy.”

Falcon glanced down at himself. “Perhaps I should get changed into something more suitable?”

The Warder visibly winced. “I’m sorry, Falcon Sunstring. But you and your daughter won’t be able to join us.”

“Why not?” The thin tendrils of gold in Wren’s green eyes suddenly spun. “Because we’re kolfash?”

To her credit, Ashelia met Wren’s glare. “Except for being Sympathists, the Lathnieli are traditional in most ways. Which means they hold to the exiling of all those of partial elven blood. Out of respect for my House, they’ve given you hospitality, but they will not admit you within their presence.”

“How kind of them,” Wren sneered.

“Wren,” Falcon said warningly, then nodded his head to the Warder. “We understand, Ashelia Starkissed. You have my word that we won’t cause any trouble.”

She nodded, her expression still uncertain, as she looked to Garin. “You, however, ought to come with me.”

“Me?” He glanced at Wren and, at her continued glare, stiffened his jaw. “Why should I go when they’re not allowed?”

Ashelia gave him a crooked smile. “Your loyalty is admirable. But again, it is our customs that reign supreme here. Prominent guests must come before their hosts and thank them. And despite our best efforts, you, Garin Dunford, are already well-known here.”

His stomach tightened like a stone sat on it. “Why? I’m just part of the Dancing Feathers.”

But she shook her head. “All the Highkin know better. Every family has contacts within the Coral Castle, and Tal made little secret of you being his protege there. Though your true purpose in being here remains secret, that you are close to Aristhol is common knowledge, and enough reason to be of interest.”

“Aristhol?”

Ashelia cocked her head to one side. “It translates to ‘Thorn Puller’ in Reachtongue, though that doesn’t quite capture the meaning. It has a much grander feel in Gladelyshi.”

He felt the ropes tightening around him. “Fine,” he relented wearily.

“Good. Now, come along—they’ll already be sitting down to dine, and it’s better to be timely than well-dressed.” Beckoning him over, she glanced at Falcon and Wren. “I’ll make sure they send food to your rooms.”

“Don’t worry over us, m’lady,” Falcon said with another bow, while Wren glared coldly back.

Ashelia only turned away. “This way, Garin.”

They walked down the endless stairs, descending until they were level with the forest surrounding the peripheries of the kintree’s furthest branches. A silence had fallen between them, but to Garin’s surprise, it was not altogether uncomfortable.

Halfway down the tree, Ashelia spoke. “I know I should ask you of your ailment. I am to be your healer, you know.”

The pit in his stomach that had been growing with anticipation of the dinner suddenly became heavier. Yet he also found himself relieved. “If it has to be anyone, I’m glad it’s you,” he replied, surprised that he meant it.

“As am I. But I won’t ask questions about that now.” Her eyes briefly alighted on him, then darted away. “I just have one I hope you’ll answer.”

Despite her statement, she didn’t speak again for a long stretch. Garin wondered if he should ask, even as part of him dreaded to know.

“When you traveled together,” she finally said, “before whatever schism came between you. Did he…?”

She trailed off, seeming to struggle to find the words. Garin avoided her gaze, his face flushing. He’d never thought to see this confident woman reduced to stammering and didn’t much enjoy witnessing it.

At length, Ashelia sighed. “Never mind. I shouldn’t involve you.”

Not wanting to leave her disappointed, Garin tried to think of a response that wouldn’t further embarrass them both. He couldn’t deny that tendrils of anger seeded through his chest that Tal had put him in this position at all. But Ashelia had been nothing but kind to him. Whatever his issues with his former mentor, he wouldn’t do anything to harm her.

“He never spoke of you.” As Ashelia’s eyes grew hard at his words, he continued quickly, “But that he didn’t speak of you said enough.”

She didn’t answer, but stared ahead. Yet Garin saw the corner of her mouth crimping in a smile.

They continued the descent in silence once more. It wasn’t long after that she stopped their walk with a gesture. 

“The banquet hall is just below—see how the trunk bulges outward and the platform extends? A hundred could be seated within. But don’t worry—this is no feast night, but only a small gathering of our party and whatever few guests Houselord Lathniel is already hosting.”

Garin nodded, wondering if it wasn’t too late to plead ill. But that was the boy’s way out, and he knew he had a lot to prove if he was to continue to call himself a man.

The banquet hall opened up before them as the stairs curved around to its landing. He’d seen it on the way up, but distracted by following Tal’s entourage, he’d barely given it more than a glance. Now, he craned his neck back to take in the grand chamber. An entire wall was open to the outside so they could see all the way to the windows in the back. The windows extended nearly from the floor to the domed ceiling. Even as he wondered how it could be comfortable with the late autumn winds blowing in, they stepped under the overhanging roof. A chill rushed over him like a door opening in the dead of winter, followed by an enveloping warmth and deadening of the wind. Trying not to shudder at the clamminess that clung to his skin, he found Ashelia smiling at him, a hint of amusement swirling in her stormy eyes.

“Magic?” he queried softly, and she nodded.

