“ ‘Foolish child! You’ll catch cold!’ ” he imitated with a hoarse falsetto. Indeed, his nanny had chased him around the courtyard with the cloak until his father had come to scold him. “You know, she was able to convince my mother that I still needed a nanny for another year after that,” he intimated, “considering my recklessness.”
“Not a lifetime?” she joked, and Brennan nudged her.
She stiffened, realizing what he’d done. He could be very charming when he wanted to be.
“Thank you. I needed that.”
“I like to see you happy.” Brennan had made her laugh countless times as a child, but after their falling out, she had never expected him to do so again.
Despite her aching pupils, she wanted to see his face.
“Damn.” He paused, going very still. “We’re being followed.”
Staring at her hands, she heaved a sigh. It had been too much to hope for a clean exit. Perhaps the guard hadn’t known he was helping a murderer escape. “How many?”
“I count no more than a dozen.” He hesitated. “Gazgan is a two-day trip by camel. On horses, they’ll catch us.”
Then their pursuers would catch up with them sooner or later. She and Brennan could wait for them to close in, stop and fight, or hold out for more advantageous conditions. “At nightfall, we’ll ambush them.”
Brennan shook his head vehemently. “We will do nothing. At nightfall, you continue on with the camels, and I’ll ambush them.”
“Brennan—”
“You can’t fight in your condition.”
Her condition. Ill. Empty. Childless.
No, lacking anima… Her anima did regenerate on its own, albeit slowly.
“You can’t stop me.” She eyed him in challenge, despite the pain of the sunlight. “There’s no way I’m letting you fight a dozen men while I run and hide,” she said, unflinching beneath his hard gaze. “I know my limits.”
“Stubborn woman,” he growled, amber eyed, too much of the Wolf clawing through to the surface. His camel bucked but didn’t throw him.
Before Sonbahar, before House Hazael, she’d been a stubborn, formidable woman. She could be herself again.
With a decisive swallow, she ignored her tingling fingers and toes. Battle awaited.
Chapter 34
Leigh healed a gash in an elven warrior’s arm, mouthing the incantation while his eyes traced Ambriel checking on the other patients. The dark-elves had attacked without warning and penetrated Vervewood’s defenses easily. And without mages, Vervewood had no wards, no advance notice—even their scouts had been picked off before they could sound the alarm.
When would it end? How? The dark-elves lived below ground, behind obscured entrances and beneath layers of arcanir-infused rock. Nothing short of full-scale war or natural disaster would defeat them.
He moved on to the next patient, another young woman, with a crushed pelvis. Such senseless violence. Shaking his head, he crouched and healed her, too.
Would a race who attacked without cause, both warriors and civilians, accept peace? Would they bind themselves to terms?
Ambriel stood over the dead—nearly a dozen shrouded bodies—with his hands on his hips, a grim line chiseled over his brow. The celestial voices of the tree-singers carried on the wind, and far behind Ambriel’s stoic silhouette, the ironwood canopy grew dense, boughs spreading and rising, weaving into a labyrinthine lattice. Greening. A wishing wreath to keep safe all within.
Leigh sighed.
The young woman clutched his arm and smiled warmly, despite the blood in her hair and the lingering trails of tears from her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered, in barely discernible Old Emaurrian. “Thank you… for… saving us.”
Softness bloomed in her soft oak eyes. He smiled, gave her an encouraging nod, and rose. The makeshift infirmary housed perhaps two dozen wounded, who now rested in recovery. If he hadn’t been here… How many more would there be? His gaze shifted to the shrouds. And how many more dead?
Saving us.
A peaceful people. They didn’t deserve this.
“May we speak?” Ambriel approached, lips pursed.
Leigh nodded and followed him out from under the shaded makeshift infirmary and toward a grown spiral staircase up a thick old oak. Near the top, a hollow awaited, and Ambriel entered, unstrapping his weapons belt, unfastening his armor. His quarters?
