The elf closest to me was doing the latter, and he didn’t even seem to see or hear us as the carving tool twirled in his hand and he added the finishing touches to a sinister mark which I knew all too well. The elves were marking the cantrips with the Family’s signature.
If ever I’d believed they were here voluntarily, that notion disappeared in a heartbeat.
“Hey.” I addressed the elf. “Excuse me?”
The elf didn’t look up. His face remained intently focused, his shoulders hunched in concentration. Dammit. The Family’s brainwashing was in evidence, but how deep it ran, I wasn’t entirely sure yet.
“Excuse me.” I raised my voice a little. “Who hired you? Who brought you here?”
The elf continued to carve the cantrip’s smooth golden surface, his movements graceful yet somehow robotic. A glance at his neighbour brought a similar impression. The Family. They had their claws in everyone inside the warehouse.
“They aren’t here,” I went on. “You can talk to me. Who gave you orders?”
“I’m not supposed to answer questions,” he said. “I can’t.”
Ah. Compulsion. Adair had been the one responsible, then. I glimpsed Miles standing by the door, watching with a horrified expression on his face.
The elf picked up another blank cantrip. His hands were trembling with fear, or exhaustion, and I knew I couldn’t turn my back until I got through to him.
“We’ve come to get you out of here,” I said.
“No!” His voice rose higher, yet the others still didn’t look up. “You can’t.”
“Hey.” I put on a soothing tone. “It’s okay. Nobody is going to hurt you. I’ll get you out.”
“You can’t.” He shook his head violently. “We’re under a spell. We can’t leave.”
“Was it a woman who told you not to leave?” I said.
“No.”
Not Lex this time, then. As I’d thought. “Adair mind-controlled you, right? Did you know his orders have a time limit on them?”
His grip on the cantrip faltered. “What do you mean?”
“I can’t give an exact time frame, but his mind-controlling ability only works for an hour, or so, and then resets when you next make eye contact with him,” I said. “How often does he come here to give you instructions?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe once or twice a day. We’re not allowed outside, so I’m not sure.”
“That’s not often enough to keep you under his spell while he’s not here,” I said. “Trust me. I’ve worked around those limits before.”
If I had to guess, Adair kept the elves captive by fear more than compulsion, which made more sense than the Family constantly keeping a close watch on them. Scumbags.
Miles stepped forward and addressed the elf. “What’s your name?”
“Belgi,” he said.
“I’m Miles,” he said. “And this is Bria.”
“We’re here to help you in any way we can,” I added. “Try to step away from the table. Put the cantrip down. You’ll be fine.”
“We can’t leave,” he insisted. “Not as long as his words bind us.”
“What exactly did he tell you do?” I asked.
“To stay here until he came back,” he said. “We’re given specific times when we’re allowed to eat, sleep or use the bathroom, but otherwise we’re here around the clock.”
“There aren’t even clocks out here,” I muttered under my breath. “Okay. I’m trying to think of a way to get around his orders. What would happen if someone took away your tools?”
“We’d get them back. Or find new ones. If none were available, we’d have to carve the cantrips with our bare hands.”
Damn. Adair wasn’t that smart, but he was following Lex and Roth’s lead, and they thought of everything. Or so it seemed, anyway.
“When did he last come in?” asked Miles.
“I don’t know,” he said. “This morning.”
That meant the odds were high that he’d be back tonight, but not yet. If we wanted to get everyone out, we’d need to act fast, but not without somewhere to take everyone.
“Where did you come from?” I asked. “Arcadia?”
“No,” said another male elf, who’d evidently begun to listen in on our conversation. “Our town is at the top of the hill across from here. He fetched everyone who could work and brought us all here.”
My heart missed a beat. “You’re all elves?”
“Yes,” said Belgi. “Why?”
“Did…” I paused. “Did he mention he was looking for elven artefacts?”
“How did you know?” Belgi looked up from his carving at last, his piercing green eyes shining with desperation.
“Because that’s what led us here,” I said. “I know the Family are collecting the Akriths, and I think that’s why they’re targeting elves. Did he find anything in your town?”
“No. We lost all of our artefacts a long time ago.”
He didn’t seem surprised to hear such a question from me, but he averted his gaze and turned back to his carving. Was he telling the truth? I wouldn’t blame him if he wasn’t, considering he had no reason whatsoever to trust me with the knowledge of his people’s artefacts… but if the Family had coaxed any information out of him, they were one step closer to their goal.
I reached for my pendant. “Look at me.”
Then I turned off the cantrip, exposing my face. A dozen gasps rang out, while the elf in front of me stared openly. “You’re… you’re one of them?”
He sounded more fearful than surprised. Not the reaction I’d hoped for. “The Family? They’d like to think so, but no, I’m not. I’m working against them, and I’m here to set you free.”
“And… him?” He indicated Miles, his gaze fearful.
“Miles is a Spirit Agent,” I said. “He’s also working against the Family. We aren’t here to trick you, we’re here to make sure the Family doesn’t get hold of any more Akriths. If we can set everyone here free in the process, we’ll gladly do so.”
His mouth parted. “You know of their hunt for the Akriths?”
