His emerald eyes darted to the bejeweled throne glinting in the morning rays.
It was mercifully unoccupied.
Sellemar exhaled heavily in relief. Yet again he was fortunate that Ilsevel was late. How Sel’ari watched over him. He kissed his thumb where the band of a blue phoenix adorned it and dropped his hand back to his side.
“El’adorium,” Fildor’s scoff instantly assaulted his ears.
“Testing Lady Luck, aren’t you?” Cahsari sneered, his eyes twitching in delight as he watched Sellemar hurry up the steps beside the throne. “Too high a position to bother with showing up on the hour,” he continued in a pitch that made even the birds outside the windowsills grimace and take flight. “And in. That. State. Of. Garb. It’s as if Ilsevel appointed you as dutiful payment for her rescue or some charity as such. I don’t believe we’ve had a pauper amongst us before.”
Sellemar felt his jaw tense at the conceit. Gods, if he knew who he was talking to…! His feet dragged to a stop beside the steps of the Helven’s desk. ‘Do not do it. It is childish. Do not do it,’ he fought to subdue his irritation, but to no avail. He pivoted, elevating his chin as he stepped lightly before Cahsari’s desk. The front was emblazoned with the sigil of a mountain twisted in smoke—or probably, more accurately, tendrils of necromancy. Yet this male reflected nothing of the Helvarian fierceness and independence. He was a groveling, wretched waste of breath even Malranus would have been above shitting out.
And that was quite generous.
“Cahsari,” he smiled pleasantly. “You are most certainly correct. Please, teach me from your years of wisdom. Surely no man is wiser.”
Cahsari narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “What do you want?” he demanded, cautiously puckering his lips.
“My friends,” Mikanum began, waving his pale hand about as though he were clearing the air. “Let us not fall to inane fights and lofty banter.” The over-animation of his hand only continued, and Sellemar could hear him carrying on about duty and patience.
But Sellemar focused solidly on the Helven before him. “I speak with all gravity, Cahsari. I—oh, you have something flecked beneath your eye… there. Yes, there.”
Cahsari reached a long finger below his eye, brushing his hand across it swiftly. “I don’t know—”
“No,” Sellemar replied flatly. “Let me.”
He reached out.
And flicked him in the eye.
Itirel would have certainly rebuked him for such a childish response and he could almost envision Sairel hanging his head in shame… But it had been so satisfying.
His fingers curled into a fist. Of course, he could think of something even more satisfying…
Mikanum gasped, his zealous hand falling limp in disbelief. “Her Majesty could be here at any moment, El’adorium!”
Cahsari ignored the room’s excited murmurs at the growing conflict and stood with such force that his chair was tipped over onto the floor behind, rattling the windows with its clattering echo. He clenched one hand over his injured eye and thrust the other at Sellemar accusingly. “How dare you, you impertinent swine!”
Sellemar straightened, shrugging the words off like water on an oiled sack, and let his fingers unfurl at his side. Mikanum’s words had reached him, even over his temptation to strike far more effectively. “Whether or not my appointment was dutiful payment for the queen’s rescue, Cahsari, I am the El’adorium. I did not see you risking life and limb for her. But certainly you are a male whose fighting talents are only bested by your bravery.” He looked at him challengingly, willing him to attempt to strike so he could lay his vulture-like body across the marble floors.
“The queen!” Mikanum hissed. “Stop your bickering this instant!”
Sellemar ignored the Darivalian’s cries for pacification and leaned forward, pressing his hands onto the smooth surface of the Helvarian desk. He could see Cahsari recoil, a nervous flicker twitching across his lips. “But a male of your high standing would certainly not subject me to such defeat and subsequent embarrassment here before the highest officials of their respective races. I shall remember my place as simply the savior of the queen. A male who only rescued her from within Saebellus’ army at the fortress of Horiembrig. Donned, I must add, in garb fit only for the privacy of a pauper’s hovel.”
The door to the chambers swung open abruptly and Sellemar swiftly straightened. He turned from Cahsari with a thin-lipped smile, fully aware that the male was shaken. He would be dense not to be.
