by Terry Brooks
Of course, he had embraced the kiss—had wanted to share it—every bit as much as she had wanted to give it to him. He hadn’t done anything to stop it. In retrospect, he knew that even if he had the chance to go back and change things, he wouldn’t.
But having the memory embedded in his consciousness—a memory he knew he would never lose—was bittersweet. After all, where could kissing Phryne lead that would serve any purpose? Phryne’s life and his own were going in different directions. Now that he had assumed possession of and responsibility for the black staff and she had done the same with the Elfstones, it might seem as if their shared involvement with magic would actually bring them closer together. It might also seem that being from different Races wouldn’t matter, either, since neither of them had shown the slightest inclination to let that be a barrier between them. He had witnessed the reluctance of people from the various Races to intermarry or to form attachments that would cause difficulties for them later, but he didn’t think that was an issue here.
What was a problem and why they could never be together was that once she was absolved of the accusations against her, then in accordance with Elven law Phryne was going to become Queen of the Elves. With her father gone and her stepmother holding the throne under false pretenses, she was the logical choice. When that happened, she could never become involved with someone from another Race, especially someone like him. Trackers were rangers and scouts; they were seldom settled for more than a few days in one place. A Queen must be settled in one place forever and her mate or consort must remain at her side.
He didn’t know why he was thinking about this, and he cut himself off angrily. One kiss did not create a lifetime relationship. One moment did not define everything that would happen in the future.
And yet …
Phryne and he. Together.
He couldn’t stop thinking about it. There was no question that he liked her. Or even that she liked him. It wasn’t something he could mistake. It was there in her eyes and voice, in the way she talked to him, in the way she responded. He couldn’t say he didn’t find her fascinating in a way he had never found anyone else. He felt so different when he was with her, more so even than with Prue—who, after all, was his best friend. But this was something else. He had never thought it mattered that his brother–sister relationship with Prue was all he had. He had never wanted anything more, not with her or anyone. He liked his wilderness life. He liked sharing that life with Prue, the two of them companions on the road to new experiences and new discoveries every day they were together. Other men might settle down and marry. Other men might find a life in the villages and towns. He had never wanted that.
Until now. Until Phryne Amarantyne.
He took a deep breath to steady himself, deciding as he did so that breaking contact with her physically hadn’t solved the problem. He was still distracted, still thinking about her, still wondering what was going to happen to them. He knew, and at the same time he didn’t know. Not for sure. Wouldn’t know for sure, in fact, until their fate in the business at hand was settled.
Still tasting her mouth on his, still visualizing the moment in his head, he forced himself both to push a few levels deeper in his thinking and to pay attention to what was around them.
Their surroundings didn’t change much in the few hours that were left to them before darkness. The forest went on much as before, the mossy, lichen-striped trees stretching on in a seemingly endless maze, their shadows beginning to lengthen as the sun faded west. All this time, they saw nothing but the trees. Not even birds found homes here; not even the smallest creature. He guessed there must be insects, but they weren’t in evidence. It was a graveyard as stark and empty as the underground burial site of the Gotrins. While still daylight, it was easy enough to see what lay around them, what might prove dangerous. But as twilight approached and the last of the light began to fade, it became more difficult to be certain—even for Panterra, whose eyesight was excellent and who was trained to navigate in the dark.
“We have to find shelter,” he told her.
These were the first words he had spoken to her since the kiss, and they felt forced and awkward. Panterra did his best to pretend that they weren’t, that what had happened was relegated to the past and everything was back to the way it had been. But he didn’t think he was fooling her, and he certainly wasn’t fooling himself.
He cast about as they walked, looking for a likely campsite. After they had walked another fifteen or twenty minutes, he found a tangle of fallen trees that formed a makeshift shelter on three sides. While it would not conceal them entirely, it would give them some protection. He didn’t really think there was anything in these funereal woods that would cause them problems—or even bother to show itself—but there was no point in taking chances.
Placing Phryne inside the weave of limbs and trunks, he found several loose branches not far away and dragged them over to close off the entry, as well. When he was almost done, he stepped inside the shelter with her and dragged the last branch into place, sealing them off.
“Now we should be safe,” he declared, giving her his most reassuring smile.
“We’d better be,” she replied, giving him a look. “Because now we’re trapped in here.”
She sat back against the heavy branches, watching for his reaction. Then, seeing his confusion, she laughed. “Don’t look so serious, Pan. It’s all right. I know you did it to keep us safe. Come here. Sit with me.”
He moved over and leaned back against the branches next to her. He could feel the heat of her shoulder and arm press up against him, and he felt her looking at him.
“Did you ever imagine that your life would change all at once like this?” she asked him.
He shook his head. “I didn’t think it would ever change. I thought it was all settled. I would be a Tracker, working with Prue, for as long as I lived. I guess I still see things that way, even though I know they aren’t.”
