Tears form in my eyes, but my cousin, Lent, shakes his head. “You must never show fear, never show doubt. After today, you hold the keys to the kingdom in your hand. You must learn to sweep your emotion under the rug and pretend it doesn’t exist. For you will be the living Court of the Elfin Kingdom. You are the throne. You are no longer a person, but an icon. You owe this to your mother.”
And I hear his words and obey. I know no other way. This was what I was born to do. This was what I must do. And so . . . I put aside my sorrow, and I tip my lips into a smile. I’m beautiful, and I’m brilliant. And I swear to my mother that I will become the shining star of the Elfin world, and never let my people slide into despair . . .
As I pulled back, I looked into Asteria’s eyes once more. And there, I could see her life laid out, road lines on the map of her face. She smiled, then, and reached up to remove her crown.
“Heavy is the head . . .” She softly dropped it to the bronze dais, and shook out her hair. “Shall we go then? I am ready. Let us take this life of mine and emblazon it on the pages of history.”
Still holding tight to her hands, I let out a slow breath and smiled. She was ready, and as much as I dreaded the next moment, I turned and walked her to the center of the dais. Where she was going, I could not follow—I was still alive, and the guardians of the Silver Falls would not allow me in. She stood in the center and began to let go of my hands. I caught my breath in my chest, not wanting to let go, wanting to hold on to her, to keep her here.
“You have to let go, Delilah. You have a life to live. There will be great challenges ahead. You must not let Shadow Wing and Telazhar win, and now—the seals . . . they are running free. You have to let me walk into the past, while you move forward.”
Crying in earnest, I felt her fingers slip away from mine. She began to fade, shimmering in a crystalline light that sparkled around her shoulders and head. It was so bright, it almost blinded me, but still I watched, unwilling to turn away, unwilling to let her go without proper witness.
Queen Asteria laughed, then, and she sounded free and easy and happy. And then as I watched, she faded away, her hair blowing in the astral wind, looking young again and strong. As the light paled, and went out like a candle, the forest let out a collective sigh, and fell into mourning.
A murder of crows rustled out of a nearby tree, their cries echoing in the night sky. As they went winging overhead, I reached up, as if to capture one in my hands. The scent of fire rose on the wind, as autumn fully took hold, and the season of death descended.
“How can we possibly win this battle?” I whispered.
And Hi’ran, still standing behind me, turned me around and gathered me in his arms. He pressed his lips against mine and kissed me, drinking me deep, drinking me down into the dark, carrying me into the depths of his season where skeletons danced and spirits sang, and the melancholy tombs gave up their dead for one night each year, to visit the living and remind them that all flesh is mortal, that all life comes with a price tag at the end, that all war claims its heroes.
I wept then, in his arms, and he loved me deep, laying me down on the dais, and parting my gown. He reached down, to stroke me with autumn’s sweet and dangerous touch, and everywhere I looked a shower of crisp leaves fell in a shower around us. I opened my legs, wanting him, hungry for his passion. We could not meet on the physical plane—there, Shade was my lover, and Hi’ran’s proxy, but here, Hi’ran could enter me, stroke me in fire, take away my pain with his pleasure. Here, we could fuck into the oblivion and freedom from pain that my heart sorely craved.
Into the night, we moved against one another, slowly at first, then furious in motion, until my sorrow was spent, and I was comfortably, peacefully, numb.
Chapter 12
“Wake up. Delilah, Camille—you have to get up.”
Trenyth’s voice echoed through my foggy brain. As I sat up, the memory of what had just happened washed over me and I realized that I knew something that neither Trenyth nor Camille did. Queen Asteria was dead. And I had guided her through the veil.
I sat up, yawning, more tired than I had been when I laid down. The question of whether I should say anything weighed heavily on my mind. If I told Trenyth, it would save him fruitless hours searching for her. Hours that he could put toward helping others. On the other hand, would he blame me for her death, even though it had been the attack that had caused it? And if he did, would he kill me? I was pretty sure he could take me out without blinking.