“I do,” I said. “They’ve been sending people to Arcadia’s markets to hunt them down. They even have another elf helping them, if you can believe it.”
“Him.” He gave a shudder. “He betrayed us. He gave away our location to them in order to save his own life.”
Murmurs rose among the others, while Miles and I exchanged stunned glances. This was the last place I’d expected to learn anything of the elven trader who’d worked for the Family, but it made sense. It also explained how Trix hadn’t known the elf’s identity, if he belonged to a community which existed out here in the middle of nowhere.
“Do you… do you think there’s a chance the Family might actually be able to pull off their plan?” I asked. “To get into the elves’ realm, I mean?”
“No,” Belgi said firmly. “Not a chance.”
“They won’t make it,” Belgi said.
“How do you know?” Wariness hit me when I saw the sheer number of others listening in, but all semblance of keeping our plan quiet had vanished when we’d burst in here. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he said. “Most of the Akriths currently circulating in the Parallel are fakes.”
“Seriously?” I said. “I… I’ve only seen one of them, but it didn’t look like a fake to me.”
More whispers rose up among the elves, several of whom had stepped away from the table and abandoned their tools to listen to us instead.
Belgi’s eyes widened. “You have one with you?”
“Not with me,” I said. “But I can show it to you, if you agree to come with me.”
He shook his head. “The others… I can’t leave them here.”
I moved closer to Miles and whispered, “We’ve got to get them all out. If Adair comes back, who knows what he’ll do when he finds out we’ve been here?”
“Yeah, slight problem,” said Miles. “We’re in th
e middle of nowhere, and I don’t think we’re gonna be able to hide an entire warehouse of elves on the Death King’s territory.”
“What about their town?” It didn’t sound like the Family had razed the place to the ground, but given their usual methods, I couldn’t count on it being in one piece. Addressing Belgi again, I asked, “Do you have somewhere in the area you can hide? How close are we to your home?”
“Close,” he said. “Our families… our children are still there. If we leave, they might suffer for our transgression.”
My throat went dry. “I don’t want to risk anyone getting hurt, but if managed to get my hands on a real Akrith, then the odds are high that the Family will have, too. That means they won’t need the warehouse any longer. Did you hear what they did to the people who worked in the last one?”
Fearful murmurs came from among the other elves, hushing almost at once when a voice came from outside. A distinct shout. “Hey! Who the fuck turned off my spell?”
Crap. It looked like a certain someone had discovered his camouflage spell had been turned off. Sure enough, a moment later, the warehouse door opened a fraction and Adair’s face appeared in the gap.
12
I didn’t stop to think. Flinging myself underneath the nearest table, I saw Miles vanish in the same instant, presumably due to an invisibility cantrip. If Adair spoke a single word of command to the elves, everyone in here would end up under his thrall again, but he hadn’t taken more than a step into the room before the clicking sound of a cantrip sounded and the whole warehouse was plunged into darkness.
Assuming Miles was responsible—Adair needed eye contact to use his power and Miles had been quicker on the uptake than I had—I wriggled out from underneath the table in time for an invisible Miles to catch my arm. “Was that you?”
“Darkness cantrip,” he breathed in my ear. “Won’t last.”
“Can you get everyone out the back door if I distract him?” I whispered.
“Sure.”
“Who the hell is trespassing in here?” Adair bellowed.
Silently thanking him for leading me to his location, I ran alongside the table and put on a burst of speed before tackling Adair head-on. The element of surprise was on my side, and his legs gave way, carrying both of us through the open door. Cold air battered at our faces, while the darkness of the warehouse was replaced by an overcast sky.
“You again?” He shoved me off him. “How the hell did you find this place?”
I rolled to my feet. “If you put a giant wyrm inside a tunnel beneath a dodgy cantrip seller’s store, I’m gonna assume it leads somewhere important.”
Adair scowled. “You’re too late. We won’t need the warehouses for much longer anyway.”
“And why’s that?” If he planned to demolish the place, I’d see to it that he wouldn’t get the chance to hurt anyone inside.
A smile curled his lip. “Because we have the means of getting to the elves, of course.”
Shit. I did my best to keep my expression blank, but I couldn’t confidently say that I believed every word Belgi had said. What if one of the Family’s Akriths didn’t turn out to be a fake? If I’d found a real Akrith, then perhaps they had, too. Whatever the case, I was out of ideas as to how to divert his attention from the warehouse while Miles helped the elves escape.
I faced Adair. “What are you waiting for, then?”
“Huh?” he said. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You heard me,” I went on. “If you’re ready to ask the elves to join your cause, then why delay? Or are you scared they won’t listen to you after all?”
A scowl appeared on his face. “I’m not scared of the elves.”
“Then why are you avoiding them?” My wildly improvised plan might backfire in my face, but Adair seemed to have entirely forgotten the warehouse in favour of glowering at me. If I kept pushing, he might snap, but the more time I gave Miles to help the elves sneak out of the warehouse, the better. “You won’t get very far if you spend all your time terrorising people in a warehouse instead.”
His jaw tightened. “You dare to accuse me of being a coward, when you’ve spent the last few weeks hiding in the Death King’s castle?”