Leigh brushed a palm over the smooth wood of the walls, glancing over the softly glowing Gaze crystals strung from slender twigs. The floor beneath his feet rustled, gave way—a plaited wickerwork rug, pliant and warm. The splash of water came from the other end of the hollow, where Ambriel washed his hands and face over a vessel. He lingered over the water’s surface, watching.
“So much suffering,” he whispered, his voice a deadened monotone. “Now you know why we need your help.”
He and his elven host had been remiss to mention a war when they’d arrived in Trèstellan.
Leigh rested his back against the wall. “Not just food and clothes.”
The silence claimed the space between them. Ambriel’s broad shoulders slumped as he gripped the edge of the table before him. “Not just food and clothes.”
Leigh sighed. “You know Emaurria is already engaged in conflicts with countless Immortals… and international relations are… not looking bright.”
Jon was a capable warrior and a perseverant man, but his game with those suitresses couldn’t last much longer. And then, bereft of allies, Emaurria would face threats from the sea and land on its own—unless he succumbed and married into an alliance. Taking on another war to gain a weakened ally was poor strategy.
Ambriel pinned him with an unwavering gaze. “That’s why you mustn’t tell your king about the dark-elves.”
Leigh quirked an eyebrow. “You want me to let the people of this kingdom blindly enter a war?” He sighed, and Ambriel lowered his gaze. “Sympathy is a line, not a circle.”
Ambriel moved to a chair and motioned to another opposite from him. “It wouldn’t be as detrimental as you think.”
Leigh sat, but didn’t relax.
“Your king is Earthbound. He has immense power, but he doesn’t know it yet. He wouldn’t even know how to use its full strength, but we could show him. We could teach him.”
“And how will that help?” Leigh crossed his arms.
“The dark-elves could not withstand the wrath of the land itself.”
“How? The arcanir—”
Ambriel shook his head. “It’s not magic, dreshan. He is one with the land. It is nature, pure and raw. He is its will.”
Even so, Jon had been no mage before the Earthbinding, and becoming the will of the land after would not come easily to a man accustomed to power in the form of a blade. “If he’s so powerful, why keep the dark-elves a secret? Surely you can convince him?”
Ambriel’s eyes hooded. “Would he believe us? Humans do not trust easily—”
“Should we?” Leigh tilted his head. “You want to lie to him, to the entire kingdom. Do you think that inspires trust?”
“No, but—”
“And what about me? Were you planning on telling me about the dark-elves?”
“Eventually.”
Leigh narrowed his eyes until Ambriel sighed and held up his hands.
“No.” He slumped back in his chair, leaning his head against it and staring up at the Gaze crystals. The soft glow cast a silvery light on his alabaster face, starlight on white marble. “What if he or his advisers refuse to help?”
Leigh brought his chair closer, dragging it noisily along the floor. Golden eyes fixed on him.
“I want to help.”
Ambriel glanced away, then his brows drew together. “A wild mage…”
Leigh nodded.
“But your kingdom—”
“Surely the dark-elves attack humans, too.”
Ambriel shook his head. “They attack and raid anyone with supplies, but they want the Gaze crystal.�
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“Why?”
Ambriel’s eyes widened. “Surely you’ve noticed most of our people are women?”
Leigh huffed under his breath. Indeed, the vast majority of the elves were women—their warriors, and most everyone else. But presented with the fine view of the captain before him, his thoughts hadn’t lingered on the gender distribution of their population. “Why?”
Ambriel shrugged. “It was before my time, but it is said that when we began conquering peaceful civilizations, our gods forsook us. Cursed our people to obscurity.” His fingers tugged the towel from the table, a soft white fabric. “Do you know what this is?”
“A towel?” Leigh answered flatly.
Ambriel chuckled softly. “No… It’s linen and cotton woven together.”
Leigh sighed. “And…?”
Dancing eyes met his. “They used to be pure linen, but our weavers changed them. These… They’re more resilient. Stronger for the blend.”
Leigh frowned. “Is that the obscurity you speak of?”
With a nod, Ambriel rose. “Our gods wished for our race—the elves—to fade into humanity. Become one, lose ourselves, our essence, to become stronger together. More resilient.”