“Camille, can I talk to you for a minute?” I turned to Trenyth. “Let us take care of personal needs and then . . . well . . .”
“Fine, but hurry. You were out for three hours.” He nodded and we headed down the hall to the bathing chamber. At least it had a bathroom of sorts, and while we took turns, I told Camille what had happened.
She stared at her hands, soaping them in the chill water at the basin. “So, she’s dead. What the hell is that going to mean for Elqaneve? And . . . oh fuck . . . what about the spirit seals? Delilah, the Keraastar Knights! Where are they? You know Telazhar is aiming to find the seals and if the Knights were caught in the rubble . . . We don’t even know where Queen Asteria kept them hidden.”
I was shaking with both fear and weariness. The stress we were under had gone from meh to horrendous in the course of one evening. “I don’t know. I have no clue where she kept the Keraastar Knights cloistered. What the hell do we do?”
The Knights were formed by Queen Asteria, who had been protecting the spirit seals we’d managed to gather. Each knight was bound to a seal, and what she was planning, we did not know. One spirit seal we’d stumbled on was still unbound, and so it, too, was floating around. Until this moment, eight of the nine had come to light and we’d managed to keep hold of six of them.
Five of our friends had been conscripted into service—Venus the Moon Child, the Rainier Puma Pride’s former shaman, Benjamin Welter—a disturbed young man, Luke—Menolly’s former bartender, and his sister Amber, and Tom Lane, who was actually the Tam Lin from legend. He was a broken man, after so many thousands of years, but he still carried the spirit seal with honor.
“We’ve got to get word to Father and Tanaquar. They can help. But the way things are going, I don’t even know if there will be a city to save. The storm . . . Delilah, that storm is one of the most terrifying entities I’ve ever felt. Worse than Gulakah and he was a god.” She gave me a pale, strained look. Tears ran down her cheeks but they were silent, as if she didn’t even know they were being shed.
“Do you think I should tell Trenyth about Asteria? He loves her so much. How can I break his heart?” I hung my head.
“We have to. The pain will be there whether you tell him now, or whether he finds her body in the rubble. Best to prepare him, I think. And though he’ll be heartbroken, he’s professional enough to focus on the job at hand. Come on, let’s go.” She turned to the door and we headed back down the hall.
Trenyth was waiting in the hall for us, but before we could speak, he hustled us toward the storeroom. “Come on, we have to get out of here now. Save whatever it is for later. We have to move.”
We burst through the storeroom door that led to another chamber, which had a magically sealed door to the outside. Trenyth broke the seal with a single slam of the hand against the door and again, I wondered just how much power the advisor had hidden away. We had never really had the chance to see him in action, or to ask him what his specialties were.
When he opened the outer door, Camille and I clung together, not knowing what we’d be seeing. It was going on close to midnight. Surely the horrendous storm had to have broken. How long could it last? How long could the sorcerers keep fueling it? But a little voice inside whispered doubts. How many sorcerers are you talking about? A dozen? A hundred? Telazhar would not arrive with a short deck. No, this was all out war and so they’d be prepared. And they’d caught Elqaneve—and us—unprepared.
And now, Queen Asteria was dead.
We stepped out, and the storm was still raging. As far as we could see, the landscape was dotted with fires, raging in brilliant oranges and pinks and crimsons. Magical fire. Was this the Scorching Wars, all over again?
There were no buildings standing, save for the one we’d come out of, and that was only by the fact that it was hidden behind an illusionary barrier. But, as Camille and I looked around, the devastation began to sink in. The palace was in rubble. The outer buildings were so much wreckage, splintered beyond any hope of recognizing what they had been only hours before.
“We have to find your sister and friends, and the Queen.” Trenyth glanced at the sky. The churning clouds seemed to be thinning, but now they were streaking smaller bolts of lightning down to set off the tallest trees.
