Esprë resisted the urge to prompt the changeling to continue. Instead, she watched Te’oma struggle for a moment against the tears filling in her eyes before they spilled hot and unimpeded down her cheeks again.
“My daughter is dead—and her body’s been destroyed.”
Esprë’s heart went out to the changeling despite her anger at her. The elf had lost many people in her young life, including Kandler just days ago. Her eyes blurred, and the tears she hadn’t let herself cry for so long came rushing out as if through a broken dam.
“How?” she said. “What happened?”
Te’oma looked as if she wanted nothing more than to throw her arms around Esprë’s neck and weep into the young elf’s bloodstained shirt. Instead, she collapsed atop the wheel again and wrapped her arms around its wooden span. Between sobs, she eked out an answer. “She—she did it.
“My employer.
“She destroyed her.”
Kandler couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed a sunrise so much. He hadn’t seen the sun for over a week, and the way it rose out of the tall, endless grasses of the Talenta Plains as he, Sallah, Burch, and Brendis rested on the Cyre River’s eastern shore made his heart feel lighter than it had in weeks. Rosy hues painted the distant wisps of clouds in glowing orange and pink, pushing the blackness of the western sky toward a deep and vibrant blue.
The justicar breathed in deep through his nose, smelling the damp, black earth that lay all around. His mouth watered as he caught the scent of the breakfast Burch cooked over an open fire the shifter had built out of the branches of a dead shrub he’d found on the river’s edge. He’d been at it for a while, and Kandler and the others had long since eaten their fill.
“Gotta cook it all,” Burch said. “Eat as much as you can. Outside the Mournland, meat killed there turns fast.”
Kandler rubbed his full stomach and waved the shifter off. “As soon as you’re done with that, we get moving.”
“Where are we going?” Sallah asked. Her tone told Kandler that she was trying not to anger him, and that annoyed him even more.
“After Esprë,” he said, daring her to ask the questions for which he had no good answers.
He should have known better than to dare a Knight of the Silver Flame. Still, Sallah hesitated for a moment, and Brendis stepped into the breach.
“On foot, we chase after a wounded airship we haven’t seen in days. We might as well search for poor Xalt at the bottom of the river.” The young knight stared into Kandler’s eyes, measuring the justicar’s reaction, ready to defend himself should Kandler lunge at him. “This is madness.”
Kandler spat into Burch’s fire. “We’re trying to save my daughter and maybe the whole of Khorvaire while we’re at it. I thought your child prophet gave you marching orders to bring Esprë in, to ‘save’ her from everyone else.”
“Watch your blasphemous tongue,” Brendis said. “As Knights of the Silver Flame, we do our duty as best we can in whatever way we see fit. The changeling has swept the girl off to only the Flame knows where. We have lost over half of our number since we left Flamekeep, including our glorious and honorable Sir Deothen. We have failed.”
The young knight shot a sidelong glace at Sallah, who bowed her head in momentary grief at the mention of her father. Kandler hadn’t known the man was Sallah’s sire until after Bastard had killed him. That spoke volumes about the kind of relationship the father and daughter had—distant at best—but the justicar knew that Sallah had loved him still. Despite that, she hadn’t stopped to grieve for him yet. There hadn’t been time.
“What would you like me to do?” Kandler said, offering Brendis an open hand. “Give up? Forget about my daughter?” He shook his head, anger and frustration burning in his eyes. “That’s not going to happen.”
“We should go back to Thrane,” Brendis said. “There we can consult with the Voice of the Flame. She may be able to divine the elf-maid’s location, and we can construct a new plan from there. We need information that only the light of the Flame can provide. Otherwise, we wander lost in the darkness.”
“Even on fast horses it would take more than a week to reach Thrane. We’d have to either go back through the Mournland or go around through Karrnath, and then we’d have to come back.” Kandler spoke through gritted teeth. “Esprë might be dead.”
Brendis looked up at Kandler with mournful eyes. “Likely she already is.”
