Of Liars and Thieves

by Gabriela Lavarello

  “How was your bath?” she asked, smiling.

  “It was adequate,” Finriel answered smoothly.

  She slid her gaze toward Lorian to find him staring at her, his eyes clouded with emotion. She gulped and quickly looked away, anger and curiosity mixing unpleasantly in her stomach.

  “Did you take the old woman’s vial?” Finriel asked Tedric, and the commander’s brown eyes narrowed upon her.

  “Yes. It would have been rude to refuse her gift,” Tedric replied.

  Finriel rolled her eyes. “I don’t think it would have been rude, considering the fact that we saved their village.”

  “I’m not so sure that we did,” Lorian interjected, and everyone looked at him curiously. “Naret said that shadows caused the fire,” he explained, stepping toward them, though consciously moving away from Finriel, she noticed.

  “It would be hard to see the brownies if it happened during the night,” Aeden reasoned, but Lorian shook his head.

  “The brownies were loud, if you remember. If it happened quickly and silently as she said, then I’m not so sure.”

  “It’s getting too late to discuss these matters here,” Tedric said, glancing toward the lowering sun. “We have the brownies secured, so the villagers are safe if it was the beasts’ doing.”

  “But what if it wasn’t?” Krete asked, and the clearing fell silent.

  “There’s no way of knowing for sure,” Tedric said after a moment. “But we’ve done all we can.”

  “What’s our next move?” Finriel asked, the conversation beginning to introduce a headache behind her eyes.

  “We’ll head into Farrador now,” Tedric said. “I don’t know if we will be able to capture and collect the rakshasa before nightfall, but even if we do not, it will be good to get as far as we can into elven territory.”

  “Why is that?” Finriel asked. She had a lot of experience with elves, and found herself dreading the thought of stepping across the shimmering kingdom boundary not so far away.

  “Aeden and I both think that it is probably best to get through this part of the journey as quickly as possible.”

  When Finriel’s look of confusion did not change, Krete stepped forward and added to Tedric’s vague response, “Elves are quite regal and territorial creatures, and therefore do not like other breeds coming into their kingdom unannounced.”

  Finriel raised a brow and looked to Lorian. “Trust me, I know.”

  Lorian pressed his lips together and took a step forward, ignoring Finriel’s snide comment. “You’re right,” he began. “We would be better off trying to get as far away from the castle before we even think about finding the rakshasa.”

  “Unless the rakshasa finds us first, in that case, we don’t have much of a choice in where we meet it,” Finriel muttered.

  “I hope that I’m not interrupting this wonderful contemplation of our future, but we’re going to run out of daylight soon and I would like to get to Farrador before nightfall,” Krete interjected, and gave both Lorian and Finriel a pointed look.

  Finriel’s brow raised in surprise. “Did you just say something haughty?”

  Krete gave her a mischievous smile in return and shrugged. “It’s not too late for me to learn how to jibber and jabber like you witty folk.”

  Lorian laughed and shook his head as they began to move toward the shimmering kingdom border.

  “Oh, Krete, I think I’m finally beginning to like you.”

  13

  Finriel

  “I don’t know why I agreed to return to this dreadful place,” Lorian grumbled under his breath, and Finriel looked over to find a rare scowl skewing his features.

  They were walking side by side through a small forest on their seventh day in Farrador, and Finriel’s feet ached with each step they took. She didn’t answer Lorian, and it appeared as if none of their other companions had heard him. Finriel knew of his past in the elf kingdom, or at least the part before and during the time they had shared together in Notharis. She shook her head, dousing the question about what had happened to his mother before it reached her lips. A loud susurrus of wings sent Finriel’s attention skyward, and she could just make out a large cloud of movement soaring above the tree line.

  “That’s strange,” Tedric commented, voicing Finriel’s thoughts.

  “What is?” Aeden asked, her gaze following his toward the flock of small baby blue birds that passed overhead.

  “Fisherbirds,” Tedric replied. “I’ve never seen them fly outside of Keadora.”

  “I haven’t, either,” Finriel agreed.

