A Threat of Shadows

by JA Andrews

  “Let Evangeline go to sleep?” Ayda asked, not unkindly.

  Alaric felt a knife blade of anguish in his gut. To ‘go to sleep’ was the elven term for death. “No, if we find the Wellstone, I’ll wake her and stop the poison.”

  Ayda looked at him steadily, but said nothing.

  Alaric refused to answer the unspoken doubt in her eyes. Unless the Wellstone was absolutely destroyed, he would not give up this hope. “Where will you go after this is over?”

  Ayda’s eyes swept southwest as though she could see the Greenwood past the miles of hills between them. “Perhaps it will be time to sleep,” she answered, a dreamy, hopeful expression on her face.

  Alaric turned sharply toward her. “Your kind of sleep? Or mine?”

  “Your kind of sleep,” she answered with a wistful smile, “will not cure the sort of weariness I have.”

  Alaric stared at her in amazement. “But you are the last of your people,” he said. “If you die, everything of your people dies with you. Think of how much the world could learn, could benefit, from your knowledge!”

  “That is my only regret,” she said softly, “that the lore of my people will end. But not for the world’s sake, for the fact that there will never be another elf who will learn it. We have never felt compelled to share our knowledge with the world. Why should I begin now?”

  “But there can’t be no more elves. The world needs elves.”

  Ayda snorted. “There haven’t been any elves for eight years, and the world has barely noticed.”

  Alaric looked ahead without answering, and the two rode together in silence for several minutes.

  “I can’t continue like this.” Her voice was full of exhaustion.

  He glanced at her and saw her face drawn with pain. “Because all your people are dead?” He cringed as soon as the words were out at how insensitive they were. But she’d never expressed anything about this before.

  She shook her head. “Because my people are not dead.”

  Not dead? He turned to face her completely, and she looked back at him. The rage was back, deep in her eyes. A small crease appeared between her eyebrows while she studied him.

  Alaric braced himself. For what, he didn’t know.

  But she only gave a slow nod. “You are a Keeper, and my people’s story should be kept.” Her brow smoothed, and her face opened up somehow. The guarded look in her eyes dropped away. What he had taken to be rage was something worse. She was brimming with a deep, shattering pain. “Will you take the story of the elves?”

  Alaric drew back from her, from her eyes. The depth of the pain and hopelessness there threatened to swallow him. She sat patiently, waiting, knowing the weight of what she asked.

  He wanted the story, wanted it very much. But the suffering in her eyes was so cavernous, he was afraid to go near it. “I’m not a very good Keeper,” he whispered.

  “Then do it because you are my friend, Alaric,” she said.

  Ayda held out her hand to him.

  Alaric’s was shaking slightly as he reached out and took it.

  Chapter 38

  He raced through the trees, their branches reaching for him, their murmurs of fear and confusion clinging to him. The ground below him was covered with life, tendrils of energy reached down into the dirt, the fragrance of moss and grass filled the air.

  He looked down to see Ayda’s feet leap over the slow, pulsing energy of a gnarled tree root.

  He was in her mind, in her memory.

  Ayda raced toward the last bend in the path before the clearing, the fear from the trees urging her on. When she turned, instead of being greeted with warm sunlight, she stumbled to a halt at the edge of a snarled forest.

  Directly in front of her was an elf partially transformed into a tall birch. His torso melted into the trunk of the tree, his arms, past the elbow, were covered in bark. His eyes stared unblinking past her as he bent his will toward his goal.

  She stepped back a moment, frightened.

  “Just a changing,” she said quietly to herself. A changing was smooth and graceful. Like stretching. There was nothing frightening about it.

  And yet she drew away.

  A groan farther ahead drew her attention.

  Another elf, partway through changing stared out of an aspen, his face stretched in pain. Why pain? Changing wasn’t painful.

