by JA Andrews
“There’s plenty more grass.” Rass looked up at him with a weak smile from where she sat—in her own patch of dead grass—being fussed over by Douglon. “I fed four.”
“You should have left the feeding to the Keepers,” Douglon chided her. “You were already exhausted.”
“We all should have left it to just one Keeper,” Will said.
Rass patted Douglon on the cheek. “I’m all right, uncle.”
Douglon gave a disapproving huff but kissed her on the top of the head before lifting two elves off her lap and settling them over by a cluster of others. He had a fresh red welt running down his cheek into his beard. Will dropped down beside Rass and she leaned against him. Sini tried to focus on the little grass elf, who looked meatier than the last time Sini had seen her. Her bare legs and arms, though scratched, looked strong. Her face was full, but dark shadows hung beneath her eyes and her shoulders slumped.
Alaric gestured to a withered tree shoot next to him. “It took a tree, but I fed three. Maybe two and a half before the last one went to Sini.” He turned his palms up to show blisters matching Will’s. “I believe that left thirty-nine for Sini.”
“Only thirty-eight and a half,” Will pointed out. “Let’s not give her more credit than she deserves. Would you like to show us your hands, Keeper Sini?”
With the ends of the power just at the edge of her mind, the title almost fit, and the dry look she intended to fix him with curled into a smile. She had felt the light the way Chesavia had. One of the greatest Keepers of all time, one whose skills most Keepers struggled to understand—Sini understood her perfectly.
She unwrapped one hand from the little elf nestled against her and held it up. It still stung a little, and when she spread her fingers apart a thin arc of pink shot between them, but there were no blisters. Aside from the place on her wrist the first elf had touched, her skin wasn’t even red.
“Are you part elf?” Rass asked.
The idea was so ludicrous Sini let out a laugh. “If you’d met my parents, you wouldn’t ask that.”
“Have you come up with any way to heal blisters?” Will gingerly stretched his fingers “oh great Keeper?”
“A wound is simply closed. A burn needs all new skin over a wide area…” Sini grimaced. “Burns are tricky.”
He sighed. “That’s what I thought.”
An elf pulled on Will’s leg and he picked up the little bluish creature. It snuggled against him and gave a sleepy yawn. “Emotional little things, aren’t they?” He sat down on the ground and two others climbed onto his lap.
“Every day, all day.” Douglon sat with an exhausted groan. “They’re never reasonable. They’re either giddy with happiness, screaming with fury, or sleeping. There’s no middle ground. And here I thought grown elves were moody.”
Rass threw a pinecone at him that bounced off his shoulder.
“At least now we know what they needed.” Alaric sat swarmed by his own group of baby elves. They climbed onto him like a handful of sparkling jewels.
Sini shook off the last of her thoughts of the light. The elves’ skin was each tinged a different color, their hair a darker version of the same. They uniformly had short hair that shot out in every direction, some in straight spikes, some in curls. There was a marked difference between the males and females. The faces of the little girls were long and lithe. The little boys were rounder, their bodies broader.
“Isn’t vitalle what they should be getting from the trees?” Sini asked, shifting the now sleeping copper elf into a more comfortable position on her lap. “You get your energy from the grass, right Rass?”
Rass nodded. “We’ve been trying to get them to connect to the trees, but they don’t seem to know how.”
“And we can’t show them how to do such an absurd thing.” Douglon growled at two of the elf boys who were attempting to climb up his legs, but gently moved them onto his lap. One reached up, wrapped his fingers around a braid in Douglon’s beard and gave a sharp yank. Douglon swore and swatted the hand away, then offered the elf his finger to hold instead. “Why can’t you just eat mutton?” He asked the yellowish creature in his lap. The little boy smiled up at him and closed his eyes. “I don’t know how to get anything from the trees either,” Rass admitted. “They’re not like the grass. I can feel how strong the trees are. But I can’t get to them.”
“We could show them,” Alaric offered. “Or at least we could try.”
“Unless Sini wants to stay here as a magical nursemaid for forty-six elves,” Will said with a grin. Three elves were tangled together on his lap, another climbing up his back.
