The Queen's Opal: A Stone Bearers Novel (Book One)

by Jacque Stevens

  It could be anywhere.

  Muffled voices and footsteps vibrated through the door. Someone was coming toward his box! Another human with a knife?

  Metal pieces scraped together as the latch came undone. Drynn rolled to the side, trembling with anticipation. The box grew shades lighter as the door opened, and a human walked past Drynn. The man hunched over, rummaging through one of the smaller boxes. Drynn stayed pressed against the wall. The slightest movement might set off another attack.

  The man jerked backward, scanning the floor until his eyes rested on the discarded rope Drynn had twisted out of. “The freak escaped!” The man ran out the door.

  Seconds echoed by. The door stood wide open. Drynn scrambled to his feet, darting after the man. Cool air rushed to greet him. Starlight pierced the endless dark. He took one step outside the box . . . and lurched forward into empty space, crashing onto mud and grass.

  Two wheels with spiral spokes sat at eye level.

  He hadn’t been in a box. It was a cart.

  A horse brayed, startled. Drynn twisted away from its stomping hooves, stumbling into the line connecting the animal to the square storage cart. Human hands—pulling him away and shoving him into the relative peace of the cart—almost came as a relief.

  He staggered back, tripping over one of the smaller boxes. Props from the human players scattered to the floor. The door closed, blocking even the small light of the stars.

  Stuck again. When would the air run out? Drynn’s gaze fell to the floor.

  A faint glow flickered near his feet. He reached forward. His fingers brushed the dark cloth of his cloak, dislodged with the rest of the human objects after he had unsettled all the boxes. He shook the cloth until the lightly glowing stone fell free.

  He tossed the cloak aside. Let the humans have everything else, but the opal was his.

  * * *

  Tayvin had failed. He had failed everyone. He hadn’t saved his mother, and now he had spent days running all over this human town, and Drynn was still gone.

  Why had he thought this quest was a good idea? It only made things worse.

  He sat on the inn steps while Cindle stood over him, relentlessly pressing on with the next batch of bad news. “I contacted the city guards. Unfortunately, they included the same men we met on the road, so they weren’t inclined to be helpful.” The look she gave him made it clear she blamed him. That was all right, though. Tayvin blamed himself, too.

  “Do you want me to talk to them?” He couldn’t speak Human very well, but he would try if there was any possibility it would help. He would try anything.

  “Probably wouldn’t make any difference. This place really isn’t that big, and I don’t think there’s anywhere else to look. You could burn this place to the ground, and it wouldn’t change anything. We should keep going.” She said this without a drop of emotion. None! She didn’t seem to care about Drynn at all or anything else for that matter. Just like the council at home.

  “You cannot ask me to abandon him. He’s my brother. I have to do something.”

  “What exactly? There’s nothing left to do here!” She hit the porch’s support beam, and the whole roof shook. “I’m not happy about it either, but it’s been days. I doubt he’s even in the village anymore, and he’s more likely to head to Elba than he is to come back here. So we can continue, with our eyes open, and hope for the best, or you can search the map and still go home without him and without finding that cure you’re looking for. See what all your adoring fans think of that.”

  Tayvin held back another flash of rage, gripping the wood under him. Did she seriously think he cared what anyone else thought? Drynn was gone. Their father and the council might condemn Tayvin as the worse kind of man for shouting at a maid, but she had done her fair share of shouting too. She could go to fists like a man as well, if it came to that. They would have it all out at once. “If Drynn is gone, curing the illness doesn’t matter anymore. He is the one who is sick.”

  Cindle jerked around. “What?”

  “The stone he carries . . . Before I left, the rangers told me that it was a mark of the curse that took our mother’s life, that takes all of the queen’s heirs, but the council doesn’t know how to stop it. They won’t even try. They would let him die without doing a thing, just as my mother did.”