“Trenyth—stop!” I grabbed his arm. “Queen Asteria is dead. While I was asleep, I was summoned to Haseofon. I was . . . I had to . . .” I stopped, staring at him bleakly and, after a moment’s hesitation, blurted out. “I was assigned to escort her through the veil, in an honored manner, to her ancestors.”
He stared at me for a moment. Then, without a word, without showing a clue how he felt, he turned back to the palace. “We must focus on finding your sister and we absolutely have to find Sharah, if she’s alive. She’s the Queen’s niece. Technically, she’s an heir to the throne and who knows how many of them are alive? There were only two or three others in line before Sharah. And with the devastation this storm has wrought . . .” He trailed off.
But the thought was enough to send me into a tailspin. Sharah had mentioned this. She could end up being the next queen of Elqaneve. And what would that mean for her and Chase and their baby? If they still live, the voice of fear inside me said. If they made it out. And what about my love, Shade? While I had little doubt he could survive, there was also Trillian. So many factors. So many chances for death.
“Let’s go. We’ll have to chance the storm, but it seems to have let up some.” Camille headed toward the palace, trying to avoid the pieces of debris that could cut her feet if she stepped wrong.
We ran through the darkness, past bodies charred by fire, hit by shrapnel. Everywhere, the screams of the injured rang out and my heart ached because there was nothing we could do for them. We ran through the hail of lightning bolts, the ravages of the magical thunder, skirting trees, skirting debris, skirting chunks of marble and stone that had been blasted when the palace went down. The sky lit the night brighter than the moon ever could, but even so, the storm was moving to the west, moving away.
By the time we reached the palace, the strikes were few and far between. I looked around nervously, wondering where the sorcerers actually were. Surely they weren’t around the corner. They had no need to put themselves directly in the line of fire—magic traveled across long distances. And why not send in the grunts first, to take care of those left standing? Which meant, chances were that before morning a contingent of mercenaries would show up on the outskirts of the Elfin city. They’d want to get in before Y’Elestrial or Dahnsburg could send help.
Camille shouted and leaned on my shoulder, raising her foot. She yanked out a sliver of glass and tossed it to the side. “I need shoes.”
I let out a long breath. “Yeah. Hold on.”
There were several corpses near us and I shivered as I approached them. This was so surreal that I barely knew what I was feeling. But one of them—a woman, who had been struck by a piece of granite, had feet near Camille’s size. And she was wearing a pair of leather moccasins. I quickly, silently, yanked them off her feet and without looking at the dead woman’s face, handed them to Camille. She said nothing, looking mutely at me. But she put them on and we continued on to the palace.
The steps were broken, but still accessible in some places. The tons of stone and alabaster, of metal and wood that sprawled before us were daunting. Smoke filled the air from the still-burning fires, and dust hung heavy, choking us as we neared the shattered palace. Up was down, front was back, and it was hard to remember where anything had been.
Trenyth led us on, as we approached the behemoth that had been Asteria’s pristine court. Camille was crying, but her tears were silent and slowly ran down her face as she shook her head.
Trenyth’s lips were pressed together, as he grimly assessed the area. After a moment, he pointed to the left. “That way.”
And we were off.
Making our way through the rubble was a nightmare. So many death traps, so many blockades. Here a body, there a body. A pile of what was once a royal statue, now ground to rubble and ash. Skirt a fire that burned brightly, showing no sign of stopping—and don’t look because the fuel may just be a pile of corpses. The scent of burning stone, the scent of burning flesh. The greasy feel to the air because so much soot was flying loose. A bonfire to rival all bonfires, a testament to destruction and death, to hatred and greed. And there, to the right, that had been the throne room . . .
Trenyth stopped suddenly, and looked to what appeared to be the shattered remnants of the throne room. It was buried under the rubble, under the fallen roof. If there had been anyone in there, they had to be dead. And Queen Asteria had been there, waiting for us. Her body was now entombed in a thousand tons of stone. After a moment, he turned back to our path and we moved onward.
“Here,” he said after a long while of edging around piles of debris. “I believe . . . this should be where we turned off to head down to the quarters containing the seers.”