  Lorian shrugged. “Perhaps they decided on a change of scenery, though I’m not quite sure why they would choose to come here.”

  “They’re headed west, back toward Keadora,” Tedric said, and Finriel nodded and shrugged.

  “They’re birds, they’ll fly where they wish.”

  “Perhaps they’ll take a shit on the Red King upon their return to Keadora,” Lorian snorted, and Finriel could almost feel Tedric’s fury burning her back.

  “He is the one who will take the bounty from your head,” Tedric growled. “I would be careful where you place your words.”

  Lorian chuckled. “I can thank the man for saving me, but it doesn’t mean that I need to dote on him like a dog.”

  “Enough,” Aeden interjected. “We don’t need to bring attention to ourselves just because of your bickering.”

  Lorian snorted. “And who are you to speak? I would rather kiss the Red King’s boots than your precious King Sorren’s.”

  Finriel slowed her pace, allowing for Tedric, Krete, and Aeden to pass her and take the conversation over. She was not one to take to politics, or to openly discuss her opinions. Her hatred for the Red King ran too deep for words, and she’d wished every day to blast him to bits for taking away her mother.

  “I am not claiming my king to be a saint,” Aeden spat. Finriel watched Aeden’s confident walk grow stiff next to Lorian, though she still gave the appearance of walking upon a cloud with her fairy grace.

  “Aeden,” Krete reprimanded, looking up at his friend with concern in his stormy eyes.

  “What?” she snapped, surprising Finriel. “Anyone with half a mind and some good education can see how stupid his laws are. He’s selfish and puts his own desires before the people.”

  “I trust your opinion on his ruling more than anyone else here,” Lorian replied with an easy smile, “but I think all rules are a bit stupid.”

  “We’re doing no good by speaking of kings and laws that cannot be changed right now,” Krete interjected. “We should be trying to understand what happened to that poor village in Proveria.”

  Finriel sighed, and greeted Nora with a scratch behind the ear as she appeared from a group of bushes ahead and came to walk by her master’s side. “We have no better understanding of what happened,” she said, “and we’ve been over it many times. There is no other explanation than the brownies. The violence began at the same time that the storyteller released the beasts.”

  “It simply doesn’t make sense.” Krete shook his head. “Why would he bring such destruction to innocent people?”

  “Most storytellers that I’ve met are mad,” Lorian replied simply. “Though I would bargain half of the gold in my pocket that he was hired for the job.”

  “You have no gold in your pockets,” Tedric countered, and Lorian tilted his head to wink at the commander.

  “I just might have.”

  “You stole from the old woman,” Finriel said in more of a statement than a question, and Lorian glanced at her from behind his shoulder.

  “She gave Tedric a gift, so I took a gift of my own,” he said with a shrug.

  “I wonder why I like you sometimes,” Tedric muttered, and Krete shook his head at the thief disapprovingly.

  Silence followed, and Finriel let it wash away her worries. She brought her attention to their surroundings, the trees with massive gnarled and twisted branches and their slowly fall
ing leaves. A lone rabbit hopped across their path, and Nora’s attention narrowed upon it. The mogwa was off in a split second and she disappeared behind the rabbit into a patch of shrubs with a loud crash. The air smelled of nothing at all, or perhaps only of a bit of dust. It had been the thing that unnerved Finriel most of all upon arriving in Farrador as a child. Nothing but food and flesh gave off any scent in the kingdom, not even a blooming flower.

  “Toss me an apple, would you?” Lorian asked Tedric. “I’ve got to do something so as not to bore myself to death with the silence.”

  Indeed, the silence was complete, with not even the whisper of a breeze, though the fall air was still pleasantly cool against Finriel’s skin. The crunch of Lorian’s teeth in the apple sang in tandem with a dead leaf crumbling underneath Finriel’s boot, and she looked down at the browning grass at their feet. It was easy to feel lonely in this silent kingdom.

  A long while passed, and Finriel came to walk at Lorian’s left, with Krete still at his right. Aeden and Tedric walked a few paces behind them, conversing in hushed tones. The sky was beginning to change its color when Finriel decided to check the map for their next beast.