  There was something terribly wrong. She stood before the tree, trying to understand. The deep pulse of energy that should have flowed through his roots was sluggish. She reached forward and touched the side of the tree, looking into the elf’s tortured face. The life energy didn’t flow; it swirled and dribbled and pressed in all the wrong places. And there was a darkness, a growing mass of blackness sending tendrils out, wrapping around what was left of the elf and smothering it.

  She yanked her hand off the tree and looked around her. Every tree was the same. She could see it now, the blackness sitting inside each one of them.

  She walked past one after another, each a tangle of elf and tree segments spliced together. There were so many.

  Her gaze scanned the glen as she took faltering steps forward. Her eyes finally fell on the basin sitting at the foot of the steps to her father’s house. The surface still bubbled slightly with the power of the links to the cursed ones, links to the people controlled by fragments of Mallon’s will.

  Ayda looked around at all of the half-changed elves. They should have used those links to pull Mallon’s curses off of the people he controlled and onto themselves. Once they finished changing into trees, the curses would be released, the dark energy returning to Mallon. Then, with all his power back inside of his own body, he would be mortal. Then, they had a chance to destroy him.

  They just needed to finish changing.

  Ayda ran toward the basin, ready to take one of the curses upon herself.

  “Ayda, stop!” Prince Elryn called from the steps. He rushed to embrace her.

  She clung to him, burying her face in her brother’s chest, feeling his energy flow smoothly through his body. She hid against him for a moment, blocking out the other elves.

  “I can help,” she said finally, pulling away toward the basin.

  He held her firmly. His face was pale, his eyes tense. Cornered. “I didn’t think you’d make it.”

  “What’s happening?”

  Elryn shook his head and turned away, leading her up the stairs winding around the trunk of the greenwood tree to her father’s house. As they climbed, Ayda could see that the glen was full of elves in different stages of changing. She paused in her climb. The elves stood or kneeled on the ground, looking ill or exhausted. Some looked dead.

  “Elryn, what’s happening?”

  He stepped down toward her, gently took her hand, and began leading her up the stairs again.

  “We don’t know, exactly,” he began. “We’ve collected the curses, but somehow, they are keeping our people from changing.” He looked down toward the glen, dismayed. “There may be too much of the Rivor in one place.”

  Ayda stopped again, staring at Elryn. “They can’t change as fast as you, so the spells have time to stop them.”

  Elryn looked stricken. “I didn’t know it would make a difference.”

  Ayda began to run up the stairs, now pulling her brother after her. They ran to the top and into her father’s house. Rushing through rooms created out of the tree itself, she ran into King Andolin’s council chamber where she slid to a halt.

  The king stood with his head bowed before a large window. Off to the east, smoke rose lazily above the trees.

  “He has crossed the eastern border of the Greenwood,” the king said. “He spreads fire and darkness. We have very little time.”

  Ayda looked at her father. His shoulders were bowed and his skin was white as moonlight.

  “Who?” Ayda demanded. “Mallon? Is he coming here?”

  Her father did not move. Elryn closed his eyes.

  Ayda stared at the two of them just stan
ding there. Mallon was coming to the glen. A seething rage grew deep within her. The darkness in the elves was his doing. He would not bring more of that darkness here.

  “We have to fight him!”

  “There will be no fight,” the king said quietly. “There will only be death.”

  Ayda looked angrily at her brother and father. “Of course we will fight,” she said. “Every elf alive is here. Why would we not fight?”

  “Every elf alive is trapped,” Elryn said. “Trapped in themselves having willingly taken on the power of the Rivor.”

  She stared at him, then looked out the window at the elves below. Those changing were still caught, others sat senseless on the ground or stumbled about as though in darkness.

  “How many are free?”

  Elryn looked at her. “Three.”

  King Andolin dropped his head into his hands.

  “Father,” Elryn said matter-of-factly, “it is time.”

  The king sighed deeply then straightened his shoulders and looked at Ayda. His eyes drew her in and surrounded her.