We slowly approached what would have been the entrance, but now it was buried under a pile of stone and wood. And there was no way in.
“Fuck.” Camille stared at the barred entrance.
“I echo the sentiment.” I shook my head. “What now? What the hell do we do? How do we . . . I’m so lost here, I can’t even begin to see the light of day.”
Trenyth sucked in a deep breath. “I am going to tell the two of you what to do and I want you to obey me. Do you hear? I am acting head of Elqaneve for now.”
Both Camille and I mutely nodded. We knew when were in over our heads and Trenyth needed our cooperation. He’d been through battles before, and we—we’d never come close to experiencing something on this scale.
“You are going to return to Y’Elestrial and contact Tanaquar.” A cloud passed over his face.
“We can talk to our father while we’re there,” I said. “He’ll be able to help somehow.” Even as I said it, I knew how lame it sounded.
“Girls . . .” Trenyth shifted uncomfortably. “Your father . . . he . . .” He paused and we read the story on his face.
Don’t say it. Don’t say it. If you don’t say it, it’s not real.
Camille let out a little cry and her hand flew to her mouth as she turned to him. “He’s here. Isn’t he? He came to meet with us. He was waiting for us, wasn’t he? With Queen Asteria, in the throne room.”
Trenyth nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry.”
A sucker punch to the gut and we were down for the count. But the night had numbed me so hard, so far, that the shock of the news washed like water on a duck’s back, rolled over me and off again. Camille’s tears stopped and she stood there, mute.
I was the first to find my voice. “If Menolly and the others survived, surely they would think of heading to Y’Elestrial. And remember, Shade can transport through the Ionyc Sea. He could have . . .” I let the thought drift off.
“You’re right of course,” Camille said, her voice so soft it was barely a whisper. “We’d better get to the portals before the armies come in. Because you know they’ve got to have a force marching this way. Trenyth, come with us?”
He shook his head. “I cannot. I will find someone to take you to the portals, though. It’s likely to be dangerous on the roads.” At my pleading look, he rested a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Delilah, you know that I would go if I could, but I’m in command here. And the Keraastar Knights are scattered—if we don’t find them and get them away from here, Telazhar will have a damned good chanc
e of getting the rest of the spirit seals before the week is up.”
I nodded. “Yes. Yes . . . we’ll go now, then. Who can we take with us?”
“Wait here.” Trenyth hurried off, and Camille and I stood, hand in hand, mute. There was nothing much we could say. Within moments, he was back with a guard in hand. “Take them to the portals leading to Y’Elestrial and make certain they get through. Do you understand?”
The elf, his uniform torn and blackened from the soot, nodded. “With my life, Liege.”
“Good, because their lives may depend on yours. And if they die and you live, your life will be forfeit. They are that important.”
Not even looking fazed, the guard simply nodded and then, silently, he led us out of the palace, and we were off and away into the night.
* * *
The journey to the portals was devastating in itself. Elqaneve lay in ruins, the city ablaze with fires that burned too bright to be sparked from normal lightning. Everywhere, houses were razed, forest was burning, and people were dead or dying. Those who seemed unharmed sat in shock, or milled aimlessly. We passed through them, silent and without trying to help. There was nothing we could do. Nothing we could say. They did not stop us, nor try to speak.
And so we made our way to the Barrow Mounds, still no sign of invasion, but my intuition told me it would happen soon. The guards were at their posts, but they quickly told the one leading us that they had barred anyone from entering or leaving through the portals. I didn’t hear what he said to them—my mind was churning on overload, and Camille was just as quiet.
Within minutes, however, we were hustled toward the portal pointing to Y’Elestrial, and then we were in, and a whirlwind later, we emerged into our home city.
As we exited the portal, the soft glow of eye catchers surrounded us, and the silence and sense of peace was palpable. It washed over us like a wave, and before I could help it, I was weeping, on my knees, exhaustion and despair my cloak. The guards took one look at us and rushed to our side. Camille sucked in a deep breath as they gathered around us.
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