Before Kandler even realized what he was doing, his fist lashed out and smashed into Brendis’s chin. The blow knocked the young knight back on his rump.
Kandler took one step toward Brendis but stopped dead as Sallah slipped between them. He glared past her at the young knight, who sat on the turf rubbing his bruised chin. Then he spun on his heel and stalked away toward the shore.
“Kid,” Burch said loud enough for the justicar to hear, “you’re just lucky he hit you before I could.”
Kandler sat steaming by the river, gazing out at the dead-gray mists that separated the Mournland from the living world. He was mad, not at Brendis but at himself. He’d let himself lose his temper, not because the young knight was out of line but because Kandler feared he was right.
The justicar held his head between his knees. It felt like it might burst at any moment. When he felt a soft hand on his shoulder, though, instead of pricking the veneer holding him together like an overfull wineskin, it deflated him. He kept his eyes locked straight ahead as Sallah knelt next to him and slipped one of her slender arms around his shoulders.
“You didn’t have to do that, you know,” she said softly.
Kandler stuck out his jaw as he bit back one bitter response after another.
“No,” Sallah said. “I mean, you didn’t have to worry about what Brendis said. He’s not the senior knight here. I am.”
Kandler kept staring into the mist. “What would you have me do?”
“Go after your daughter, of course,” Sallah said. “I may have only known you for a week, but it’s clear that there is no other path for you.”
Kandler hung his head. “I know,” he said, “trying to find Esprë at this point is a fool’s errand.” He looked up into Sallah’s emerald eyes, and her beauty stopped his tongue for a moment. He had to turn his head again before he could speak.
“If you and Brendis want to go back to Flamekeep for reinforcements or advice or whatever else, then go. I won’t try to stop you, but I’m going after her the best I can. Now.”
Sallah leaned against Kandler and gave him a squeeze. “Of course.”
“And you?” he asked.
“I will not leave your side until Esprë is safe,” she said into his ear.
Kandler turned his head. His lips hovered only an inch from hers. He could taste her breath on his tongue. She waited there for him, not moving forward, not pulling away. He could feel his heart pounding against his chest, and for a moment, the beat froze him like a chorus of drums in the darkest jungle.
Then he leaned toward her, and their lips met in a soft, supple kiss.
If anything, Kandler’s heart raced faster, but in delight rather than dread. They held the kiss for an eternal moment before parting again. He looked into her face, and her smile told him everything he wanted—needed—to know.
“Then,” he said, “everything will be all right.” He leaned in to taste her full, round lips again, but before they met, something came splashing up at them out of the river.
Kandler leaped to his feet, his blade already in his hand. Sallah stood beside him, her knife at the ready. In that instant, the way they reacted together, as one, as if they’d fought alongside each other in a thousand battles, felt as right as that sweet kiss that still lingered on Kandler’s lips.
“Something in the mist,” Burch whispered from behind the duo. Even without looking back, Kandler knew the shifter would be kneeling there to one side, his crossbow loaded and ready, hunting for prey for its hungry bolt. “In the river. There!”
Kandler
stared at the shape coalescing out of the swirling mists, a dark form that grew darker and more solid with every splashing step. The justicar felt the heat of Brendis’s blade approach as the young knight dashed up behind him. Even though he’d hit the man, Brendis still had his back, and the thought made Kandler smile.
“Hello!” the figure said in a familiar, metallic voice. “Hello! I hoped you hadn’t gone too far yet. I’ve been searching the shore for you.”
“Xalt?” Burch said, recognizing the warforged first. The shifter let out a little war whoop of delight.
“By the Flame,” Brendis said as Xalt trundled out of the water and into his friends’ embrace, “I had not dared hold out hope.”
Kandler grinned. “Oh ye of little faith,” he said.
Sallah slapped the justicar on the shoulder, a wide smile on her face. “You claim your faith is stronger than his?”
Kandler rubbed the top of the warforged’s head. “Not my faith. I knew Xalt would make it.”