Tables lined either side of the grand, carpeted walk that they trod on. The carpet was formed of no fabric Garin had ever witnessed, but felt soft beneath his feet. It was dyed the same colors as the fall-painted forest that the hall overlooked and swirled in figures and shapes that were exaggerated and foreign in their features, with eyes unnaturally angled and noses fit for giants. The surrounding walls were decorated with tapestries and paintings boasting a variety of styles and mediums, one even appearing to be little more than a slab of bark. All matched the hues of the season.

Even more enthralling were the lights that hovered all around him, suspended in midair. Werelights, he recognized them, though they were unlike any he’d seen before. Each hovered over what appeared to be lamps hanging from the ceiling, as if the lamps had conjured the lights themselves. These lights, too, shone in the spectrum of fall colors, wreathing the hall in a gentle, warm glow that shifted as they moved through it. A harp’s resonating music added to the ethereal aspect. It was enough for Garin to entertain the fantasy that he walked the Quiet Havens before his time.

As they approached the far end of the room, Garin shifted his focus to the figures seated at the table upon the dais. Houselord Jondual Lathniel looked over at them as they neared. His hair was black and cascaded in oily curls down his back, and as with all the elves he’d seen, his chin was smooth and free of facial hair, revealing severely thin, pale lips. He was as tall as Helnor, who sat by his side, though willowy in the billowing red robes around him.

Prime Helnor sat on his left. Though he’d discarded his armor, the Warder’s oft-jovial expression had been replaced by flinty eyes Garin had previously seen as he interacted with his sister, as if he were preparing himself for battle.

To Helnor’s left sat Aelyn, scowling even more than usual as he watched their approach. From the little Garin had gathered, Aelyn and his “House-brother” did not get along well at the best of times. He doubted the present situation would improve their friendship.

Further to the left sat a young woman who looked slightly older than Garin and a boy, both elves by their pointed ears and lively eyes. They waited demurely with their hands in their laps, though the boy fidgeted and watched them with open interest.

To their host’s right, two seats remained open—their seats, he suspected, with an uncomfortable squirm. Sure enough, as they neared the dais, an elf, shorter than the others he’d seen and dressed in a plain brown dress, bowed with her hands working in strange swirling motions, then murmured for them to follow her.

“Peer Ashelia Venaliel,” their host said, his voice deeper and richer than Garin would have expected. “You grace House Lathniel with your presence.”

“You do me honor, Lord Jondual. Forgive our state of undress—our journey has not allowed for the finer requirements of society.”

Lord Jondual waved a hand, the gesture slow and measured instead of casual. “It matters not. Society seems to be doing away with much these days.”

A shadow crossed Ashelia’s face, but her expression smoothed as servants seated her and Garin. He sat with the movement of the chair being pushed in and hoped it hadn’t looked as awkward as it felt.

“And welcome to your companion. Garin Dunford of Avendor, I believe?”

Garin looked up to find their host’s eyes on him. His gray eyes were laced with a light lavender that swirled slowly as he beheld him.

He tried to speak and found his throat had closed. Clearing it as softly as he could, he answered in a half-strangled voice, “Yes, that’s right. A pleasure to meet you, Lord Lathniel.”

The elf lord’s lips curled, but the smile didn’t touch his eyes. “The pleasure is all mine, I’m sure.”

Wondering if he’d misspoken, Garin let his gaze fall to the empty plate before him. The sooner they ate, the sooner this uncomfortable affair would be over. Or so he hoped.

But more dismay met him as he studied the implements surrounding the plate. Two knives lay at the top, but where forks and spoons should have been there were only two pairs of what appeared to be shapely sticks. He desperately hoped they weren’t supposed to be their utensils.

Jondual Graybark introduced everyone at the table, the young woman apparently being his daughter and the boy his “House-son,” which Garin understood to mean that this was the son of another House whom the Lathnieli were looking after.

With the introductions made, only the music from the harpist filled the great hall. Then Lord Jondual turned and gave a sharp nod, and the entire staff of servants seemed to blossom from nowhere, all bearing brimming ewers of colorful liquids and full platters of food Garin could scarcely describe. Fragrant spices filled his nose, some burning with their intensity, others soothing and sweet, all strange to perceive. He watched wordlessly as one elven servant poured a dark orange liquid into his glass.

Ashelia leaned slightly toward him. “Bakala—pumpkin wine. It’s a traditional fall drink.”

At her prompting, Garin took a sip and tried to hide his wince. The wine was thick and musty, and the strength of the alcohol made his eyes water.

Before he’d recovered, the food was being served. One by one, servants approached and silently proffered their dish, and at Ashelia’s prompting, Garin accepted a little of each. When his plate was overflowing with food, most of it unidentifiable and pungent, he pretended to be politely waiting for the others to be served as he eyed his dining companions. 

The elven boy didn’t hesitate, but immediately picked up two of the sticks in one hand and began manipulating them in a way that seemed an impossible feat of dexterity. Trying to imitate the boy’s crimping position with his own hand, Garin attempted to coax a piece of what he thought was chicken between the sticks. The sauce-covered meat defied his best efforts. He thought he saw Ashelia look askance at him and was whole-heartedly glad that Wren wasn’t there to witness it.