  “I have always loved you, my daughter,” he said, pulling her into an embrace. Then he stepped back and held her firmly by the shoulders. “Will you help me?” His voice was pleading. His eyes burned with the question.

  “Of course,” she answered. “Anything you need.”

  He opened his mouth for a moment, then closed it again. Turning abruptly away, he strode from the room followed by Elryn.

  Ayda looked again at the eastern sky. The smoke spread across the blue sky like a stain.

  She ran after them back down to the glen.

  Elryn was standing at the eastern entrance of the clearing. He faced down the avenue that wound away under the tree, holding a longbow in his hand.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, running up to him. She looked down at the handful of arrows stuck into the ground by his feet, waiting to be shot. “What are we going to do against him with a few arrows?” Still, she turned and stood next to him, facing down the quiet forest path.

  “Not we,” he said. “Me. Our father has need of you.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” Ayda said. “You can’t defeat him alone.”

  “Our father has need of you,” he repeated. Then he pulled his eyes from the path and looked at her, smiling reassuringly. “I can if everything goes right. Now, go.”

  She hesitated a moment. Elryn’s face was filled with… something. Fury? Determination? Agony? He leaned forward and kissed Ayda on the forehead. “I love you.”

  His kiss burned slightly, as though she had been touched with a coal. Or maybe some ice. “And I love you.” Her brother nodded and turned to face the avenue again.

  Ayda ran to the king who was shepherding the elves into one large group. She began helping, guiding the ones that could walk to sit among the half-transformed trees. The ones that couldn’t walk, they carried. Some rocked, curled on the ground like infants, some shrieked, some were bent and deformed, some had boils and sores.

  As gently as she could, with tears spilling down her cheeks, Ayda herded them together.

  “Someday,” her father had told her the day she had refused to be named his heir. “Someday, you will realize how much you love your people.”

  And here, with the fire and darkness approaching from the east, she knew. She worked tirelessly, her heart breaking over and over.

  When they were as collected as was possible with only a few of the half-formed trees sitting outside of a tight circle, Ayda sank down onto her knees.

  Her father was pale.

  “How do we protect them?” she asked.

  He looked at her with desperate eyes. “I wanted you to be queen because there is a strength in you that is different,” he said, coming to her and grasping her hands. Then he closed his eyes. “May that strength sustain you.”

  “Father?” she said uncertainly.

  He dropped her hands and turned back to the circle of elves. Without looking, he waved in her direction. Ayda felt the air stir around her. She looked down and saw that her clothes had changed into a white robe covered in clear crystals.

  The queen’s gown.

  “Father,” she said with more steel in her voice. “This belongs to the queen.”

  King Andolin looked sadly at the closest tree. There, her face frozen in pain and confusion, stood Queen Alaine, not fully a tree but far from an elf.

  “She’s not dead!” Ayda cried. “And even if she were, you are still here and so is Elryn.” She gestured across the clearing to where the crown prince still stood firmly before the eastern entrance. The smoke and darkness were almost upon him.

  Suddenly, flames blazed out from between the trees, and a thin, black figure strode into the clearing. The air around him rippled slightly, and even from across the glen, Ayda could feel that the trees near him were filled with loathing.

  “This will be your end, Rivor,” Elryn said calmly.

  Mallon laughed and looked across the clearing. “You don’t have many to fight with you.”

  “We have what matters.”

  “Yes, I see you’ve collected my curses. You do realize that just means that now I control all of you as I once controlled others. I could take all your brethren and use them as my own personal army, if I needed an army. Or just set them to killing each other.” Mallon smiled. “Or I could just leave them here to rot, haunted by my spirit for the rest of their long lives.”

  “That’s what we were counting on,” Elryn said with a smile.

  Before Ayda could understand what he was doing, Elryn nocked an arrow and sent it deep into the Rivor’s heart.

  Mallon stumbled back a step, then stood straight and looked quizzically at Elryn. “Do you think you can kill me with an arrow?”