  Cindle sucked in air as if she had been struck, something new crossing her hard gaze. “You were always yelling at him. Wouldn’t even let him sit by himself,” her eyes widened, “because he was playing with the stone.”

  “He’s already obsessed with it. I don’t know if it’s magical or not—all the foreign illnesses other races have seem mysterious to me. But I came here to help Drynn. If he is already gone, then nothing else matters.” The curse might pass to Tayvin now, but that didn’t matter either.

  Not with his family already snatched away.

  Seconds passed in silence. Voices from the street filled in the space.

  Cindle sighed and sank down next to him. Her voice became soft, sounding for once like a maid from the forest. “Tayvin, I might have to apologize. I thought you were an impulsive fool, ordering your brother about, dragging him here on a quest to fuel your own ego. And that you deserved to be knocked down a peg or two for your own arrogance. But you love him. You came here for him.”

  Shouldn’t that have been obvious? “He is my brother.”

  “Unfortunately, it isn’t so simple here.” She gestured to the humans on the street walking the dirt road. “Brothers in your position often war.”

  “Not elves. Not us.”

  “You know, when Drynn first told me what you two were doing, I wondered why you never thought to ask us about healing. We get sick, just like the humans do. But then with everyone busy with the war, none of us have been very good about diplomacy. One of the human healers probably would be better, especially if magic is involved.”

  Tayvin’s previous agenda seemed the least of his worries now, but dorrans had always been so cold he had never considered asking one for help directly. He knew little enough about the humans to hope that they would be different.

  Cindle shook her head, beads clanking together. “The truth of it is. . . I don’t know what happened to Drynn. We can look, but . . . did those boys see his ears?”

  “It was dark,” Tayvin said, uncertain. “They threw him and started running, but maybe. That’s bad, isn’t it? They came back and grabbed him.” He had been right. He should have cut their arms off when he had the chance. He would do it when he found them again. “But why would they do that? Why would they . . . ?” Tayvin stopped. Cindle was looking at him like he was an idiot, even though he had been the one who had guessed the thieves from the first.

  “You can’t go looking for him.” The firmness in her voice demanded no argument, but that had never stopped Tayvin before.

  “But you just said—”

  “We don’t know what happened, but I know what will happen. Running in half-crazed to help Drynn is what got you here in the first place. If you keep sticking your sword in everyone’s face until they can’t help but notice you, talk about you, search for another boy like you, you’re only going to make things worse. For you and Drynn. You’ll just set a hundred more thieves on Drynn’s trail, and likely on your own as well.”

  Tayvin hadn’t considered that, another bucket thrown into a racing river of dread.

  After a beat of silence, Cindle continued. “We have to do this without drawing any more attention. Like I said, you have two choices. You can go home, wait for Drynn there, or you can let me find you a healer—someplace safe—so I can look for Drynn myself and bring him to you.”

  Tayvin jerked his head. She would find him? “You didn’t say that before.”

  “I should have. This is just as much my fault as yours. I said I would keep you alive. But I’ll have a better chance of finding Drynn alone. You still don’t know how to do anything out here and you’ll just cause more trouble. So let me find you a healer
first, as I said. Learn whatever you can, and I will be back the moment I find Drynn.”

  “But I can’t—”

  “Drynn would want you to.” Cindle took full advantage of the open-mouthed silence her words caused, pressing on. “Drynn wanted you to trust me, because he knew I could help. I’m trying to help, so do you trust me or not?”

  Tayvin’s jaw tightened, grinding his teeth together. Could he really leave Drynn out there alone? He wanted to hit her for even saying it. That she was right just made it worse.

  “You can’t fix this all on your own, so prove that I’ve been wrong this whole time; swallow some pride and let me help.”

  “You will find him? You’ll bring him back to me?” Tayvin hated the desperation in his voice. Maybe Cindle had been right about him. He never had to ask for help like this before, and barely felt assured as she nodded. But the more he had searched the human village, the more lost he felt. And Cindle kept insisting that it was smaller than most villages. He had no idea how to help except to follow her.