  “We won’t reach the rakshasa today,” Finriel said as she inspected the map.

  “How far away is it?” Lorian asked, peering over Finriel’s shoulder.

  She shied away from his warmth and rolled the map up quickly, throwing him a dirty look before answering, “Too far away to get to it today, at least not unless we want to try grappling it into the page after the moon has set and we’re shrouded in darkness.”

  “We’ll just have to stop and rest for the night before—” Aeden didn’t get to finish her sentence before the sound of male voices made her go quiet and everyone stiffen. She raised a hand for the companions to stop, and they did. Finriel strained her ears to listen, and soon enough she heard the voices once more. The soft thump of footsteps walking through the forest belonged to three men, and they were headed in their direction.

  “Elven scouts. We need to hide,” Aeden hissed.

  Finriel looked up at one of the trees, eyeing the gnarled trunk and wide branches. They were certainly wide and sturdy enough for someone to climb, and large enough for the five of them and the mogwa to fit upon. She hissed at the others and gestured up to the tree, not daring to speak as the voices drew near. Nora bounded through the shrubs and came back toward Finriel, and she stifled a cry of gratitude at her return.

  Aeden nodded at the others and started toward the tree, but Krete crossed his arms and shook his head adamantly. Aeden stopped and turned to look at him, her expression one of urgency and desperation.

  “Krete, we need to climb that tree,” she whispered pleadingly.

  He shook his head again. “I hate open heights. Gnomes were not built for scurrying up trees, we were built for burrowing inside of mountains.”

  Finriel rolled her eyes and strode forward, making to grab his arms. The voices of the elven scouts were almost so close that she could discern the conversation without reaching out with her extended hearing. She couldn’t help herself, however, and let her hearing out enough to listen as one of the scouts spoke.

  “Did you hear of the Red King’s quest? I doubt those fools even made it outside of Keadora before one of the beasts killed them.”

  “Do you really think the beasts are that dangerous?” another scout asked in reply.

  “Are you really that daft?” the first scout scoffed. “If what that pretty girl in the pub said was true about the demon, we should all be sleeping with one eye open at night.”

  The hair on her arms rose, and Finriel glanced at Tedric to make sure he wasn’t listening to the conversation. She noticed that any mention of his precious Red King sent the commander in a spin, and now was not the time for that. But she found that Tedric wasn’t listening at all, instead he was helping Aeden half-drag, half-carry a very unhappy and stiff Krete toward the tree.

  “Go,” Lorian whispered from behind, his voice urgent.

  Finriel jumped and turned to him in surprise, finding his usually jovial features shrouded with worry.

  “Please,” he urged. “I’m not going to lose you to an elf again.”

  He brushed a hand against her shoulder, gently urging her toward the tree. Finriel gaped at him a moment longer, too surprised at what he had just said to move or retort. Lorian gave her another nod, and Finriel started toward the tree, gesturing for Nora to come with her. Nora bounded past Finriel and leaped up with ease, her giant claws digging into the trunk.

  Aeden had reached the top and was now pulling up Krete, who was slightly green and shaking heavily as Tedric helped him up. The voices were getting closer, and Finriel hastily grabbed at a large knot in the trunk and made her way upward. She peered down and watched Lorian striding to the tree, looking over his shoulder as he neared. She bit down a pang of worry and paused, peering down at him.

  “Lorian,” Finriel whispered as she watched him feel his way for a good handhold.

  She was able to see faint figures coming toward them now. There was no time to think about the fear that gripped at her stomach as she watched him slip from his handhold, scrambling and cursing as he fought to climb the tree.

  Finriel also cursed and then turned to scramble all the way up to safety. She was now high up enough to see the branches curved out and upward in a cocoon around them. They were larger than she had thought, and the trunk of the tree was so large that it created a sort of platform that Tedric, Aeden, and Nora were seated upon, waiting for them. She looked around briefly before her eyes landed on Krete, who was huddled at the base of a thick branch.