“I must admit,” Lord Jondual broke the silence of their party, “I was surprised when a Prime Warder begged hospitality of me.”

Helnor didn’t bother hiding his frown. “As I informed you before, Lord Jondual, it’s on account of an attacked caravan. One was killed and more injured, and we had need of a place to heal them.”

The elf lord’s gaze slid over to Ashelia. “Then it is fortunate that you have a renowned healer masquerading as a Warder in your party.”

Ashelia didn’t appear to feel what Garin understood to be a slight. “Yet another reason women should be more commonly accepted as Warders, don’t you think, Lord Jondual?” she said evenly.

Their host’s expression tightened as he took a delicate bite from his meal.

Garin finally secured the piece of meat and levered it toward his lips. As he chewed, a sudden, searing pain shot through his mouth. It was all he could do not to spit it back out as he fumbled for his glass and drained it. But no matter how much pumpkin wine he drank, his mouth grew no cooler.

Now he was certain a smile tweaked at the corner of Ashelia’s mouth.

“I heard,” Lord Jondual began again, “that one of your patients was a human of very particular renown. One whom you’ve known in the past in a rather… intimate way.”

Ashelia’s smile disappeared. Through his watering eyes, Garin saw her exchange a glance with Helnor and Aelyn before finally meeting Lord Jondual’s eyes.

“Most already knew Tal Harrenfel was returning to Elendol,” she said coolly. “Your prescience is not as great as you believe.”

The elf lord gave her a wintry smile. “If that were the extent of it, perhaps.”

“But if I were you, Lord Jondual, I’d extend your scrying in a different direction. It isn’t who’s come to your House that should concern you, but who attacked them along the road.”

“Imperials, I heard.”

“Yes. No doubt the same Easterners your bond allowed in through the Sun Gate, now attacking travelers on the High Road.”

“Ashelia,” Helnor said warningly.

Lord Jondual waved his free hand slightly. “We have no proof they did not sneak down from Avendor. Besides, Her Eminence has not suffered Venators to enter within Gladelysh borders, and from your brother’s fearsome reports, these Imperials, armed and battle-trained, could be nothing else.”

Venators—Garin had heard the term used by the Warders on their way to House Lathniel. He knew the famed Easterner headhunters by their Reach-name, Ravagers. As a child, his mother had told him stories of the Ravagers, how they snatched naughty children from their beds. But even after he outgrew such tales, the soldiers who fought along the Fringes told truer stories of their deadliness.

And now he’d seen it for himself.

“They were Venators,” Aelyn spoke up. “Undoubtedly.”

“Ah, yes, Emissary Aelyn. I forget that you fought them. And yet your party suffered such losses. Perhaps your training at the Onyx Tower has grown faint in your mind.”

Aelyn’s scowl deepened, but before he could speak, Helnor broke in. “Aelyn is still a Peer of the Realm, lest you’ve forgotten, Lord Jondual. You shall address him as such.”

The elf lord’s smile disappeared. “Of course. A Peer keeps her or his title, even if they are long absent from the court and their House consists of one member.”

To Garin’s surprise, Aelyn suddenly stood, his features even paler than before. “And who,” he nearly shouted, “is responsible for that, I wonder?”

Lord Jondual didn’t rise to meet the challenge, but only held Aelyn’s gaze. Garin’s heart thumped in his chest, and not only from the spice still burning his mouth.

“Justice, I believe, was served for that terrible crime against your family, Peer Aelyn. Was not the man who committed it caught and executed? It certainly doesn’t call for shouting in my hall.”

His words did little, for Aelyn remained as taut as a drawn bow. Before he could speak again, though, Helnor rose and put a hand on his adopted brother’s shoulder. “Calm now,” he said in a soft rumble.

The mage angrily shrugged off his hand and strode away, and everyone at the table remained silent as Aelyn walked down the carpet toward the entrance. At the great opening, he paused and flicked a hand up. All the werelights turned an ominous violet.

Frowning, Lord Jondual muttered something as he waved his own hand over the feast hall, and the lights resumed their previous colors. But Aelyn had already gone.

Helnor still stood, and at a look from Ashelia, Garin stood as well.

“I’m afraid we are quite tired from our journey,” Ashelia said coolly. “You’ll excuse us if we take the rest of our dinner in our rooms, I’m sure.”

Lord Jondual remained seated, as did his daughter and House-son. The Lathniel daughter glared openly at all of them, while the House-son watched the proceedings with wide eyes.

“Of course,” their host said at length.

As Garin followed the Warders out from the feast hall, he’d never been so happy to leave dinner with an empty belly.

5: Changing Seasons

When the morning light pried his crusted eyelids open, and his gaze settled on the person sitting in the chair next to his bed, Tal knew he must still be dreaming.

In his dreams, he’d held Ashelia’s hand as they raced through a forest glade and leaped into a grotto’s deep pool. One moment they’d been clothed; the next, the trappings of society were sinking into the depths of the pool. He’d floated next to her, only their hands touching, their gazes holding each other’s, hair flat against their heads. And she’d looked just as he remembered.