“How?” Brendis asked the warforged. “When that boat sank, I thought for sure you would go down with it. Are you not too heavy to swim?”
Xalt nodded. “I did not try. Warforged do not need to breathe. I fill my lungs only so I can talk.”
“You sank to the bottom of the river and then …?” Brendis could not complete the thought on his own.
“I walked east until I found the shore. Once I did, I kept to the mists for fear of running into more of Ikar’s bandits, but I kept my ears open for your voices. It was only a matter of time until I found you—or so I hoped.”
“Lucky,” Burch said.
Kandler shook his head at the shifter. “Why do you think I let you take so damn long cooking that meat?”
Xalt put a hand on Kandler’s shoulder. “You have my thanks,” he said.
“For your bravery in dismantling Ikar’s ship,” Sallah said, “you have ours.”
You can’t leave me here,” Esprë said, “not bound like this. I can’t feel my arms.”
The changeling looked down at the young elf from the airship’s bridge. “I’m sorry about that. I truly am, but I can’t worry about that right now.”
Esprë sighed. “Honestly,” she said. “I can’t feel my arms at all anymore. I think they might fall off. I thought you were supposed to bring me to your employer in one piece.”
Te’oma glared down at the young elf. “Whatever made you think that?”
Esprë tried to shrug but only succeed in moving her chest up an inch. Her arms hung loosely from her bonds. “If you could take me in ‘dead or alive,’ I’m sure I’d be dead by now.”
Te’oma growled as she stormed off the bridge toward Esprë. “You’re not quite that annoying.” She stood over the girl and glared down at her. “Not quite. My employer isn’t as picky about your condition as you might think. She just wants you brought to her. If you’re dead, it’s just a bit more complicated is all.”
Esprë nodded. “I see, but can’t you at least tie me up someplace with my hands lower than this? It really hurts.”
“I thought you said you can’t feel anything.”
“What I can feel hurts really bad.”
The changeling looked down at Esprë, suspicion etched on her blank face in simple lines.
“Please?” Esprë did everything she could to look innocent, short of batting her eyes. She didn’t want to overdo it.
Te’oma snorted in annoyance. “Oh, all right,” she said, “but you have to promise to be good.”
Esprë flashed her sunniest smile. “You have my word.”
The changeling reached down with one hand and undid the knots that held Esprë’s arms fast to the ship’s rail. As the ropes came off, the young elf let her arms fall into her lap and breathed a grateful sigh.
“Thank you,” she said as she tried to rub some life into her limbs.
“Stand up,” Te’oma said. “Stretch your legs.”
As young as she was, Esprë’s joints creaked as she struggled to stand. Her arms had hurt so much she’d ignored how stiff her legs and back had become. She groaned as she stretched her arms up over her head and flexed to force the lethargy from her muscles.
She turned to look out over the railing to which she’d been attached. Grassy plains of amber stretched out before her as far as she could see. The mist-shrouded Mournland still lay off to the west, but she ignored it. There was nothing to see there, and she hoped never to enter the place again. Instead, she stared out toward the distant horizon, watching the wind thrum through the plain, ruffling its surface like the waters of a vast, open sea.
“What’s that?” she asked, stabbing a finger toward a dark block squatting on the horizon.
“Karrnath,” Te’oma said. The changeling stood farther along the railing, out of arm’s reach. “That’s one of the forts they established to keep the halflings who roam these plains from invading their land.”
“Do they work?”
Te’oma chuckled. “Not as well as Karrnath would like. The halflings do not covet any lands but their own. If they wished, they could run right past the forts and strike deep into their neighboring lands before anyone would be able to stop them. The forts only serve to remind the halflings where their boundaries lie—the nomads are notorious for not caring about such things—and what penalties there might be for crossing them.”
Esprë shuddered as she remembered the vampires that kidnapped her had hailed from Karrnath. “Is that where you’re taking me?”
“No,” Te’oma said. “Our destination is much farther north and east of here. We have no business in Fort Bones.”