“That sounds exhausting.” Sini glanced over the crowd of elves around them. They were all thin, their elbows and knees bony. The little copper girl in her arms had been born six days ago and hadn’t really eaten? No wonder they’d been angry.
“It’s brighter,” Roan said, peering into the edge of the forest.
It was brighter. Sunlight filtered through under the nearest trees, landing on bright green ferns and reflecting a verdant glow onto the trunks. The leaves rustled with an utterly normal sort of sound. The whole feel of the forest had changed.
“Maybe the elves weren’t making the forest angry,” Sini said. “Maybe it was angry that they were hungry.”
“Well, whichever it is, this is the most peace we’ve had in days,” Rass said leaning on Will’s shoulder. “I’m so glad you all came.”
“We need some help of our own.” Roan looked at Douglon. “Her Majesty, Queen Saren, requests that you take us to Duncave.”
Douglon’s eyebrow rose. “Who are you again?”
“This is Roan of Greentree,” Alaric said. “He is Saren’s emissary to the dwarves, and he’s betrothed to the heir apparent.”
Douglon grunted. “My sympathies on being so close to the throne.”
“Don’t worry,” Sini said, “he’ll just be a royal ornament.” She gestured to his clothing. “A colorless, sober, level-headed ornament.”
“Unless Queen Saren’s court is a lot different than Horgoth’s in Duncave,” Douglon said, “you’re not going to fit in at all,”
Roan squinted at the two of them as though trying to decide whether they were serious. “Her Majesty tells me that you are of royal dwarven blood.”
“I’ve been trying to change it out for useful blood my whole life, but so far, I haven’t had much luck.” He turned to Alaric. “Can you believe Horgoth still hasn’t had any children?”
“These sorts of things can take time.”
“Horgoth’s just wasting time, like he does on everything. A council meeting that could take less time than a quick snack takes all evening. Designing a blasted throne room could be done with some snapped off commands, yet work has come to a halt over the last few years due to his indecision. I’m sure it’s the same with the heirs.”
“We have pressing matters to speak to the High Dwarf about,” Roan broke back in. “Please escort us to the nearest entrance to Duncave. We can leave immediately.”
“First,”—Douglon grinned—“you don’t want me taking you to Horgoth. If you want him to listen to you, you should deny knowing me. Second, we can’t leave immediately. Shall we just leave Rass with forty-six elves that may turn back into vicious monsters at any moment?”
“The elves are not my concern,” Roan said stiffly. “The others can stay and help her. I am tasked with speaking to the High Dwarf, and I intend to do so.”
“Without a guide into Duncave?” Douglon asked. “Good luck, ornament.”
“We all need to get to Duncave.” Alaric untangled a sleeping elf from his lap and set it gently on the ground. “Saren wanted to know—”
Douglon held up his hand for Alaric to stop. “I don’t want to know. Every time someone tells me about a problem somewhere, I get roped into trying to fix it. I have forty-six of my own problems right here.”
“That’s fair,” Alaric said. “I assume there is an entrance to Duncave nearby we c
ould use?”
“No, there’s not. The dwarves have never been inclined to visit the Greenwood. The nearest entrance is a hard day’s ride and I’m not leaving Rass here alone.”
Roan pressed his lips into a thin, disapproving line, but didn’t press the issue.
The little copper elf in Sini’s lap shifted and grasped Sini’s arm with her hand. Vitalle began to flow into the elf again. Not as fast as before, but fast enough to heat up Sini’s skin.
“Not so fast, little one.” Sini stood up. The little elf fit snugly in Sini’s arms and barely weighed anything.
“That’s Avina,” Douglon said, disengaging little fingers from his beard again. “The others listen to her.”
“A little queen?” Sini carried her over to the nearest tree. When she pulled Avina’s fingers off her wrist the elf’s face darkened and she drew back her lips to show thin tips of teeth sliding out of her gums. “It’s all right. You don’t really want vitalle from me.”