Awake, he hadn’t hoped to see her so close, nor meet her eyes. She was over their long-ago affair, that much she’d made clear. Yet there she sat next to his bed, her posture bowed, her eyes slitted.

As she noticed his eyes opening, Ashelia’s fluttered open, and she groaned and stretched.

“Morning.” His voice rasped, and his smile pulled at his skin like it was parchment. 

She raised an eyebrow. “Thirsty?”

At his nod, Ashelia rose stiffly and brought him a silver ewer with a copper cup. Pouring it, she offered it at arm’s length.

He took it and gulped it down. How many days he’d lain prone, he didn’t know, but it was long enough that he felt as if every droplet of moisture had been wrung from his body. When he finished his first glass, Ashelia refilled his cup.

“Try to drink it slower,” she said, a slight reprimand in her voice. “You don’t want to spit it back up.”

Trying to take her advice, Tal accepted the copper vessel and cradled it in his hands. He couldn’t help but keep his eyes unwaveringly on her, as if by looking away, she might disappear.

“You stayed.”

She looked away. “I’m your healer. I had to make sure you remained stable.”

“Not every healer remains by their patients all night.”

For a long moment, she was silent. “You must be starving,” she said finally. “I’ll fetch you food.”

At the suggestion, his empty stomach announced itself. But despite its pleading, he said, “Wait.”

She paused at the foot of the bed, her back to him. He sat up slightly, wincing with expected pain. But though he felt weak, the fire in his side was gone. Pulling down the covers, he examined the wound and found it neatly sealed. The skin would never merge, but with fresh runes surrounding it in shimmering blue ink, the gap held together.

Tal looked up to find Ashelia watching him. 

“You mended it perfectly,” he murmured. “Thank you.”

“Not perfectly.”

“But with a wound that will never heal, you did as well as any could.” 

He covered himself again. It wasn’t out of modesty, for he felt no shame that she had tended to him like a helpless babe. Even as long apart as they’d been, they’d been through enough to have long overcome embarrassment. But he wondered if, with him recovered, the sight of him unclothed would make her uncomfortable.

She seemed about to leave again, and he grasped for any topic to keep her there a moment longer. 

“How did you treat it?”

Ashelia raised an eyebrow, but obliged him with an answer. “Aelyn purified it for common corruptions, but I had to delve deeper and remove the magical impurities.”

“Chaos?”

She nodded. “Something remains lodged within the wound, Tal. I didn’t notice it before when I first mended it—sorcery fails before it, and my fingers never found it. Now, it’s too late to remove, for it’s lodged itself in your flesh. 

“But it was this remnant of the Thorn’s curse that caused you to collapse. A few tendrils of chaos had spread throughout your body. It’s possible that with the sorcery that runs through your veins, you might have fought it off. But that curse, whatever it is, kept feeding the corruption.”

“Then you saved my life.”

She sighed. “It was only necessary because I didn’t complete the mending last time. But I’m a healer, Tal. If you think you owe me anything, you don’t.”

Tal regarded her silently for a few moments. “And to seal it, you used the same binding runes as before?”

“Similar, but modified.” A ghost of a smile lifted her lips. “I haven’t been idle in the decades since I last painted those, and the enchantment had eroded. Now, you will find the wound won’t open even with a direct hit to it. I’d wager a blade would have difficulty prying it open.”

“Let’s not find out, shall we?”

Almost, the silence that fell between them was comfortable. Tal closed his eyes, savoring the moment, knowing how fleeting it would be.

When he opened them, it was gone. Ashelia’s face had smoothed, her smile lost. Her eyes held his a moment longer, a storm swirling inside them.

“I saw what’s on your finger, Tal,” she said quietly.

His hand self-consciously reached for it. Already exposed, he traced a finger over the smooth crystal band of the Binding Ring. He felt strangely guilty that she’d seen it.

“Who bound you?”

“Someone with whom you’re intimate.” His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. “Your House-brother yoked me to the service of a certain queen.”

“Queen Geminia? Why would she command that?”

He shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

But he saw from the wariness in her eyes it wasn’t a sufficient answer, even if it was the only one he had.

“I’ll fetch your food now,” she said, then abruptly exited.

Tal watched the door even after it closed, willing it to open again. But once more, Mother World ignored his wishes.

Rising from his bed, he moved about the room hunched over. Hunger and pain made him feel as if he’d aged decades. He reached the set of tunic and trousers, cut in the elven styles, and pull them on, albeit by collapsing again on the bed.

No sooner had he dressed than he heard a knock at the door. Without waiting for a response, it opened, and he expected it to be a servant. Instead, Wren, Falcon, and Aelyn came in. Wren balanced a wooden platter heaped full of hot, fragrant food that nearly had Tal bolting across the chamber. The elven spices permeated the room, and he found he’d missed the spicy-sweet delicacies of Gladelyl.

“Good morning!” Tal greeted them as heartily as he could as he sat upright on the bed. “I see you bring a fitting reward for my valiant efforts!”