“You wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to live in a fancy castle if you were in my place, trust me.” I supressed the impulse to check to see if any of the elves had made it out of the warehouse. They were far more vulnerable to Adair’s magic than I was, and I wouldn’t be able to protect all of them at the same time. If they didn’t get away as fast as possible, they’d end up far worse off than they’d been in that warehouse. “I think you’re bluffing. You don’t have a way to reach the elves at all. Our adoptive parents helped see to that.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said. “If you don’t believe me, I can show you.”
“Really?” He couldn’t be telling the truth. Even if he did have a genuine Akrith with real power in it, I couldn’t see how he could have possibly figured out how to use it. Besides, didn’t he need a living tree in order to access its potential? I’d thought they all died.
“Yes, really.” He snagged my arm and yanked me forward.
“Hey!” I squirmed, but his grip was hard as iron. He kept tugging, pulling me uphill, around the warehouse and up the cliffside at the back. Or rather, what had once been a cliffside. The illusion covering the warehouse had also masked a giant hole which had been blasted into the side of the cliff, revealing a large monolith within. The tower-like shape’s snow-white colour stood out against its bleak surroundings, while I couldn’t figure out what it resembled. Tall and thick, its arms stretched out in all directions, like…
Not arms. Branches. Bleached-white branches from a trunk made of stone. I never would have taken it for a tree from a distance, but up close, the shape was unmistakeable.
Adair’s mouth curled in a smirk. “Turns out the elves were hiding one of their trees after all. It’s dormant, but I know how to wake it up. Had to ask one of the elves first, but one of them was pretty talkative once I got him to tell me why he’d failed to bring us the Akrith from the market.”
Nausea rose. “I knew the elf trader was working for you. What did you do to force him to betray his people?”
I doubted Adair had given him much of a choice. Sure enough, his smirk deepened. “His people owe him their lives. I’d have killed them much quicker if he hadn’t agreed to help me. Anyway, I’m guessing you weren’t foolish enough to bring the Akrith with you. Were you?”
When I didn’t respond, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a gleaming stone. The same bleached-white colour as the tree, its surface glittered, and I didn’t need to touch it to know it was as real as the one I’d held myself. Shit.
“Would Lex and Roth be happy if you ran off alone?” Damn, I’d thought he’d been bluffing.
“They don’t have to know.” He stepped towards the tree, the stone lighting up in his hand. “I can’t wait to see what the elves’ all-powerful Elders think when they meet their new masters.”
“You’re deluded.” I made a wild lunge for the stone, but he used one hand to restrain me, while the other pressed the glowing stone against the tree.
Brightness split the sky like a lightning bolt—or rather, a node. The blinding light made me screw up my eyes, and when I opened them a fraction, I found myself floating, my arm still firmly in Adair’s grip. I’d have pulled away from him, except the ground was no longer beneath my feet and nothing seemed to be around us except for the tree, and the blazing light.
Then the light dimmed, revealing a path the colour of chalk or snow. It felt solid enough for me to step away from Adair, yanking my arm out of his, and I found myself looking uphill into a forest of bone-white trees.
This wasn’t the Parallel. Certainly not a part of it I’d ever set foot in before, anyway. I’d never seen so many trees in one place, but they weren’t anything like the ones on Earth. Every one of them was the same bone-white colour as the
tree which had brought us here, while their sheer size indicated they were ancient, as though we’d stepped back in time to a world which had existed since long before our own.
Adair strode up to my side, staring at the path ahead as though unsure about what he was supposed to do next. “Anyone out there?”
“I thought you had a plan.” I gave him a hard stare. “Go on. Prove you aren’t a coward and lead the way into the creepy forest.”
For the first time since we were kids, he looked uncertain, almost confused. But he wasn’t about to let his sister bully him into submission, so he walked uphill, his hunched figure looking surprisingly small beneath the towering trees.
Silence shrouded us as I walked close behind him until the path opened up into a clearing edged with yet more of those strange, white-branched trees. I looked around, realising for the first time what unnerved me so much. Silence smothered the whole forest, while the trees’ branches didn’t sway in the breeze. Not a single leaf adorned them, as though they were frozen in time, and the silence…
“Is anyone out there?” Adair said.
A faint rustling sounded, raising the small hairs on my arms. Then three tall slender figures appeared, walking through the trees into the clearing. Elves. They couldn’t be mistaken for anything else. With their pointed features, dark hair and light brown skin, they might have been related to one another… or to me. Their graceful movements reminded me of Trix, but they wore clothing made of something tough that resembled leather, their weapons hewn from branches rather than metal.
They spoke. For the first few seconds, their voices blurred to a dull hum, and then the words began to filter through the part of my brain not frozen with shock.
The first elf, a male wearing dark green armour who looked no older than me, stepped forward and said, “Have you come to claim sanctuary?”
The words were clear to my hearing, but not English. They were speaking the language of the elves: a language that Adair and I had both been taught as children, but I’d never expected to have to use in reality. Even the elves rarely spoke it these days—or rather, in the Parallel they didn’t. Here, though, it seemed to have survived.
Tower of Fire (Parallel Magic Book 3) Page 11