Away on his left, he could see Ilsevel glance sidelong at them as she strode to her throne, and Sellemar made swift amends with a gracious bow. He took his seat at the chair of the blue phoenix. Still, even after such a perilous rebuke, Cahsari dared to pass him a scowl.
Ilsevel cleared her throat as she sat, fingers curling about the phoenix hanging near her breasts. “May the goddess smile upon us this morning,” she greeted in her sickeningly sweet tone. She inhaled deeply and looked up to the ceiling in a manner fitting of religious respect.
Directly below her gaze, the grout of the tiles was still stained with Valdor’s blood, as though she had deliberately refrained from having the servants scrub it clean.
Sellemar fixed his expression in solemnity, averting his eyes from hers as she scrutinized the room. He had avoided the path through the market square that morning, but he was fully aware of the rumors of a lingering stench. A stench emitted by three bloated, headless corpses rotting on pikes and festering with maggots.
Fearing for their lives, Valdor’s wife had endeavored to flee the capital with her child. Their attempt to leave was interpreted as complicity with Valdor’s treason and they were consequently beheaded and spiked onto the broken statue of their Noc’olarian god.
Sellemar shivered at the imagery.
But such senseless acts would be her downfall. In less than a week, Ilsevel had revealed the demons from the Phantom Isles and the slaughter of a child. She bled the life from her own reign and the Resistance would make certain the world did not look away.
Elvorium’s people would see what their compliance had wrought—there was no freedom from her tyranny but by their own hand.
*
Sellemar strolled down the long, narrow hallway below the earth, his mind too preoccupied with the council’s—Ilsevel’s—meeting to sniff and moan about the sad state of the immediate world around him. He would have usually noticed the particularly strong, sour odor of decay—a stench that permeated the hallway due to someone’s negligence to change the scented salts beside the lanterns. And he had never not observed the peeling green paint and moth-eaten rug, no matter how many times he returned to the secretive place.
But now… He slipped his hand into his pocket, resting it at his side where his latest letter was tucked safely away. His thoughts were not on Sairel or Ryekarayn or the headquarters of the Resistance through which he now strode, but Itirel. His letter of warning had not reached his friend in time: Ilsevel had confirmed that Galadorium had been conquered… and if Itirel had been present at the time of the attack…
‘He would never turn his back on his people.’
“You cannot change what has happened; you can only move forward,” he chastised himself. Danger was his profession. Whatever had happened to Itirel, he would find out with due time. Right now, he had his role to play if he was to save Sevrigel and his homeland; he could not leave Elvorium to selfishly seek his brother.
Tonight was yet another step to unraveling the hold of Saebellus and Ilsevel. And the most crucial piece yet.
Nemorium.
He rolled his shoulders and stepped firmly down the hall, determined to internalize his outward confidence. Truly, he was relieved to reach the last doorway. Relieved to have but one scrutinizing pair of eyes upon his barely masked countenance.
He pushed his weight against the stiff door, its weathered wood held snug by the building that had settled over it. But with a low grunt and a strong shove, the old entrance popped open
all the same.
He stepped into the room beyond, brushing the imagined mildew from where his shoulder had touched the dirty wood. Once again, to save Sevrigel, he found himself in the most pauperish of situations. Could the goddess never send him to rule a kingdom or, at least, to play comfortable nobility?
Blessed too much in his own life, in his own time, he had been.
“You could choose to knock every once in a while,” the male behind the desk muttered, though he did not avert his gaze from his work.
Sellemar sniffed incredulously at his tone, pushing the door closed with some effort, and strode forward. “Is that how you greet me now?” he jested.
The male behind the desk started, swiftly looking up. “Sellemar. I forgot we were meeting today. I thought it was that pigeon-faced Llendril again.” The elf reclined against the back of his chair in relief, though he was distracted briefly from continuing in order to straighten the parchment near his arm. “Gods, every hour he’s in here asking me how to do this or what to write for that or where to deliver the next package. It’s all I can do to not strangle him. You have no idea the idiots I suffer through every day.”
