Twilight of the Elves

by Zack Loran Clark

  Copyright © 2018 by Zack Loran Clark and Nick Eliopulos

  Designed by Phil Caminiti and Mary Claire Cruz

  Cover art © 2018 by Manuel Sumberac

  Cover designed by Mary Claire Cruz

  Map art by Virginia Allyn

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney Hyperion, 125 West End Avenue, New York, New York 10023.

  ISBN 978-1-368-00162-5

  Visit www.DisneyBooks.com

  For Zack Lewis, a fantastic adventuring partner

  —ZLC

  For Andrew, who cast a spell on me

  —NE

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One – Zed

  Chapter Two – Brock

  Chapter Three – Zed

  Chapter Four – Brock

  Chapter Five – Zed

  Chapter Six – Brock

  Chapter Seven – Zed

  Chapter Eight – Brock

  Chapter Nine – Zed

  Chapter Ten – Brock

  Chapter Eleven – Zed

  Chapter Twelve – Brock

  Chapter Thirteen – Zed

  Chapter Fourteen – Brock

  Chapter Fifteen – Zed

  Chapter Sixteen – Brock

  Chapter Seventeen – Zed

  Chapter Eighteen – Brock

  Chapter Nineteen – Zed

  Chapter Twenty – Brock

  Chapter Twenty-One – Zed

  Chapter Twenty-Two – Brock

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors

  Zed crept through the snow-covered forest, shivering beneath his heavy cloak.

  He moved quickly, cutting between the trees and following the footprints left by their leader. His friends trailed him in a staggered line, crunching noisily through the frost. Above them, the stars sparkled in a silent parade of their own.

  They’d been hiking since sunup, and now, well after sundown, Zed was exhausted. His legs felt numb and ungainly, like he was walking on stilts. Ahead of him, their leader stopped midstride and raised a hand. Zed paused, huffing gratefully. His breath met the cold air as a plume of mist.

  When a long moment passed and they still hadn’t moved, Zed finally thought to search the woods.

  “What is it?” he whispered. “A Danger?”

  He quashed a kernel of panic before it had chance to take root. Still, Zed reached inward to draw upon his mana, in case he needed it. Soon he felt it there—a sensation like dipping his fingertips just below the surface of a pool of water.

  Zed’s actual fingers flickered with green pennants of flame. He was ready for anything.

  But their leader turned instead, his eyes taking in the apprentices behind him.

  And what a pair of eyes . . . So green and gemlike they practically glowed. The irises were huge, much larger and brighter than human eyes.

  They belonged to an elf. And not just any elf: Callum was the leader of the rangers, Llethanyl’s elite exploration force. He was a wood elf, the most common of the three sects. His skin was smooth and pale, with a tinge of green emerging from the hairline, and his auburn hair glistened in the moonlight like a dewy flower. Callum’s ears were long and dagger thin; they made Zed’s own pointed ears look practically round.

  There was a crunch of snow as Brock sidled up behind him, followed by Liza, Micah, and Jett. All five of them wore deep-blue traveling cloaks.

  The cloaks were new, and the fur that lined them was warm and soft. It was the finest piece of clothing that Zed had ever owned. In the last six weeks the Sea of Stars had made many friends in Freestone, friends who were excited to outfit its heroic young apprentices in luxurious, tailor-made gifts. Saving a city had that effect, Zed supposed. Recently smiths had been falling over themselves to provide the guild with the steepest discount; even Zed’s mother had been given a tidy raise from her mistress.

  “What’s going on?” Brock flashed Zed a questioning look. “Are we there yet?”

  Zed shrugged. “I’m not sure,” he whispered. “Callum just—”

  Behind them, Liza shushed for quiet.

  “Keep moving!” Micah grunted impatiently. “It’s colder than Frond’s compliments out here.”

  Jett snorted. “Like you’d know.”

  “I know your mother’s a—”

  “Shhhh!” Liza hissed again, the noise buzzing through the trees.