  The last thing he wanted was to put Drynn in more danger.

  They sat for another few moments in silence. Drynn wouldn’t just leave—wouldn’t just get turned around—but maybe he would still make it back to Elba on his own no matter what had happened. Or Cindle would find him. At least that was the hope Tayvin would cling to for now because he couldn’t just sit here anymore.

  He got up and strapped his things on, along with what Drynn left behind. “Where to next? A larger holt—city?”

  Cindle smiled. “We’ll go all the way to Charamere if we have to.”

  CHAPTER 12

  THE BOX SLAMMED against the door. Props from the human players fell to the floor.

  Humans shouted, but Drynn’s pulse rang in his ears too loud for him to heed them. Heat filled the cart. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. He just wanted out, out, out.

  He grabbed another box and threw it. The wood split and the door fell open.

  Fresh air and a blinding light seeped through.

  Drynn stared. He hadn’t expected it to actually work, but there was the sun after what seemed like weeks. His tightly monitored trips outside had been brief and were always after dark.

  The cart lurched to a stop. A shadow blocked the sun.

  Humans.

  Drynn backed into the corner, tripping over the scattered rings, burned-out torches, and other props the humans used on stage.

  They would hit him again. Just like they did whenever he slipped his ropes. Or hid from them. Or shifted boxes around. Or looked at them too long. Or really did anything but sit in the corner and stare at the floor. But this time, it was certain to be worse.

  He closed his eyes and pressed himself against the wooden wall. Silently he willed himself to somehow pass through it before the humans reached him. They were still outside cursing, but they would come for him in a moment.

  Drynn shook until his fingers found the stone, hidden beneath his tunic.

  Seconds passed. Minutes.

  Drynn’s eyes opened. A human stood by the door with his back toward Drynn. The door wouldn’t stay closed without the man holding it shut. Maybe if Drynn stayed in the corner, they would stay so focused on the door they would forget to come hit him. If he could just stay still—get his pulse to slow and stop himself from shaking. Pretend to be asleep.

  Drynn gripped the stone tighter.

  He could do it. He had to.

  People bunched together on a cobblestone street. Brick and tile homes shared roofs with adjoining shops. A human city, but it was different than Sheargreen, the only human village Drynn had seen before ending up in the cart. Along with the larger crowd, there were no caps or suspenders. Humans wore tunics and leggings as the elves did, just with a bit more color than the greens and browns the elves favored.

  A faint green mist glowed in the distance. It had to be another one of those weird dreams.

  It had to be the memories of the same young maiden.

  Saylee yanked on her father’s arm. “Dada, Dada, let’s go that way!”

  Aldyn shook his head. “We should stay with the group.” The girl and her father walked with a small group of elves. Horses carrying large packs mingled around them, following the elves unbound just as any forest animal would. The elves in front of Saylee’s family headed to a section of the street with stalls not already full of merchandise.

  “Pa-lease,” the maid tried again. “Everyone else is stopping. I’ll come right back.”

  Her father exchanged looks with an elven woman walking beside him—most likely his wife, the girl’s mother. “If you can get Marryll to go with you.” She gestured to an elven boy closer to Drynn’s age or slightly older. He had his hair tied back to look just like his father.

  The boy frowned, looking from the human shops to the hanging laundry as if already bored. “Where do you want to go? We’re already in Kalum.”

  “That way.” She turned and pointed through the crowd, seemingly at random.

  “You mean you don’t even know?” Marryll shook his head with an exaggerated sigh. “The humans already think we’re idiots. Can you try not to make it so easy for them?”

  “Marryll, don’t be too hard,” their father said. “She just wants to see the city. I remember when I first came to Kalum, I wanted to go everywhere at once.”

  “We just have to go now.” Saylee fidgeted, unable to keep her feet still.