Aelyn’s lips curled. Falcon grinned. Wren only raised an eyebrow. 

“Just let me set this down,” she griped as she made for the bed and settled it on the sheets, then shook out her arms. “I don’t know how servants do it!”

“By not spending their days idling with their lover,” Falcon observed, and Tal grinned as Wren colored and glared at her father.

A moment later, his smile faded. Garin wasn’t among his visitors.

“As much as I enjoy watching your buffoonery,” Aelyn said, words dripping with irony, “I came to say as soon as you’re well, we’ll leave. Ashelia has healed the other injured troupers, and our party waits on you to depart.”

Falcon leaned close and said in a stage whisper, “He’s only eager because he and our lord host had a falling out.”

Tal raised an eyebrow, the only response available to him, for his mouth was already full of the spicy fare.

Aelyn glared at the bard. “How would you know? You weren’t there.”

Falcon tapped the side of his nose. “I have my ways, my irritable friend.”

“The boy told you.”

Falcon rolled his eyes. “Of course he did. You think he’d keep something like that secret?”

Tal choked down his mouthful, determined to hear as little of Garin as he could, and asked, “What was it over?”

“You don’t know?” Wren looked skeptical.

He shook his head as he took another bite, keeping his suspicions to himself.

“It was nothing,” Aelyn snapped. “Only travel weariness. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m eager to return to the road.” The mage strode for the door and roughly closed it after him.

Tal swallowed. “He’s as cheerful as ever.”

“As cheerful as a spring blizzard.” Falcon sat at the foot of the bed and snatched a roll from the platter, taking a bite as he stared at Tal.

Tal raised an eyebrow back. “What?”

“Is the fire alive?”

Wren rolled her eyes and backed toward the door. “I don’t think I want to be here for this conversation.”

Falcon waved his bun at his daughter, and the youth disappeared through the door.

All amusement had drained from Tal, and the pleasant heat of the spice in his mouth had dulled. “I think I’d best lay those hopes to rest.”

Falcon frowned as he chewed. “Surely you don’t mean that.”

“The Extinguished who stole your face told me she has a son.”

“You mentioned that. And from what I remember, that much is true. But what of it? You know elven customs as well as I do. Peers of the Realm may take lovers if they so wish, and so long as they take their herbs and don’t conceive by them, no harm is done. It’s how you held your liaison before.”

“Things have changed since then.”

“What—you’ve grown old?”

A snarling beast reared in his chest, and it took all of Tal’s effort to hold its chain tightly in check. 

“No. That I never came back, and she moved on.”

Falcon’s expression softened. “Have you told her why you didn’t return?”

Tal turned his head aside. Despite eating half the platter already, his gut still felt empty, and now his appetite had abated.

His friend reached over and gripped Tal’s hand. “I can speak to her if you’d like. I saw you during those intervening years. I know why you didn’t return, and eloquence has never been something I lacked for.”

Tal squeezed Falcon’s hand back, then pulled away. “I appreciate the offer, but no. If anyone is to tell her, it will be me.”

“If?”

He sighed. “Permitted or no, Yinin never liked us together when they were promised to each other. Now, they’re bonded and have a son. Even if she wished to pick up where we left off, it would be far more threatening to their House. I’d only cause trouble for everyone.”

“Then I’m to understand you rarely cause trouble wherever you go?”

Tal couldn’t help a small smile. “I try not to, for those I care about.”

Falcon rose from the bed and shook his head. “You’re a fool, Tal Harrenfel. A damned fool.”

“I’ve never claimed to be wise.”

* * *

Garin had never thought he’d be so happy to be traveling.

Not long after Tal had risen from his fever and wounds, the wagons were loaded and the caravan prepared, and the Dancing Feathers and their escort of Warders set back on the road. Garin rode among them, taking turns with Wren driving a wagon—Mikael’s wagon, all of them knew, but no one mentioned it.

Elendol was only a few days further. Now that they were within the elven queendom, the roads had vastly improved, paved with white stones that shimmered where a ray of light broke through the thick canopy above. Despite their friend’s death weighing on their spirits, the fear of another attack was on all of their minds, and their pace quickened from the months before.

Garin avoided driving near Tal, and Wren never strayed near as well. With each other for company, they talked of small things, of all that they’d heard of Gladelyl and the ever-changing sights that surrounded them.

Neither of them spoke of what awaited Garin in the elven city. And with his devil silent, he could almost forget their true purpose.

One topic they returned to again and again was the Binding Ring on Tal’s finger. After Garin had explained the significance and she’d chastised him for not telling her of the man’s trick on Aelyn, they tried working out who might be behind it.

“My wager’s on the mage,” Wren declared. “He doesn’t enjoy being made a fool. I’ll bet he took the first opportunity he could to pay Tal back in full.”

Garin shrugged. “Could be. The original oath ended when we reached Hunt’s Hollow—at least, it should have, from what I recall. But we’ve all worn gloves against the cold since then. It might have happened sometime along the road, or perhaps while he lay sick in bed.”