  Aeden ushered Finriel to come forward, her expression a mask of determination as she looked down between the large branches and leaves to watch Lorian’s slow ascent. Finriel heaved herself up onto the top of the tree and then turned on her belly so that she looked down over the ledge.

  Lorian had only made it three quarters of the way up, still cursing and grunting softly as he forced himself closer to safety. The shapes of the elven scouts were now discernible. They all had shortly cropped hair, their short pointed ears giving away what they were at once. They wore simple dark green pants and brown leather coats, most likely to help them blend in with the woods. They each carried a long bow made of white wood strapped to their backs, along with swords all of a similar fashion sheathed at their belts.

  They’re coming too close, Finriel thought. She looked down and cursed under her breath. Lorian was now in arm’s reach, but he was climbing too slow. If she could just …

  His arm slipped and Finriel gasped. Without thinking, she lunged her hand, her magic, anything, down toward him to keep him from falling. Finriel’s hand clasped his wrist. She grunted with the sudden weight of him and felt herself slip forward.

  A strong hand wrapped around her ankle and began to drag her backward, pulling both Lorian and Finriel back up the tree. Finriel looked down into Lorian’s icy blue eyes. They were stark with fear as he looked back up at her. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. Fear and worry for him gnawed at her stomach with a surprising strength that Finriel hadn’t thought she still felt for him. As Tedric pulled them up the rest of the way, Lorian scrambled his legs around to get a foothold and helped push his way up to their small hiding place.

  Finriel fell onto her back with a relieved sigh when they were all safely on the tree, both her and Lorian panting from the stress and strain of holding onto one another. Finriel broke his gaze to look down right as the scouts walked directly underneath them. She held her breath as she watched them, not daring to even move a muscle. Everyone seemed to do the same thing, and they watched and waited as the scouts continued silently underneath them.

  “I’ve got to stop a moment, keep going without me,” one of the scouts walking slightly behind the other two called. The scouts nodded to him and continued to walk. The elven scout looked around, and then down at the trampled ground below the tree. He shrugged and continued to ta
ke a step forward, when something caught Finriel’s eye, causing her stomach to lurch. Tedric’s satchel was hanging at the very edge of the trunk, just out of Finriel’s grip. She moved to grab it, but it was too late. The satchel fell, landing with a thump directly in front of the scout’s feet. Finriel felt like she might vomit as she watched the scout bend down and pick up the satchel, examining it closely.

  The elf looked up, his gaze meeting Finriel’s. Her heart stopped. The elven scout was handsome and almost familiar, his angular features still somehow soft with the magic of immortality. His dark blue almond-shaped eyes widened in surprise as he saw her, and then his gaze traveled to Lorian, who was lying next to Finriel, watching the scout with an expression of paralyzed horror.

  When the elf’s eyes landed on Lorian, his eyes widened, not only from surprise. He seemed to know the thief somehow. Finriel supposed she knew less about Lorian than she had thought. Lorian’s body was taut at her side as he looked down upon the elf.

  “Odonir, are you coming or have you stopped to smell the flowers once again?”

  The elf’s attention snapped toward the sniggering voice of what Finriel assumed was one of the other scouts and his face hardened.

  “I’ll be there in a moment, there are just some new tracks that I’ve found.”

  The elf looked back up at them, and to Finriel’s utter astonishment, nodded in silent acknowledgement and then threw the small satchel up in the air toward them. Lorian reached out a hand and caught it without a noise. As if he had never even looked up and seen them at all, the elf straightened his back and began to walk calmly toward the other scouts.

  Finriel let out a breath of relief and let her head fall. Lorian scrambled into a sitting position and moved to one of the enormous branches. Finriel brought her head up once more and pushed herself up so that she was facing her companions.

  “That was incredibly close,” Tedric sighed as he nervously ran a hand through his straw-colored hair.

  Finriel shook her head and glared at Tedric in frustration. “Why did you drop the bag so close to the edge of the trunk?” Finriel snapped, then turned to Krete. “And you. You couldn’t have been so scared of being in a goddamned tree to almost compromise this quest.”