“Well, think about it. You didn’t want it to change. You didn’t ask for it to change; it just happened. No one asked you what you wanted. No one asked me, either. We’re here, sitting together in this mass of brambles and branches, because of other people’s actions rather than our own.”
He thought about it, glancing over at her now. “We could have refused to do what was asked of us. Me, more easily than you, I guess. But we could have said no to what we saw happening. We could have left it to someone else.”
“Not and be the people we are. But I just think it’s so odd. I had my life planned out, too. I wasn’t going to be anything other than what I was—not for a very long time—because my father was going to live out his life. It would be years before anyone came to me and said it was time for me to be Queen.” She laughed softly. “Even saying it sounds odd. I never thought of myself that way. I never wanted it. I wanted something …”
She paused a long time. “Just something different, I guess.”
“But your father must have spoken about it with you. He must have told you that you’d be ruler of the Elves after him.”
She leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder. “We never talked about it. We never talked about much of anything after my mother died. He just went away from me. In his head, anyway. He left, and I was mostly alone after that, and the idea of being Queen was never in my thoughts. Even after Isoeld became his wife, it was never there. Not like I’m sure it was in hers.” She paused. “I was stupid!”
“I don’t think so. I think you were just being yourself. I would have done the same thing. Anyone would have.”
She looked up at him, tears in her blue eyes. “Sometimes, you say just the right thing, Panterra Qu.”
They rifled through his backpack, pulling out what little was left of their food, which was pretty much a reprise of the meal they had eaten earlier. They still had some water, so they were able to make do for the moment. But Pan knew they would have to find more of both soon, and that might not be easy outside the f
amiliar confines of the valley. The old world had been poisoned and depleted in so many ways that it was impossible to guess at what might be safe to eat and drink.
As they consumed their meal, he found himself studying her between bites, trying to do so without drawing her attention. He liked how she looked, how everything about her seemed just right. Her chestnut hair, blue eyes, the slant of her brows and narrow cheekbones, the upsweep of her Elven ears, the slender parts that were smooth and soft and still so strong—everything that had always been there and to which he had paid so little attention. Or which he had failed to look at in quite the same way, he amended. After all, he had found her intriguing right from the first, when she had walked with him during their climb out of Arborlon to Aphalion Pass, asking him questions, teasing him slyly, showing so much interest. Then, he hadn’t given it a lot of thought. Now he couldn’t seem to give it enough.
When they had finished eating and had cleaned up their little den, they leaned back once more against the tree limbs and stared out at the darkness. It was so deep and black they could see almost nothing beyond the branches that enclosed them.
“I would like to see more of our new world,” she told him after they had been silent for a time. “I know it’s dangerous and unfamiliar, but I want to know about it.”
“I think you might get your chance,” he replied.
She looked at him. “You do? Why do you say that?”
“Because I think we’re all going to get to know more of it as time goes on. The valley won’t be our home anymore. We’ll do what our ancestors did before they were closed away. We’ll go exploring. Haven’t the Elves been talking about that for a long time now? At least since there were signs the protective wall was coming down?”
She nodded. “That’s so.”
“I don’t think we can stay in the valley much longer, even after the Drouj leave. We have to go out and see what’s there. We have to learn what survived and how to deal with it. We have to educate ourselves. Trackers understand this. Whenever something new is discovered, we go to study it right away. A new place, a new creature, a new plant. We build on our knowledge of things that way. It won’t be any different for us now that we have the world outside the valley to study.”
“Well, I want to be someone who does that. I want to be like you. I want to travel to places and see things and learn about it all. I don’t want to sit around a palace and be Queen. I never wanted it before, and I don’t want it now. What use is it? Some people like making decisions and giving orders and controlling other people’s lives. Even Father liked it, I think. But I don’t. I don’t want any of it.”
“Who will take the throne if you don’t?” he asked. “Aren’t you the last of your family?”
She shrugged. “There are cousins, other families related to the Amarantynes. Or to the Belloruus line. Let one of them take the job. Once we’re safe again and I’ve dealt with Isoeld and her creatures, I’ll give up the Elfstones and leave.”
She made it sound simple enough, but he wondered if someone in line for the Elven throne could simply walk away. Would it even be allowed? He hadn’t heard of anyone ever doing so.
“We don’t have to spend time thinking about it just yet,” he said finally. “We’ve got to find a way to stay alive long enough to make worrying about it necessary.”
“I know.” She made a dismissive gesture. “You don’t have to tell me that. I know what we’re up against.”
She seemed to go away then, looking off into the darkness, easing away from him just enough to let him know she didn’t want to think about the present, and talking about the future, about its possibilities and her dreams, was her way of escaping. He heard her exhale slowly and felt her lean forward, head lowered as if the weight of all that had been laid upon her shoulders was suddenly a burden too great for her to bear.