“And who would have done it then?”

Little as he wanted to consider it, he knew he had to. “Ashelia attended him.”

“And why would she bind him?”

“How should I know? But they were lovers once—don’t strange things happen between people who are intimate?”

He stopped then, realizing how his words might apply to them. An uncomfortable silence fell, interrupted by the creaking of the wagon, the clomping of the horses, and the chatter of the caravan.

Wren spoke first. “Anyway, it could have been any of the Lathniel staff. If Tal still had the ring on him, all they’d have to do is go through his belongings and bind him while he slept.”

“And the Lathnieli are Sympathists.”

They’d learned a little of Elendol politics since joining with the Warders. The city seemed to have split into two factions: the Sympathists, who favored the opening of the elven nation to the Eastern peoples; and the Royalists, who supported the Queen in opposing it. The finer reasons why either position held weight had eluded them, but he’d gathered that Ashelia and Helnor were Royalists, while their recent hosts held the opposition stance.

Wren nodded. “They’d assume Tal would take Ashelia’s side and try to secure him against them.”

“Maybe. Unless it was Aelyn or Ashelia.”

“We could just ask Tal, you know. He might tell us.”

Garin tightened his jaw and looked away. To his relief, Wren let the subject drop.

Later that day, Ashelia surprised them with a visit. She weaved her mount skillfully through the caravan to ride up alongside their wagon, the stor she rode eyeing them as it trotted along. It was nearly as bulky as a horse, but with long, graceful legs, and upon its head grew an impressive set of antlers. All the Warders rode them instead of horses, and Garin wondered if there were any horses or mules in Gladelyl.

They exchanged pleasantries, though with their slight suspicion of her, Garin found his wariness made him stiff and formal. But, as she’d done before, Ashelia dispelled his guarded attitude with a coaxing question.

“What have you heard of our Queen?”

Garin exchanged a glance with Wren. “Not much,” he admitted. “Only that she’s ancient, like…”

He hesitated, about to say “like most elves,” but he suddenly wondered if that might give offense.

Ashelia seemed to guess his thoughts. “Age isn’t shameful among elves as it sometimes is among humans—on the contrary, it’s welcome. After long, well-lived lives, our elders are revered for all they’ve done for our people, and they’re provided for in their every need. But while Queen Geminia is aged even by our standards, she remains in the prime of her life. You might think her younger than me when you see her.”

“Than you?” Wren looked incredulous. “But you don’t look over thirty.”

She smiled. “I’m far older than thirty, Wren. Elves age much slower than humans. You’ve seen this in Aelyn, no doubt.”

Curiosity itched at Garin. “How old is he?”

“You don’t know? Well, let’s say that when Tal was born, Aelyn had already spent a decade studying at the Onyx Tower.”

“A decade?” He did some quick figures. “That must make him at least sixty years old.”

“Older. An elf isn’t inducted into one of the Chromatic Towers before they’ve lived twenty-one springs.”

Wren’s brow furrowed as she studied Ashelia. “How old is the Queen, then?”

The Warder turned her stormy eyes back on her. “When the Eternal Animus between the East and the Westreach last erupted into war, Queen Geminia had just ascended to the throne.”

“The War to the Sea?” Wren gave Garin an incredulous look.

“What’s that?” He felt stupid for not knowing what they referred to, but he cared more to understand than hide his ignorance. “How long ago was the War to the Sea?”

Wren seemed too amazed even to tease him. “The War to the Sea is when the Empire of the Rising Sun burned their way across Gladelyl and Avendor to Halenhol itself. But that was two centuries ago.”

Ashelia nodded. “It was thanks to the Gem of Elendol that they didn’t penetrate Halenhol’s walls. After she drove back the invaders from our home, Queen Geminia left only a paltry force behind and rode forth with all the might of Gladelyl to come to Avendor’s aid. Only by her sorcery and soldiers was your kingdom saved.”

Garin strained to understand the length of such a life. “How long do elves live, then?”

“Three hundred years, sometimes four if the Eldritch runs strong within them.”

He stared at Ashelia, wondering at all she’d experienced, all she would see, even after he and Wren were dead. Then he wondered how long Wren might live, being part-elf herself.

If any of us survive Yuldor and his Chosen.

He pushed down the chilling thought and asked, “Is there no king in Gladelyl?”

“Garin!” Wren looked at him, aghast.

He turned to her, surprised. “What did I say?”

But Ashelia only smiled. “Do not fear, little sister. Our ways are different. No, Garin, there is no king in Gladelyl. Even if the Queen’s bond were still alive, he would be the Prince Consort. Women have always ruled the queendom, and so long as there is a monarchy, they always will.”

Garin thought a moment over that before deciding not to risk further censure. “Her bond… is that like a husband?”

“Exactly so.”

“What happened to him?” Wren asked softly, the earlier flush fading from her cheeks.