Esprë gave the changeling a sideways look. “Why would they call it something so horrible?”
“The soldiers there are mostly Karrnathi skeletons, savage undead creatures that follow their master’s orders to the letter and need no sustenance or sleep.”
Esprë shuddered again. “It sounds dreadful.”
“It’s not an inn,” the changeling said. “It’s not meant to be inviting.”
Esprë’s arms tingled as the blood rushed back into them. The feeling in her fingers started coming back. It stung now, but she knew it would soon pass. Now that she could move her arms again, she had to take matters into her own recovering hands.
She concentrated as hard as she could and felt the dragonmark on her back begin to burn. She had only seen the thing once in the mirror in her home in Mardakine, and the angle kept her from getting a good look at it. Still, the intricate pattern it weaved over her skin leaped into her mind as if she could see it on a page. She traced the edges of it with her thoughts and watched them leap from her skin with the dark red glow of dying embers. As she ran over them again and again, the edges started brightening, growing hotter and hotter, as if a bellows forced the latent fire back to life.
Esprë felt the power creep down from between her shoulders and along her arms like an army of fire ants marching along her skin. It crawled past her elbows and into her hands, where it pooled like a dammed river, pressing against the tips of her fingers, begging for permission to burst out.
She peered at Te’oma out of the corner of her eye. The changeling seemed lost in thought, as if the vast expanse of land that stretched out before them absorbed her whole.
Esprë rubbed her hands together. The heat from the friction forced away the tingling, but the invisible power still seemed to crackle between her fingers.
“No,” Te’oma said, her voice distant, “my employer’s home is far from here yet, across the frigid waters of the Bitter Sea. I’ve only been there once, but it is a nasty place suited only to the dead. You—” The changeling noticed Esprë staring at her now, holding her hands out in front of her.
“I’m sorry.” Esprë reached out toward her captor with her right hand.
“No,” Te’oma said, trying to move away, “wait.”
Before the last word left the changeling’s lips, the palm of Esprë’s hand landed on her thin, pale cheek. She had more to say,
but the words froze in her throat.
With a tender caress from Esprë’s hand, Te’oma’s body locked up as if every joint froze at once, a sort of instant rigor mortis. The young elf felt the power within her dive into the changeling’s skin, devouring her life force and leaving nothing in its wake. The pressure in her hands, her arms, her back flooded from her, whom it could not hurt, and left Te’oma struggling near death.
The changeling held her awkward pose for a moment, her face frozen in surprise and terror. Then she collapsed to the deck in a heap, every muscle in her gone limp.
The airship started to pitch immediately, but Esprë reached out and grabbed the wheel with one hand. As she did, she stared down at the changeling for a moment, watching a line of saliva drool out of her mouth and onto the deck. She’d expected something more terrifying, screams perhaps, but this silent sloughing off this mortal coil disturbed her even more. To have it be so easy, as if she’d simply and kindly put an end to a suffering creature’s every trouble—that scared her.
She wanted to do it again. That scared her even more.
Esprë reached down with her free hand and rearranged Te’oma’s body into a more restful pose, straightening her head and limbs and folding her hands across her chest. The changeling looked like she was just sleeping, although Esprë knew it would be a rest from which she would never awaken.
The young elf wondered when the tears would come. Perhaps the shock of using her dragonmark willfully for the first time had killed her emotions, or maybe she really was a cold-hearted killer who felt nothing for those she murdered.
Esprë rested her hands on the airship’s wheel and felt the mind of the craft’s elemental there, anxious and ready to strike out in a new direction, but where?
Esprë considered going back to Mardakine, but there was nothing for her there. Perhaps she would try Sharn instead, which lay even farther on the other side of the Mournland. She wondered if the airship could take her back to Aerenal, the eternal homeland of the elves. She hadn’t been there since shortly after her birth. She wondered if her grandparents would recognize her, much less take her in.
The Road to Death: The Lost Mark, Book 2 Page 8