She set Avina’s copper palm on the bark. Then, pressing her own hand to the back of it, Sini began to draw vitalle out of the trunk. It stung her palm but around their fingers a faint green glow appeared. Avina’s eyebrows shot up and she snapped her attention to the tree. Some of the energy slid into Sini’s hand, but she let most of it flow into the little elf.
Avina reached her other hand toward the trunk and Sini pulled her own hand off. A faint green light glowed from between the elf’s fingers.
Avina chittered at the others, smacking the tree trunk and wriggling down from Sini’s grasp. She grabbed a nearby pinkish elf by the hair and tugged at it until it woke up. The pink one snarled, but seeing Avina, settled back into a scowl. Avina grabbed the pink hand of the elf and set it against the tree, placing her own over it, they way Sini had before.
The greenish glow, very faint this time, appeared around their fingers.
“How do we know if it’s working?” Will asked from behind Sini.
Sini glanced back at him. “It’s working. There’s a green glow.”
Sini and Will stepped back as more elves roused themselves from the grass and came to the trees. The ones who had mastered feeding scampered from one tree to the next, pressing their palms into the trunks and chittering at each other.
Douglon heaved himself from the ground and stretched. “They haven't been this self-sufficient in days. Let's go eat before they all decide they need us again."
“Oh yes!” Rass jumped up. “We have a deer roasting! Douglon hunted it yesterday in the hopes that you’d be here soon.”
The thought of food pulled Sini’s attention away from the remaining elves, and she followed the others around the trees of the elder grove. Sini craned to see between the trunks of the Vigilants, the vicious trees guarding the center of the Elder Grove, but she couldn’t see anything.
She wanted to step into that place where they’d buried Ayda—where the sunfire had been so strong. Her skin ached to feel the power of it again, but a thrill of fear went through her at the thought. If she felt the sunfire again, could she resist it? Would she want to?
She skirted the Vigilants and it struck her that the new elves were much like those trees, hostile and ferocious toward the outside, but beautiful and happy with those they’d accepted.
On the far side of the Vigilants, a thin trail wound away into the forest. The sun was moving westward, and rays slanted through the tree branches like slashes of light, glowing against the trunks and ferns on the forest floor. From the swaying of the top branches it was clear the wind was still blowing strong, but Sini could feel only the slightest breeze. It was like a whole new forest.
They walked for several minutes before Douglon turned and held up his hand for them to stop. The trees ahead of them were enormous, their trunks wider than Sini’s outstretched arms.
“Ahead is the glade where the elves faced Mallon. It’s…unsettling.”
Beside him Rass nodded. “We buried the elves we could, but…”
Sini had heard the story from Alaric. At the height of Mallon the Rivor’s power, he had put pieces of himself into people all over Queensland. The elves had tried to take all of those pieces into themselves, and intended to throw them all off at the last moment by turning themselves into trees. Sending the pieces back into Mallon would have turned him mortal, but his power had been too strong. He kept the elves from turning. They’d been trapped, not fully elves, not fully trees. All controlled by the Rivor.
Until King Andolin had convinced the elves to give up their own lives and give all their will and power to Ayda so she could escape.
Douglon motioned for them to follow, and in a few heartbeats they spilled out into a wide glade that wasn’t really a glade. The tall trees of the forest ended in a huge clearing, but there were dozens and dozens of smaller trees, stunted and twisted. Sini stopped short. Not trees. Elves, trapped, half changed into trees, left in a grotesque hybrid state. The nearest tree was almost normal except for a tortured face formed into the wood, and branches that ended in clawed fingers. The one beyond it was more elf than tree. She’d toppled to her knees, her hair and arms spreading out into branches and twigs, but her body was still in the form of an elf. Her knees branched off into roots that dug into the earth. Her skin was pale and slack, but her branches held green, stunted leaves that fluttered in the breeze.
Sini set her fingers on the bark, casting out toward the tree, looking for some sense of the elven life. But all she found was a tree. Not a vibrant tree, either, just a weak, paltry thing.