“I am on the council, Tilarus,” Sellemar replied simply.
Tilarus pointed the end of the quill in his hand toward his friend, grinning at the rare moment of shared humor Sellemar graced him with. “Have a seat. I don’t want you just running off the moment I give you the package. The world can wait a moment for us to talk.”
Sellemar would, of course, have liked to do just that. There were other matters on his mind, but… ‘I suppose there is nothing I can do about them at this time.’ Perhaps it would be good to settle his anxiety. Battles were better fought with a clear mind.
“Go on, sit,” Tilarus stressed.
Sellemar glanced about the small study. A few nearly empty bookcases. A tattered rug. There was a single cot at the back side of the room, adorned by a mattress plotted with enough holes to rival any of his mouse-plagued shirts. It was grey with dust and unused far before the underground levels of the temple had been surrendered to him and the Resistance. On the right side of the room, a fire crackled and belched smoke up into the chimney, and—there. Beside the fireplace was a chair that had fared far more favorably than the bed. Sellemar took hold of it, dragged it to the front of the desk, and dropped stiffly down.
He sank several inches shorter than Tilarus.
The male straightened the stack of parchment Sellemar’s movement had shifted. “Tell me, how did the council go this morning?”
Sellemar grimaced slightly, recalling his literal poke at Cahsari. Had he really behaved so childishly? He gathered his pride and huffed once. “Better. No one died this time. At least… not directly.” He paused, allowing Tilarus yet another moment to obsess over the stack of parchment. “Must you persist? I did not move them.”
Tilarus ignored him, indicating for his friend to continue with a spirited gesture of his head.
“Ilsevel replaced Lord Valdor—may Sel’ari grant him safe passage—with Lord Listaria, a Sel’ven noble to speak for the Noc’olari. He is young and feverish with adoration. The Noc’olari themselves… It seems Ilsevel has prevailed: they have been defeated. Yet there was one glimpse of hope in Ilsevel’s ill news. She mentioned a most curious rumor I had not yet heard. She said that Hadoream has come to Sevrigel. But… that is impossible. Sairel would never allow it…”
Tilarus tapped his chin with the quill. “Mmm.” Sellemar could not be certain if the male was agreeing or simply contemplating the possibility.
“Ilsevel also confirmed that Kinraeus is dead—thus ends our opportunity to receive King Joramon’s aid. We now rely entirely on a rebellion. Unless, of course, someone manages to kill Relstavum.” Here he laughed once—flatly.
Tilarus instantly lurched forward, a grin spreading across his face. “Such dismal words. Come now, I know the queen mentioned your latest venture.” He winked, his amusement only growing. “And what a topic of hope it is! The capital is crawling with unrest… with fear of demons and maravian worms and the like, and I very well know the details are enough to put the gods to silence!”
“It seems to have had an effect.” On a better day, Sellemar may have allowed himself a smug twitch, but with the uncertain news of Itirel…
When Sellemar did not fuel the flame of his charm further, Tilarus settled his quill into the little ink jar beside the second of its kind—moving them so they each rested back to back. He leaned his elbows forward, careful to not disturb any of the contents on his desk. His obsessive tendencies were at peak performance that day.
Sellemar reached out matter-of-factly and pushed a piece of paper off the stack.
“Malranus fall upon you, Sellemar!” Tilarus blasphemed, snatching the parchment and smacking it back onto the stack—as though the force would prevent further rebellion from the crinkled sheets.
Sellemar’s lips twitched. He could not recall any male possessing such a ludicrous desire for spacial perfection.
Other than Sairel, of course.
“But did you have to sink the ship?” Tilarus insisted, slapping his palm upon the pile lest Sellemar’s childish flare concoct any further trouble. “I must say, a hundred demon bodies floating in Targados is quite the sight, but completely unplanned. And you were almost spotted for it. You are lucky the ship was not magically defended. We agreed to tie one body to the square.”
