“You’ll find out if you don’t help me up,” Gin said, unable to contain her happiness. He held out his hand and she took it, flying up and into his arms in a hug. “You’re here! You are home! I can’t believe it!” She pulled away from him and studied his face. “You’re thinner than you were.”
“You are as bad as our mother…was,” the older elf said, attempting a scowl but finally surrendering to the grin that split his face. “How are you, Ginny?”
“Oh shut it,” Gin said happily, again pulling her brother to her in a hug. “I’m so glad you’re here and you will not believe how grown up Lairky is. Have you been out adventuring, my brother? Is that why you are so thin?”
“That again!” Cursik laughed and Gin felt her heart simultaneously leap with joy and contract with sorrow at how much the sound reminded her of their father. “If you must know, yes, I have been farther away than ever before and I have learned so much about…” He stopped suddenly, lowering his voice. “I have been following the trail our parents left, Ginny,” he said.
“You’ve been hunting with them? How are they? It has been so long since they have been home and we have not heard from them in ages,” she replied, eyes wide with wonder as she gazed up at him. He released her and crossed the room to the desk where she had been preparing her lessons for the next day. “Well?”
“What is all this?” he asked, rifling through a stack of parchment. “My sister, one of the most gifted of all of us in terms of magic, is…a school teacher?”
“That is a long story, my brother,” Gin said, her annoyance clear in her tone as she moved quickly to the desk and gathered up the parchment. “What is going on with Mama and Papa?”
Cursik sank down into the chair at the desk and Gin climbed nimbly up onto it, sitting cross-legged as she studied her brother. He finally looked up at her and the pained expression he wore lanced her heart. “It is far worse than I feared when I headed out to search for them, Ginny,” he said quietly as he began spreading out a map on the desk. Gin sat silently, waiting for him to explain. “I have documents and letters as well as a map tracing their route.” She picked up one of the letters, finding it written in a language she did not recognize, and wrinkled her eyebrows. “You look the spitting image of Mother when you make that face,” Cursik said, brushing a stray hair off her face and holding her chin cupped in his hand for a moment.
“Aye, she used to look at you that way when you were once again up to something,” Gin replied, smiling at him. He grinned back at her but the grin did not spread to his eyes. “Tell me what you have found, my brother? When are they coming home?”
“Before I do, this will not leave this room, do you understand me Gin?” he said, and she nodded, wincing at the use of her full name. He must be serious. “That letter that you can’t read is written in Eldyr, the language of the original dragons,” he said. Gin gasped.
“Eldyr…but that just isn’t possible, Curs!” she exclaimed. “You’re having a laugh at me. There is no such language. It died out with the dragons after the War!”
“That’s part of the story, but not the worst part,” he replied, frowning. “Ginny…they’re gone. Mama and Papa are gone.” Gin sat very still. All the air had left the room for her, and she was afraid to take a deep breath for fear that it would hurt too much or make what he said too real. “Did you hear me, Ginny?”
“Yes. What does this have to do with the dragons, Curs?” she asked, her voice soft and distant. Through her shock and disbelief, she tried to focus on that aspect of what Cursik had said in the hopes that she had misunderstood him about their parents being gone.
“Ginny, our parents are dead, we have to tell Lairky.”
“She won’t remember them.” Gin was fighting a losing battle against the scream that was rising in her throat. She knew that if she let it out, she might not stop. “She was too young when they left…the last time. Now tell me what our parents have to do with the dragons and dragonkind.”
“Our parents were…I think this word translates to supporters of the dragons. That’s what this letter says…and that’s why they were traveling through the mountains when they were ambushed and Father was killed.”
Gin stared at her brother in utter disbelief. “Our parents…were involved… with…dragons?” she stuttered, unable to believe the words even as they were coming out of her own mouth. “Cursik, that just can’t be true. It has been hundreds of years since the last dragon was seen on Orana.”
“Shall I read the letter to you, my sister?” he asked, his countenance suddenly grim as he matched her stare, his eyes a mirror image of her own.
“Yes. In Elvish, please, as I’m sure you’ve surmised I don’t speak…Eldyr or dragonese or whatever that language is.” She scowled at her older brother.
“Eldyr, you were right,” Cursik said, the corners of his lips lifting into a sad smile. “By the Gods it is good to see you again, little sister. No one out in those frozen mountains could make me smile as you can.” Gin tried to fight the grin that was threatening and finally gave in. “There’s my girl,” he said, making her smile even wider.
“Well? Are you going to read the letter?” Gin asked her brother. She pushed a stray lock of hair behind one of her pointed ears as she studied him. “You really have lost a lot of weight, Cursik. I wish you’d tell me what has happened, to you I mean, not only with our parents.”