  “Not yet,” Elryn answered.

  Ayda was distracted by the movement of her father as he reached his arms out over the elves. He closed his eyes, and Ayda felt the spirits of the elves fight to give him their attention. Each elf pushed aside the power of their curse for just a moment to answer the call of their king. She felt their agreement, but her attention was too divided between them and Elryn for her to understand what was happening.

  “Aydalya,” the king said gently.

  She turned back to him just as he opened his eyes.

  “It was our only choice.”

  She wasn’t sure if it was an explanation or an apology.

  At that moment, each elf gave a long sigh and toppled lifelessly to the ground. Thin wisps of light rose from their bodies, slowly curling toward the sky.

  Ayda’s breath caught in her throat in horror. “No!”

  Her mind spun as a darkness tore out of each figure and rushed across the clearing toward the Rivor.

  This was how they would defeat him. As each elf died, each curse was set loose and flew back to its master. Almost all of his power would be held again in his body, and that body would be mortal.

  Mallon cried out and grabbed at his chest where the arrow sat.

  Elryn smoothly drew another and sent it sinking in next to the first. The Rivor hissed and threw a burst of flame at Elryn. He screamed as flames engulfed him. Ayda took a step toward her brother.

  Her father stepped between her and Elryn, stopping her. The flames grew and a growing darkness spread out behind him.

  A terrible blackness, solid and living, shot out of Mallon toward the prince. The Rivor dropped to his knees as Elryn raised one hand and the darkness shattered. Pieces shot off him and flew throughout the glen. Elryn faltered then collapsed. Ayda screamed his name. A sliver of darkness shot toward her father’s back. She shoved him out of the way.

  The shard spun deep into her chest. It stabbed into her, shooting out tendrils, wrapping and crushing her.

  “Ayda” her father’s voice was strangled as he reached for her.

  Inside of her, the darkness spread, consuming her. She dropped to her knees, gasping for breath while everything inside her burned with darkness.
/>   The king reached his arm out toward the wisps of light floating up from the elves. He breathed out a command, and the tendrils streamed over to Ayda, as though carried by a wind.

  A flood rushed into her. Voices clamored and wept and commanded. An enormous weight settled on her and she fell to her knees. She clamped her hands over her ears to block out the roar, but it was within her, stretching her, deafening her.

  There was a roar of fury, and the elves inside of her tore into the darkness, ripping the fingers of darkness out of her and shoving them into a small ball. Then they wrapped themselves around it, smothering it inside of her. With the darkness contained, the voices stilled and drew back to the edges of her mind, but they did not leave.

  Fire spread across the glen. The trees burned, their cries of anger filling Ayda’s mind.

  Her father moved in front of her again, sheltering her from the backdrop of flames and darkness. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

  “I will stay to finish this. You must leave, Ayda. You are all that is left.”

  She pushed at him, trying to get to Elryn. Past the king’s shoulder burned a wall of fire. Mallon stumbled out of the flames, but the prince was gone.

  “Ayda,” her father’s voice snapped her attention back to him. “Run!”

  Chapter 39

  Alaric blinked. He was staring at Ayda, their horses walking calmly along the road still damp from last night’s deluge. Ayda dropped his hand. She looked down, letting her hair fall forward in front of her face.

  “My people are not dead,” she said softly. “But they are not alive, either.”

  Alaric couldn’t find any words. The elves, all of the elves who had sacrificed themselves were inside of her. No wonder energy flowed out of her. She was like a dam holding back a flood.

  “My people are bound to me. They exist in a half-life, a shadow world contained inside of me. They give me their power, but it bleeds them dry of their own… essence… their own souls. Yet they cannot die. They cannot change or heal or free themselves. They just continue, tattered remnants of a once formidable people.

  “They crowd my mind. They fill everything. They infest…” Her voice trailed off. She picked a twig from her horse’s mane.