Ashelia wore a grim look. “Twenty years ago, the Cult of Yuldor had wormed their roots deep into Elendol. Calling themselves the Silver Vines, they coaxed and coerced Gladelysh at every echelon of society to bend to their will, gathering more power to themselves with each day. The Queen did her best to combat it using her network of agents, the Ilthasi, against the cultists. But Yuldor’s promises are insidious, and the corruption continued to spread. Until finally, it reached even the royal kintree.”

The Warder’s eyes fell to her stor’s antlers, which bobbed with each step, and spoke softly. “Prince Nevendal was killed by the fire devil Heyl, who was summoned by the Thorn.”

“The Thorn?” Wren’s eyes were wide, and Garin detected more avidity than fear in their golden swirl. “One of the Extinguished?”

Ashelia nodded.

“And that was the same Heyl that Tal slew, wasn’t it?” Garin asked.

She sighed. “You might now understand why our Queen felt so grateful as to bestow one of our treasured artifacts upon him.”

A flicker of pride ran through him—but a moment later, he felt revolted. Pride for the man who killed your father? a part of him taunted.

He drew in a ragged breath and tried to push it from his mind.

“I need to check our perimeter.” With a last nod toward them, Ashelia turned her mount and threaded her way through the caravan once more.

“Are you alright?” Wren placed a hand on his arm.

He gave her a weak smile. “Fine.”

As the wagon rolled on, though, he couldn’t help but turn the question over and over in his head.

Is Tal a devil? Or a devil killer?

He was getting an uncomfortable suspicion that he just might be both.

* * *

In the days following his illness, Tal felt as if he’d risen a new man.

The woods of Gladelyl had always held a mysterious beauty for him. But now, as he rode upon a wagon through them, he beheld them in outright awe. He admired the fall colors that were all around. Red, orange, and gold proliferated on the trees’ branches, winter’s first breath not yet having swept them away. A freshly fallen carpet was forming on the white cobblestones of the High Road, crunching pleasantly underfoot. When he breathed in, the fresh forest scents filled his lungs.

Autumn, however, would soon lose its grip. Surrounding Elendol, the forest never slept, and winter could lay no claim. Long ago, the First Queen of Gladelyl had united the Chromatic Towers into casting an enchantment around the Sanguine City, suspending it in eternal spring. Rains came often, but snow was rare, and the trees and foliage remained green all year long.

As much pleasure as he took in their surroundings, however, his range of companionship was less gratifying. As before, Garin rode wherever Tal was not, and hadn’t even met his eye since his recovery. Ashelia was just as often absent, only checking in briefly each night to ensure his wound remained sealed. Though he usually tried to coax her into staying a little longer, she kept their encounters brief and focused on his health, and rarely strayed from that topic. Wren only flitted by his company occasionally, for she was more often with Garin, and made it clear without words she didn’t wish a conflict between them. 

That left only Falcon and Aelyn sitting on the wagon with him. Ordinarily, Tal might have made the most of it and banded together with the bard to wage an interminable campaign against the irritable elf. But even if his own good humor wasn’t flagging, Falcon had grown uncharacteristically morose. 

Tal didn’t have to wonder why. Not only had they buried one of his friends, but he was still coming to terms with the loss of his hand—and with it, the loss of his music. And there was also how he’d soon be treated in Elendol as one of the kolfash, or “half-kin,” forbidden entry from the lofty lives and homes of the Highkin and forced instead to dwell in the marshy under-city of the Lowkin. It was hardly the standard of living that the Court Bard of Avendor deserved, especially when he’d so recently been interned in a tomb for months on end.

To make matters worse, Aelyn had grown beyond intolerable. Though he mostly holed himself up in the back of the wagon, werelight illuminating one of his books, when he did emerge, he snapped at them like a poorly tamed hound. 

Elendol, it seemed, was ill-looked forward to.

But Tal took what pleasures he could find. The air was cool and moist, but comfortable. Every breeze seemed to set the leaves aflame. The trees grew ever taller and grander, and vines and moss proliferated on the ancient trunks. Forest creatures, both large and small, skirted around their company. Gladelysh monkeys swung through the trees overhead, and the boldest of them snuck into their camp at night to steal small morsels left unguarded. He glimpsed a wild stor, the same caribou-like creature the Warders used as mounts instead of horses. The buck observed their passage as if wondering what its kin was doing by allowing the two-legged creatures astride their backs.

When they stopped for camp each night, Tal sought Helnor, and the Prime Warder seemed happy to receive him. Uncorking a flask of bakala, they passed back and forth the potent pumpkin wine and reminisced over the past like old men.

“Do you remember that time I caught you climbing our kintree?” Helnor grinned as he handed Tal the flask and leaned back against a log around their campfire. “You’d descended damn near fifty feet just to avoid being seen on the stairs!”

As he took a drink, Tal’s eyes slid over to the glow where he knew Ashelia sat with the other Warders.

“How could I forget?” he said as he lowered the flask. “I was a young fool then.”

“A young fool in love.” The Prime Warder’s smile slipped away. “I’ll admit, I didn’t expect you to return to us. Perhaps two decades ago, when your infatuation was still fresh. But now?”