  The five were on their apprentice journey, an overnight scouting mission the guild ran to test their newest members’ quest-worthiness. Any apprentices who passed would be able to join the guild on longer missions outside.

  Zed knew they were headed toward some kind of shelter to bed down for the night. They had to be close now, with the sun so far beneath the trees. But he still didn’t see anything resembling a man-made structure. Just mounds and mounds of white fluff.

  The darker it grew, the more nervous Zed became. Most Dangers hunted at night, and many in Freestone believed the horrors that had driven the elves from their home might follow them. Out in the quiet forest, it was hard not to imagine monsters lurking in every shadow.

  The apprentice journey was usually made with a master adventurer as a chaperone, if not Guildmistress Frond herself. That Frond trusted Callum to lead her five young recruits said much about him, and about the bond that the human adventurers and elven rangers had formed over the years.

  Zed only wished that the High Ranger wasn’t so quiet and brooding. He had a thousand questions for Callum, only several hundred of which he’d been able to ask before the elf finally called for silence.

  Jett spotted their goal. “There,” he grunted. The dwarf hefted an iron maul in one hand, training it toward a particularly large snowbank.

  Zed squinted at the pile that Jett was pointing to—and then suddenly he saw it. The snow parted over a tapered arch at the bottom of the mound. They weren’t huddled near a snowdrift. They were standing at a doorway.

  The six crept forward, congregating around the partially buried door. Liza began shoveling snow with her shield, and soon all the apprentices joined in, digging away at the pile. Callum neither helped nor commented. The elf merely watched, those bright eyes glinting in the moonlight.

  Once they had dug away the pile, they saw the door itself was covered by a thick layer of ice: hoarfrost that had hardened over time. Zed could just make out a handle and lock buried under all that ice. The door appeared to be made of solid metal.

  Jett pointed to his shiny new hammer, an excited gleam in his eyes. He’d been itching to use it on the mission but hadn’t had a chance yet.

  Micah and Liza both emphatically shook their heads no, their dark eyes and olive-skinned faces similarly grave. It was a rare moment of agreement between the twins.

  Brock smirked, then raised his eyebrows at Zed. He wiggled his fingers toward the door.

  “Right,” Zed whispered. “Everyone stand back.” He braced his feet and raised both palms toward the frozen doorway, linking his thumbs and closing his eyes. He could hear snow crunching as the other apprentices backed into a wide semicircle.

  Zed glanced over his shoulder to make sure Callum was watching. The elf gave a little nod.

  Silently, Zed called upon his mana.

  The flames began as green ribbons snaking between his fingers, but soon they joined together and poured forth in a bright emerald torrent. I
n six weeks of training with Hexam, Zed had yet to match the power or precision from his first use of the spell—the blast that had destroyed the horrific monster threatening all of Freestone.

  Still, anything caught within a six-foot cone in front of him would burn, and burn fast. The green flames seemed hungrier than normal fire . . . even other magical fire.

  Zed opened his eyes to see that the ice was quickly boiling away. His friends’ faces looked eerie, lit by the otherworldly glow. He quashed his mana with practiced care, lest it eat through the door entirely. The flames guttered out from his hands, revealing a steaming metal archway barely six feet tall.

  Zed grinned, pleased with his work. After weeks of mishaps, this had been his finest spell-casting yet.

  He glanced back again at Callum . . . and was dismayed to find that the elf had already turned away. Callum scraped at the ground, bringing a fistful of frozen earth to his nose. He sniffed it, his eyes narrowing as he sifted the particles between his fingers.

  Brock moved forward, gingerly touching the iron padlock that was fastened to the door. Apparently satisfied it wouldn’t broil his palm, he lifted it in one hand and peered into the keyhole. Then he produced a pick and torsion wrench with a quick flourish, as if he’d plucked them from the keyhole instead of his sleeve.

  He curtsied theatrically to Liza, who snorted. Brock had been practicing that trick for weeks.