There were so many of them. They grew in clumps or alone, displaying various types of bark and leaves. Some she recognized as oaks or maples, but others were foreign to her. Occasionally they looked perfectly tree-like, but more often they were a contorted amalgam of tree and elf. The ones with faces were the worst. Every expression of them was twisted in pain or fear.
Not all the elves had even begun to change into trees, though. Plenty had chosen to give up their lives while still in elf form. A mound of earth filled the center of the glade, so wide that Sini didn’t want to think about how many elves must be buried there. Grass grew over the barrow, except in the center where a young sapling grew.
The breeze shifted and Sini caught the scent of roasting meat from a fire pit. At the edge of the glade rose an enormous tree, its trunk wider than four of the other huge trees. Stairs spiraled up around it and the branches themselves formed walls and arched windows.
Below it a long, squat stone cottage puffed out smoke from its chimney.
“It’s been about twenty years since I was in this place for the crowning of Prince Elryn,” Alaric said, “but I don’t recall any cottages.”
“It’s unnatural to climb up into the trees all the time.” Douglon led the way into the cozy little house. “Besides, they needed more substantial lodgings around here.”
Inside was rustic and simple. Wood-framed chairs with seats of woven grass were quickly filled while Douglon and Rass piled food onto the table. It was a tight fit, with Sini and Rass sitting on upended crates because all the chairs were filled, but everything was delicious. Aside from the meat there was a tall pile of apples, some boiled potatoes, and baked pears. Sini sat between Douglon and Roan, serving herself a huge plate.
“We do need to get to Duncave,” Alaric said, once they were all eating. He explained to Douglon about Lukas and the gold mines, and their fears that he was using the wealth to buy armies from Coastal Baylon and Napon.
“Duncave doesn’t go far enough south for us to see into Gulfind,” Douglon said around a mouthful of meat.
“Could you take us to the tunnels tomorrow?” Alaric asked. “I need to see if Horgoth will work with us in any way. I’m afraid if Lukas unites Baylon and Napon, the armies might be too much for us.”
“Horgoth isn’t going to help you. He is against the dwarves getting involved in anything outside of Duncave. Especially a war. And I can’t take you anyway. I’ve been waiting four years for these elves to be born, an
d now that they’re here I’m not going to leave. Is Rass supposed to take care of them all by herself?”
“This is important,” Alaric pointed out, irritation bleeding into his tone.
“You know what’s important? Forty-six new elves were just taught how to eat. What else are they going to need? I’m not leaving Rass here alone to figure that out.” Douglon’s tone was final and he turned back to his meal.
After a moment of watching the dwarf with his lips pressed together, Alaric tuned back to the others. Douglon’s shoulders relaxed slightly when Alaric looked away.
“Do you miss Duncave?” Sini asked him, serving herself a second helping of pears.
Roan looked over at the dwarf with an interested face. “I’ve heard the walls sparkle with jewels.”
“Until we mine them out,” Douglon pushed the last bite of meat around his plate. “But yes, sometimes I miss it. I’ve gone back several times over the past few years. Only for a day or two at a time. I didn’t want to leave Rass here alone in case something crazy happened. I needn’t have worried, though. When the elves finally did get close to being born, it was a slow process. Those knobs grew out of the tree roots over the course of a month.” Douglon glanced out the window. “I do miss the quiet of Duncave sometimes, and the darkness. In the forest there’s always the sound of wind or birds”—a squeal of an elf cut through the late afternoon air—“and now that. And even at night there’s starlight or moonlight. If you go deep enough into the caves though…” His voice faded and he looked outside with an unfocused gaze.
Then he blinked and looked back at Sini. “But whenever I go back, they try to rope me into responsibilities. Horgoth’s become unbearable. He nags at me nonstop about helping him with the crown, making me into some sort of ambassador, coming with him to council meetings.” Douglon shook his head. “Don’t let them snare you into all of that, Roan. And you either, Sini. You Keepers are a little too close to the throne for my liking. Look at Alaric. The man never has any fun. Once I’m in Duncave for a day or two I can’t wait to leave.”