Tal forced a smile and drank again. Helnor didn’t ask why Tal had stayed away. Even as he’d always considered Tal and Ashelia’s liaison a frivolous affair, he’d known what it had meant to them. 

Perhaps he doesn’t want to resurrect ghosts, Tal thought, in case they come to haunt him.

Helnor would never suffer his House to fall into shame if he could help it. Ashelia joining the Warders had gone far enough, but that it had the blessing of the Queen made it just tolerable. If she were to abandon her bond and son, however, he could only imagine the lengths the Prime Warder would go to secure his family’s honor. Even friendship would not deter him.

As if she would abandon them now, he thought with a bitter twist of his lips. What a man I’ve become to wish for it.

Even so, during his visits, part of him hoped Ashelia would come around. His hope was in vain. The brother and sister seemed to have suffered a schism of late, and he quickly divined its source. When he’d first heard Ashelia had joined the Warders not as a healer, but as one of the warrior-scouts themselves, he’d been surprised and a little disconcerted. Only then did he realize he’d hoped to return and have her and Elendol exactly as he’d left it. 

But the next moment, he had to grin. It was just like her to shatter the expectations others would bind her with. And hadn’t he helped to set her on this path long ago when he first taught her the blade against her culture’s prohibitions?

After he and the Prime called it a night, he would lie in his bedroll, sleep evading him, his thumb turning the Binding Ring on his finger round and round. He thought through all that Gladelyl’s Queen might intend by binding him to her will. His conclusions weren’t comforting. 

The gates have opened to the East. Ravagers prey within her borders. And that dream... 

Through a fog, he remembered the forest-corrupted face leaning over him, vine-riddled eyes boring into his. A face familiar and feared. A face he’d hoped never to see again.

His blood cold from the lack of sorcery around him, Tal shivered into his bedroll. That night, Yuldor’s reach seemed long, indeed.

On the fourth day, the forest abruptly changed. Where fall had claimed it, now spring seized back hold. Green, in every shade and hue, abounded from the forest floor to the high boughs hundreds of feet above. The moss was a newborn yellow-green; the ferns were emerald as they blanketed the ground; the trees’ leaves, gigantic oaks and maples, were dark and robust. Flowers sparkled like stars throughout the forest. 

Near the edge of a river, Tal spotted a mangrove and scooted off the wagon mid-trot, shouting that he’d be back. Running like a boy through the thick foliage, reveling in how quickly his body had recovered from its illness, he came before the wild-rooted tree and grinned. Long, white blooms filled its branches, and a divine perfume, reminiscent of honey and lemon, filled the air. White mangrove blooms, he thought, and though he knew it was foolish, he picked off a small bunch and hurried back to the caravan.

As he sprung back onto the cart, Falcon smiled knowingly at him, though the smile scarcely touched his eyes. “Dare I ask whom those are for?”

“All of us already know,” Aelyn snapped from within the wagon. “And, as usual, he shows himself to be a fool.”

Tal kept the smile lodged firmly on his lips as he breathed in the wonderful honey-scent of the flowers.

“Perhaps they’re for me,” he said casually.

“They do smell how I imagine Heaven’s Knolls might.” Falcon leaned closer and closed his eyes as he breathed in. “Ah. Too bad I will never reach that blessed place.”

Tal put an arm around his friend. “Then, my sinful companion, you and I will shelter together wherever the gods see fit to place us.”

He kept the blooms hidden in his pocket after that, telling himself he waited for the right moment. But even when he glimpsed Ashelia riding at the front of the caravan, he didn’t move from his wagon. 

In time, he thought wistfully. In time. 

Then the wide Briar Bridge came into view, and he couldn’t help but wonder if his time was running out.

The bridge seemed formed of old stone, but upon closer inspection, it showed itself to be a veneer. For beneath the pavers, it was not a stone structure that held them in place, but a network of thick and interwoven roots. During his previous visit, he’d learned that this bridge hadn’t been formed by sorcery, but through scaffolding and a patience spanning decades. Some enterprising elven ancestors had coaxed two trees on the opposite shores to extend their roots across the chasm of the Sanguine River. Slowly, their roots had melded, and the two trees had become one, their bond so strong that even wagons could cross it without peril.

If only there were some way to mend every schism, Tal thought wistfully.

Glancing behind him, he saw Garin’s face draw tight as the youth contemplated the bridge. But when he saw Tal looking, a scowl replaced the fear. Tal glanced away again. Rifts between him and the people he cared about most gaped all around him.

As they rattled over the Briar Bridge, river rapids roared beneath them. Thick roots grew overhead as well as under, blocking the forest and light from view, and their journey darkened. Tal couldn’t help a grim smile, both anticipation and dread tingling inside him.

Then the wagon was across the bridge, and the Sanguine City, with all of its shadowed beauty and half-veiled promises, opened up before them.

---

Thanks for reading these sample chapters of A Queen’s Command! I hope you enjoyed them.

If you have, consider backing the Kickstarter for the deluxe edition! Here’s the link back to the campaign.

Whatever your decision, I’m grateful you took the time to check out the story and wish you well!

~ Josiah, aka J.D.L. Rosell