“These are times where it is fortunate that all elves look relatively the same.” Sellemar flicked a golden strand from his brow. “And are you berating me for sinking the ship or for putting the entirety of The Black Queen’s debasement on display? I did still tie a demon to the city square.” He shifted impatiently, eyes flicking once more about the room. This talk of his consistent success bored him. He had further plans to address, and the package he sought was nowhere in sight. “Can we discuss this later, Tilarus? Where—”
With his free hand, Tilarus shifted the back of a portrait on his desk subtly toward Sellemar. “I told you—once I give you the package I know you’ll just run off to save the world. Give us a moment, oh great hero, won’t you?”
Sellemar pursed his lips and glowered, but he remained otherwise still.
Tilarus let out a tsk of disapproval. “Our job would be a lot easier if, instead of sinking ships and slaying demons, you simply slew Ilsevel and Saebellus. They are undoubtedly wicked to the core.”
Sellemar did not even consider the suggestion. “We do not embrace Tiras’ ideals here. I will not act as a vigilante and subvert the legal process—it is one of the few good establishments that exists beneath the corruption. Besides, the people need to see tradition working if they are to once more respect it. Our world was not always so lost.”
Tilarus tossed his snarled hair, his locks as wild and unkempt as a forest sprite’s. “Well, then I can only tell you what your overly difficult mission has accomplished—what I assume Ilsevel chose to dismiss,” the male continued as he “subtly” angled the frame a little closer toward Sellemar. “The sight and proximity of so many feral beasts has the people frantic. They are demanding tighter security not only in Targados, but all over the country. They want Saebellus and Ilsevel to be merciless with smugglers and their cargo. More importantly, they will tolerate no allowance of demons in Saebellus’ military operations. On such fragile ground, Saebellus cannot risk their fury—his army will remain damaged from his wars. No doubt the tyrants can feel the threads of their reign fraying already.”
Sellemar noted his friend’s creased silk and shadowed eyes. How long had it been since the male had left his study? “Yes, Ilsevel attempted to weave the people’s reaction as merely surprise, but I knew it was far more severe. Yet better than that is this: Saebellus will no longer be able to use the Beast in any capacity where its discovery might be perceived by the populace. At least, not without the country’s backlash, which he can ill afford. It is a weapon he shall sorely miss. What about—”
Tilarus t
witched the frame a bit more toward Sellemar. “About that,” he interrupted. “Rumor has it that the Beast is already gone. Genuinely and truly gone. And not, surprisingly, due to your efforts. It seems Saebellus is desperate to find it, which tells us that the creature is no longer at his command. He fears retribution enough that I heard he’s even bringing in the mercenary pair Hazamareth and Tsuki.”
Sellemar’s brows raised, briefly forgetting about the male’s hygiene. “Them?”
“He must be serious about destroying the Beast and avoiding public repercussion. Perhaps the creature sensed that its master would turn on it after what happened at the port.
“But forget the Beast. Saebellus will destroy it himself—I just thought you should like to know that your influence has already prohibited the rejuvenation of his forces and riled the people against him. Now, I want to know the details—how in Emal’drathar above you managed to sink the ship, save the despicable crew, escape, and still manage to put on a display in the city square? It’s kept me up these last three nights!”
Sellemar smiled, watching as the male flicked the portrait once more. It had made a good ninety-degree turn since his arrival. “With a great deal of slinking about and swimming and freezing. Details another day, Tilarus—after I see that you have taken a bath.” He nodded his head toward the frame. “You have something you want to show me, do you not?”
Tilarus reached forward swiftly, the stack of parchment knocked aside as he shoved the frame into Sellemar’s hands. “Radiant, isn’t she? She just sent that to me. Just had it painted by an exceptional—and exceptionally expensive—artist. Something to keep close to remind me of her.”
He did not straighten the stack.
Sellemar looked down at the portrait of the Sel’varian female. Her fair face glowed with amber light and she smiled tenderly through the bright colors about her.
Tilarus wiggled in his seat, but managed to restrain himself from a sprawling grin. Sellemar could not help but wonder if it was sensitivity to his own situation. “My wife is with child.”
Heroes or Thieves (Steps of Power 2) Page 22