  As Brock set to work picking the lock, Zed repressed a wave of almost delirious hunger. The strain of marching all these hours without a true meal suddenly tugged at his belly. Once inside, hopefully they could stop to eat something beyond travel oats and crumbs of cheese.

  “Hey look,” said Jett. “A raccoon.”

  Zed glanced up, following Jett’s finger to where a squat catlike creature watched them curiously from the trees. Its reflective eyes shone behind a mask of black fur. Zed had learned the names of so many strange animals in the past several weeks—animals that lived only beyond the wall. Sometimes it was hard to remember which were natural and which were Dangers.

  “Aren’t you cold, little guy?” Jett called up.

  The raccoon blinked, but was otherwise still. Zed didn’t know much about such creatures, but this didn’t look like a particularly healthy specimen. Its ribs jutted out, visible beneath patchy fur. A dark, unsettling wound had been clawed across its side.

  In the moonlight, its shining eyes almost seemed to glow. They were a sickly shade of purple.

  “Apprentices.” Callum’s voice was controlled, but there was an urgency behind it that sent all five of them jumping. “Inside. Now.”

  A low click followed. As he watched Brock unhook the lock from the door handle, Zed realized his jaw was clenched tight.

  Liza pushed the door open, taking the lead. The hinges turned with a metallic shriek that echoed through the forest. Micah hissed and rolled his eyes, but Liza wasn’t around to see it. She’d already disappeared into the doorway.

  The rest of them filed quickly inside, one after another, into the dark.

  “What is this place?” Zed whispered, once the door had been closed and latched behind them. Now that they were out of the woods, his shoulders slowly relaxed.

  The entrance opened to a wide staircase, which descended into the earth. Zed had no sense of how deep it went. He couldn’t see farther down than a handful of steps.

  The walls of the structure were made of carved stone, and surprisingly well-preserved. The air here was chilly—which was actually an improvement from outside.

  “This is Halfling’s Hollow, a wayshelter maintained by both the rangers and your guild.” Callum’s lilting accent drifted musically through the dark. Zed had yet to meet an elf who didn’t have a lovely voice. “It’s one of several that mark the path between Llethanyl and Freestone. Each is stocked with weapons and supplies. My people had to bypass this shelter on our way to Freestone. It hasn’t been visited in six years. Reaching here was your first goal.”

  “Is it safe?” Jett asked. “The door was locked and frozen over. That means there are no Dangers here, right?”

  The elf laughed, and the sound was as bitter as it was beautiful. Zed could have sworn that Callum’s echoes actually harmonized with his own voice. “Dangers have a way of breaching even the tightest seals,” their guardian said. “There are no safe places in Terryn, dwarfson. As you all know from experience.”

  Zed glanced nervously down the staircase. “Who has the lamp?”

  Micah snorted. “Who needs the lamp?”

  Suddenly the air came alive with a gush of warm amber light. The radiance cascaded slowly over the walls, like waves of rippling honey. Zed turned to see Micah’s left hand was raised, its outline glowing as if it had been sketched from pure light.

  “Don’t drain your anima,” Liza scolded, though there wasn’t much force behind the warning. Micah could keep this up for hours. The boy was annoyingly adept at the healers’ arts—but, oh, did they all know it. Zed wondered if the Golden Way Temple had any idea what they’d lost when they let Mother Brenner turn their novice out onto the streets.

  Callum watched Micah’s glowing hand for a moment, then his eyes fell to the stairs. “Your mission is to gather what supplies you can and bring them back to Freestone. Lead the way, children.”

  Liza shuffled to the fore. Recently she’d graduated from leathers to chain-mail armor, wearing a hauberk commissioned from the Smiths Guild as a birthday gift from her father. (Micah had received a pair of socks.)

  Zed truly had no idea how Liza could stand under all that metal, let alone march for hours. She might look like an average girl her age, but the noble’s daughter was a force of nature.

  Liza descended the stairs slowly, sword out and shield high. Micah and Brock followed just behind, with Zed and Jett behind them.