  Marryll frowned for another moment before slipping into a more indulgent smile—one that said that whether or not his sister was an idiot, she could drag him wherever she wanted. The interaction seemed so familiar that Drynn guessed the result even before Marryll held out his hand. “Well, with logic like that, how could I possibly refuse?”

  Aldyn dropped his grip on the girl’s arm. “Stay together and have lots of fun!”

  Saylee darted forward and took her brother’s hand. He made a show of rolling his eyes before allowing himself to be dragged off.

  Drynn would have had trouble navigating the cobbled streets. They twisted around in random directions with no apparent order or design. The massive throng of people didn’t help matters either, but Saylee didn’t seem lost. If Drynn had not already learned this was her first trip, he would have thought she had been born to these streets by the rate she took them.

  She dropped her brother’s arm and he fell behind. “Saylee! Starrillaylee, stop!” Marryll caught her by the shoulder, stopping her mid-stride.

  Saylee looked back, blinking.

  “You are going too fast! How do you expect to remember the way back?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know. It’s just . . .” She paused. “Something’s calling me. I have to go.”

  “Calling? Like a voice?” Uncertainty entered Marryll’s tone. In a crowd this thick, any faraway voice would have been drowned out.

  Saylee shook her head. “A feeling. Please, can we go?”

  “How do you know that whatever is calling you is good?”

  “I just do. Please?”

  Marryll wouldn’t say no. Drynn had seen this too many times for there to be any question, every time his mother asked some favor of their father or really anyone else in the forest. Logic didn’t matter. Her earnest gaze, her teasing smile, her laughter was enough. Drynn couldn’t see Saylee directly while looking through her eyes, but he formed a clearer picture of her now.

  “All right, but slower this time.” Marryll held out his hand, ready to be yanked around again.

  Saylee slowed her gait, but she still picked her way through the unfamiliar city in an unnaturally familiar way. Gradually, the crowds and buildings thinned. Marble gates opened up to a garden, flowers giving way to fountains and large marble statues. Fewer people walked the dirt paths—mostly younger humans wearing uniform off-white robes with different colored sashes. They seemed so unified that Drynn wondered whether outsiders were actually permitted in, even if the gates stood open. But Saylee walked in without looking.

&
nbsp; Marryll was almost left behind again. “How did you know this was here?” he asked.

  Saylee didn’t answer. The elves continued down the twisted path until they came to the entrance of a large green marble building, accented with red lettering in a language Drynn couldn’t read. A statue stood at its front, a man leading a woman by the hand who glanced behind her shoulder.

  Marryll put a hand on Saylee’s arm as she pressed to enter the temple, but she shrugged it off.

  The sounds of Saylee and Marryll’s footsteps echoed in the wide entry hall. Saylee studied the room’s high ceiling as her brother fretted next to her.

  Two humans stood in the middle of the room. The first wasn’t much to look at—completely bald and wearing a robe like the ones outside—but the younger had darker skin than Drynn had ever seen. If the man had been elven, skin that shade would have made him older than the elders. But his hair was dark too, not silver. He wore it in hundreds of little braids and had a bright shirt with more cloth tied around his waist, almost like a skirt.

  But that was nothing compared to the feathered serpent he wore wrapped around his arms and shoulders as naturally as a scarf. A bracer adorned one wrist with an engraved snake twisted around it, just like its live counterpart, except it had a large glowing red eye. A stone.

  The men looked up. The bald man came with his hands out, heading them off. “Can I help you children?” he whispered, still managing to sound cross.

  “My sister—” Marryll started, but Saylee cut him off.

  “This place. It’s like I’ve been here before. Sir,” her eyes turned from the décor to the human man, “I had to come here. Something was calling. Is that okay?”

  The bald man blinked at them. “Well, yes. The temples have always been open to those who wish to come.” His tone implied that he didn’t approve of the rule.

  “But you say you felt drawn?” The darker man smiled and gestured to a doorway behind him. “Did you come to test the stone, then?”

  “Stone? What stone?” Saylee asked.