Clearly, that hadn’t happened. “What went wrong?”
Ambriel folded the towel and set it back on the table. “Our queens didn’t wish us to disappear. Our society changed. Each man was required to sire a son. Women became our warriors.”
“But you’re—”
Ambriel scoffed, and a wry smile claimed his face. He clasped his hands behind his back and looked out at the night sky. “I’m the queen’s failure of a brother, who loves men.” He glanced at Leigh airily, his smile set in place, then looked back out.
“Is that unusual here?”
Ambriel exhaled lengthily. “No. But I cannot life-bond until I sire a son. And I’ve sired thirteen daughters.”
Leigh’s jaw dropped. Thirteen daughters? Thirteen children? He gaped about the hollow. Where—?
“We’re a long-lived race.” Ambriel’s grin broadened. “My sister has long since life-bonded them to other royals among the light-elves.”
There were other light-elf settlements than Vervewood?
And Ambriel had adult, married daughters? He appeared no older than his thirties. “Just how old are you?”
Ambriel’s lips twitched. “Before the Sundering, I was beginning my three-hundred-and-twenty-second year.”
“Three hundred and twenty-two?”
Ambriel nodded.
And how many years had passed since the Sundering? Leigh shivered.
“But I digress.” Ambriel moved to a console bearing a water carafe and cups. He poured two. “All elves are subject to the gods’ forsaking, even the dark-elves, especially the dark-elves. We each have an abundance of women among our kind, but the dark-elves can hardly even conceive children. Even before the Sundering, they were fading.”
Was it really the gods’ forsaking? But what else could it be?
“But they, too, rejected the gods’ will. Instead of venturing out into the human world to blend, they have decided our Gaze crystal grants us good fortune, and that their race will be saved if they kill us and take it for themselves.” Ambriel handed him a cup.
“Would it?”
“Of course not. We, like all light-elves, found the heart of life in the forest and settled there. Removing the Gaze crystal would destroy Vervewood, and it wouldn’t save them. But they won’t listen.”
“So, for them… It is a matter of survival. They won’t stop.” Leigh accepted the cup, his touch lingering on Ambriel’s fingers.
“No, they won’t. And we don’t wish to be raided to extinction.” He crouched next to the chair, covering Leigh’s hand on the armrest with his own. “So you see why it is imperative your king agree to help us.”
Lying to Jon and leading the Emaurrian people blindly into war was out of the question, but that wasn’t the only option. “What do you have that Emaurria wants?”
Ambriel shrugged. “We can hunt the Immortal beasts—”
“Because you know more about them than we do.”
Ambriel’s eyes widened. “Knowledge?”
“You know what the Earthbinding can achieve, and how to accomplish the Sundering. How to make a dragon mage. All that knowledge has been closed to us, lost to us. But you have it.”
Ambriel shook his head. “If your king wanted to know these things, we are not the only source.”
“The only source to extend the hand of peace.” Leigh took a drink.
Ambriel squeezed his hand. “You didn’t have to tell me this, but you did.”
It was a statement, but a question nevertheless hid within: why?
He returned the empty cup to Ambriel. “Our alliance will be mutually beneficial. I want to see it… consummated.”
Ambriel smiled, the illumination of the Gaze crystals catching on his blond lashes. He rose. “As do I, dreshan. As do I.”
Jon remained in his chair, staring into the hearth, his room dark but for the flames.
Two days had passed. Or four. With the constant snow, day and night didn’t matter.
The snowfall continued, having never stopped since it started days ago. A tray of food sat next to him, untouched. His valet had laid out clothes, unworn. Jon stayed in his tunic and braies, robed, the blanket from his vast bed wrapped around his shoulders. Faithkeeper lay on a nearby table, sheathed for days.
The cycle had become his new state of being. Pain ripped through him at night, and the emptiness that came with dawn left him hollow during the day. Inside, silence echoed from silence, a void reclaimed by pain come nightfall.
Letting it in… This is what came of letting it in.