  “How’s your leg?” Zed whispered to the dwarf.

  “Less sore than yours, I’m guessing,” Jett cracked.

  Zed grinned. “I think you’re probably right.”

  Jett’s left leg had been lost to a monster attack, during their very first night as apprentice adventurers. Beginning below his knee was a silvery prosthetic, a gift from the elven rangers. It was forged from a metal called mythril. “Elven steel,” Jett had knowingly dubbed it. “Very impressive stuff.

  “Though not as impressive as dwarven steel,” he’d added.

  The elves used mythril for all their prosthetics. It was springier than most metals, and tougher than wood. Jett’s new leg ended in a long, elegantly bladed foot. With training, he had learned first to walk without a cane, and then even to run. Though he’d never been especially fond of running.

  “If I’m honest,” Jett said more seriously, “it tingles. I can still feel it there . . . literally an itch I can’t scratch. And the stump aches like Fie.”

  “Micah can help with that,” Zed whispered. “Once we settle in.”

  Jett rolled his eyes. “So it’s a choice between a pain in the leg and a pain in the butt.”

  As they descended, Micah’s light parted the curtains of darkness, revealing a second door, this one made of wood.

  The door was ajar.

  Zed glanced back at Callum, standing just behind him. The elf narrowed his eyes and raised his hand, hissing a short warning. The group stopped immediately.

  Callum slid forward, gliding easily between the apprentices until he knelt at the open doorway.

  He peered inside.

  In the silence, Zed felt a single bead of sweat trailing down his back.

  “You humans are sloppy,” the elf said finally. He stood and pushed the door open, revealing a spare but clean barracks. “I’ll have to remind Frond to shut the inner door next time.”

  A chorus of relieved sighs filled the stairway. Zed and the others entered the shelter. Cots had been stacked up into neat rows, enough for a dozen travelers. There was a wooden table in the center of the room, standing over a moldy brown rug—the room’s only decoration.

  Ther
e were also weapon racks and stands for armor, each of them bearing equipment, and a half-dozen chests containing Fey knew what.

  “How are we supposed to carry all this?” Micah groused.

  “Dutifully,” Callum said, glancing back at the stairway. “I would also advise quietly. But that can wait until morning. You’ll bed here for the night.” The ranger adjusted his gloves, tugging on the buckles. “If you children can survive without me for a moment, I’ll be stepping outside.”

  “Now?” Zed protested. “But it’s dark out. Shouldn’t we at least eat first?”

  Callum shook his head, but his face softened. “You may eat without me. Magic is hungry work, I’ve heard.”

  “Callum,” Liza said. “Is everything all right?”

  The High Ranger frowned. “I’m just taking a look around.” He unhooked his bow from his back. “I’ll return soon. If I don’t, do not come looking for me. Wait until daybreak, then head immediately for Freestone.”

  “Be careful,” Liza said.

  Callum nodded once, then slipped out the door and up the stairs.

  Micah, Jett, and Brock each threw themselves into the lower-stacked cots, while Liza set to work lighting a single dirty lantern with smudged glass panes that was hanging from the wall.

  “Everything hurts,” Brock moaned. “This has got to earn us a day off from drills, right?”

  “I’m pretty sure the Dolt doesn’t do days off,” Micah said, using his private name for Lotte, their quartermaster and drill instructor.

  “Lotte might,” Jett said. The young dwarf had rested his hammer against the cot and was massaging his residual limb, just above the prosthetic’s socket. “Frond? Definitely not. Unless one of you wants to volunteer to get bitten by the next monster.”

  “Let’s not tempt fate.” Lantern lit, Liza was now on the other side of the room, peering at the equipment. “Some of this stuff looks elven,” she said. “Zed, there’s a big wand over here. Or it might be a small staff. There’s a crystal on top, anyway.”

  “Really?” Zed asked excitedly. He was tugging his boots off near the door. “I wonder if it’s a scepter. They have a focus embedded on top to channel magic.”