“It’s just so unfair. For all this to happen at once—the Drouj invasion, the death of my father and grandmother, being given responsibility for the Elfstones, and finding myself trapped outside the valley and hunted like a fugitive. I just feel beaten down by it.”
He leaned forward, placing his head next to hers. “It isn’t easy now and it won’t be easy later, but we’ll get through it, Phryne. You and I. We’ll look out for each other. We’ll take care of each other and things will work out.”
He didn’t know if he believed that or not, but he said it because it seemed that it needed saying. If they weren’t committed to that much, then he didn’t see any hope for all the rest of it—for the larger threats of the loss of their homelands and the destruction of their peoples, for a failure of any form of magic to survive if theirs was lost, for a collapse of what remained of civilization and a quick descent into anarchy.
She inclined her head sideways until it was touching his own. “I could go with you when it’s time, Pan. When you decide to go out into the larger world, to leave the valley and go exploring, I could go with you. I would like that. I could learn to be a Tracker. You know I could. You’ve seen what I can do. I’m strong enough.”
He put his arm around her and hugged her against him. “I don’t think there’s anything you can’t do.”
“Will you take me with you, then?”
Her voice was so plaintive that it almost broke his heart. She was asking so much more than what the words suggested. He could tell it from the tone of her voice and in the hesitancy of the way she spoke. He could feel it ripple through her where they touched heads and shoulders. She wasn’t just asking if he might consider her request; she was begging.
“Please, Pan. Will you take me?”
He took a deep breath, his arm tightening about her. He knew what he should say, what it made sense to say, what everything that was practical and right suggested he say. But he also knew what she needed to hear. He knew how close she was to coming apart. As strong as she was, as steady as he had seen her on so many occasions when there was every reason for her to crumble, it was different now. Here, in this place and time, she was right on the edge.
“I’ll take you,” he promised.
She didn’t say anything in response, didn’t do anything. She went as still as the air in their forest of dead trees, staring down at her feet, keeping the contact with him that she had formed, but not increasing the pressure.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“You’re not just saying it?”
“What do you think?”
“I think maybe I love you.”
His eyes, lowered before, snapped up at these words, and suddenly he was staring out into the darkness, which was nearly complete, and finding in the space directly outside their makeshift shelter a pair of huge yellow eyes staring back.
It required massive willpower not to jerk away and leap up and instead to remain as still as she was, but somehow he managed it. The eyes were bright and their gaze intense, reflecting the glow of distant stars that peeked through the heavy clouds and filtered through the trees. Steady and unblinking, they seemed to float in the darkness like giant orbs.
“Phryne,” he said softly.
“What?”
“I want you to do something for me. I want you to lift your head just a little and look outside the shelter. But don’t say or do anything else. Don’t make any other movement at all. Don’t be frightened.”
She did what he asked, raising her head and staring out, and he felt the shiver that ran through her when she saw the eyes. But she kept herself from moving or speaking; she kept from panicking.
After a few long moments, she said, her voice very small, “What is it?”
As she said it, the eyes suddenly shifted, sliding to the right, and suddenly the body they occupied became partially visible, bits and pieces of it revealed by the ambient light. It was a massive cat, bigger than anything Pan had ever heard of and certainly bigger than anything he had ever seen. Its coat was a mottled gray and black, its head broad and flat with small ears, and its neck encircled by a thick ru
ff. When it shifted again, all the time studying them, he could see the muscles of its long, sleek body clearly defined beneath the sheen of its hide.
A massive paw lifted and pulled experimentally at the branches, which gave way easily to the immense pressure. Pan heard Phryne gasp and felt his own heart begin to race in fear of what might be coming.
But then the cat lowered its paw and circled away, gone as quickly as wind-blown smoke. Phryne clung to Pan, as if somehow she could find protection by doing so. He couldn’t imagine what he would do against something that huge. He had the staff and its magic to protect them, but he wondered how useful they would be. It was one thing to stand against something as bulky and slow as an agenahl, but something else again to face a creature like this.
The cat reappeared suddenly, materializing back in front of them in almost the exact same spot as before, eyes first and then bits and pieces of its body coming into view. The darkness was a perfect cover for it; when it blinked and the eyes disappeared, the rest of it seemed to vanish, as well. It watched them with renewed interest for a few long seconds more, and then casually yawned. Its mouth opened and kept opening until Pan had to look away to avoid staring any longer at those huge, sharp teeth gleaming in the dark. He could barely breathe, and he was pretty sure that Phryne was beyond even that.
When he looked up again, the cat was gone.
Phryne exhaled sharply, and then whispered, “That was the biggest, scariest …”
She trailed off. “I know,” he whispered back.
They sat close together in the darkness without moving for a very long time, waiting for the cat to return. But it did not reappear, and when he couldn’t stand the silence any longer, Pan said, “I think it was just curious.”