He rose and laid another log upon the fire. It could have gone out. It should have. But when he watched the fire, it didn’t hurt as much.
It felt like her.
The sight of her back as she’d left the Lunar Chamber… It was the last memory he had of her. The last time he’d ever see her.
Gods—Terra, her pantheon, the Divine, the Dead Gods, any who listened—a devout Terran should not have prayed to them all, but he had, for any of them to bring her back. Any of them.
He curled his fingers into a fist. Never. He never should have left her side. He should have followed her to the dungeon, to the ship—wherever she had gone after the Lunar Chamber. The moment she’d gone missing, he should have left to search for her, and never relented.
But he’d ignored her. The woman he’d had the audacity to say he loved.
And now she was dead.
He drank his wine—he’d lost count of how many cups he’d had. It was always one less than he needed. The sharp edges of pain, grief, anger, frustration—wine blunted them, blurred them. No wonder everyone outside the Order had always partaken. And what did it matter if it took a day off his life, a week, a month?
He glanced out the window, at the heavy snow falling, and watched it awhile. His land lay buried beneath the weeping cold, with no end in sight.
Unfit to rule.
Derric’s earnest instruction to recover for the sake of his kingdom meant nothing. Land, titles, gold, jewels, power, status—it was worthless, all of it, worthless. It could buy not another second of life for her. Not a moment. When he couldn’t keep the woman he loved safe, what hope was there for an entire kingdom? He’d lived his entire life for others, had asked for nothing, ever, had hoped for nothing for himself.
Until her.
And now she was gone.
The wine did nothing to numb him.
Faint voices came from the hall. He’d commanded his guards not to allow even a single visitor to enter, lest they wanted to spar with him again. They had their orders.
But he listened anyway.
“Your Majesty,” one of his guards called. “Constable Marcel and Lord Chancellor Olivier demand an audience.”
Brave of him. Jon sipped his wine. But few men could tur
n away a warrior of Tor’s caliber and the former Proctor of the Emaurrian Tower of Magic.
“Send them in,” Jon called back, staring into the fire.
Tor’s sure gait and Pons’s sweeping steps filed into the bedchamber. Tor dragged a chair from the desk and set it between Jon and the hearth. With a harsh exhalation, Jon scowled at him, but Tor’s hard expression didn’t waver, his hazel eyes fixed. Determined as always. While Jon stared Tor down, Pons folded his large frame into the other armchair, his full head of gray hair looking unusually frazzled. The space beneath Tor’s eyes had darkened.
“How is Your Majesty feeling?” Pons asked carefully.
Jon looked away from his former paladin-master to Pons and took another sip of wine. “Why do you demand an audience?”
“We have received word from Ambassador Galvan. Nearly everything is in order for the elven alliance vow.” Pons straightened in his chair and gave a good-natured nod. Usually cautious in his speech, today he seemed even more so.
“They’ll sign a pact to side with Emaurria against the Immortals and any other threat to this land,” Tor added.
Which the light-elves would like to continue inhabiting. It was common sense. If ever there were a time to oust them, now—while they were weak and ill equipped—would be advantageous. But if they were content within their forest and prepared to follow Emaurrian law outside of it, then he would hardly turn away an ally. “And what do you need from me?”
Pons and Tor exchanged a look.
“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You need something.”
“There’s something else… The light-elves, along with other Immortal races and beasts, had their souls severed from their bodies in the last Sundering,” Pons said. “It’s what petrified them. They know how this was achieved—the blood of every Immortal race was collected and used in a ritual by humans. It seems that the original ritualists betrayed them.”
Jon raised his eyebrows and drank deeply of his wine. It was gracious of the light-elves not to seek revenge, but they were in no condition to, regardless.
“They believe this treaty will be mutually beneficial, but… considering the humans’ betrayal last time, they require your personal assurance that it will not happen again—that you will be faithful to one another—and then a treaty signed with Queen Narenian.” Pons clasped his hands.
By Dark Deeds (Blade and Rose Book 2) Page 35