“I’ve been traveling with…some other adventurers who are…different than we are, Ginny,” he said. “Some of them were dark knights and…well; do you know how they practice magic?” Her frown deepened, telling him that she did, but she kept her mouth shut. It would do no good to call up memories of Dorlagar now. “It is hard to be in a group of them for someone like me,” Cursik said, fiddling with the edge of the parchment as he spoke. “They have great and awful magic, Ginny, and at times I was the target of their spell work.”
“WHAT?” Gin’s mouth fell open, remembering the many times that Dorlagar could have used his life syphoning magic to regain his health by draining hers, but he had refused. “They life-tapped you?” Cursik’s face darkened.
“Life-tapped? Ginny, how do you know so much about their spells that you even know their slang?” Cursik demanded, looking at her with an accusatory stare. He quickly rose to his feet and moved to where she was still sitting on the end of the desk, taking her face in his hands. “Tell me that you never…you haven’t…”
“No! Of course not. I…did travel with a group for a time before returning home, Cursik, surely you have heard about that, and one of them was a dark knight. But he never used that power on me, only on our enemies in battle.” Gin placed her oaken tinged hands over her brother’s, which were still gripping the sides of her face. “I swear, Cursik. I have never let that happen to me, nor will I, voluntarily.” Shame crept into his gaze as he released her face and turned away from her. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean that…” She placed a hand on his back and he winced. “Cursik…”
He turned back to her, his face a mask of normality. “It’s fine, Ginny, I knew what you meant,” he said. “The one that I traveled with most of the time was a dark elf. Her name was Maelfie and she was…kind.” His voice was so sad and wistful that Gin bit her tongue to keep from demanding to know what he had been thinking to trust a dark elf. “She was turned out by her family when she did not become a necromancer, but a dark knight instead. Her family was very traditional and didn’t believe that females could be warriors.”
“I believe I know something about that,” Gin muttered. When Cursik’s eyes met hers, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “I’m sorry. Go on.”
“You would have liked her, Ginny,” he said, smiling. “The two of you were very similar. I kept thinking of those days when you were younger, proclaiming that you were going to be a fighter like me rather than just a druid as you were promised to be.” Cursik chuckled. “JUST a druid. Ginny, you were never JUST anything.” He ruffled her hair playfully and she swatted at him as sh
e laughed.
“So you and this Maelfie were…together?” Gin asked, trying to hide the sudden revulsion she felt at the idea of her brother in love with a dark elf. She learned her entire life to fear and shun her underground-dwelling cousins. Cursik frowned.
“We were, aye. She was my mate, Ginny, and I lost her…in the mountains,” he replied, blinking back the tears that pricked his eyes at her memory. “She was traveling with me in search of our parents, Ginny, helping me gain access to parts of our world where only those of her kind are welcome. We had crossed paths with another dark knight in the mountains that gave me this letter and…” Cursik rummaged around in a pack that he had slung to the floor earlier, finally producing a gold ring with a shimmering fire emerald in the middle of the band, a sigil carved in the stone. “Do you recognize it?” he asked, knowing the answer already as the color ran out of his sister’s face.
“How did you…where did you…?” Tears flowed unhindered down Gin’s cheeks. “This is Father’s ring…yes?” Unable to tear her eyes from the ring, Gin’s hands covered her mouth in an effort to hold back long repressed sobs that threatened to break free in the face of this undeniable proof that her parents were gone.
“It is, Sister,” Cursik said, putting an arm around her and pulling her into the support of his shoulder. Gin cried for a moment, then wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her tunic and once again focused her attention on the ring. “Let me read you the letter, it will answer some questions.” Gin nodded, extending her hand as if demanding the ring. Cursik put it carefully on her palm and then released her, returning to his seat at the desk. Gin stared at the ring on her open palm, tracing the flame sigil on the stone with her eyes, as she remained seated on the desk, still as statue.
He smoothed the parchment under his long fingers, and then began to read as he rested one hand on his sister’s knee, just to his right. “To our Brothers and Sisters of Tooth and Scale, Greetings and Most Well Met. I write to you in the waning of this great conflict over the lands to our south to bring you hope to carry you through the oncoming darkness.” Cursik stopped and looked at Gin whose face wore a completely blank expression. “Friends have come from the Forest to the south, friends that wish to end this conflict and unite our kind and theirs…Gin? Lost, are you?” She nodded. “Okay, I will sum this up for you, because this only marginally involves our parents. This was written, from what I can tell, from a time near the end of the Forest Wars,” he continued, but then stopped, frowning as the blank look returned to her face. “Really? Did you even attend your history lessons? A legion of dark elves led the dragonkind into the Forest, close to our tree city, fighting broke out and we drove them back north? Mother Dragon flew away toward the Dark Sea, never to be seen again?” Gin nodded her head as her memory caught up with Cursik’s tale.
“But what does this have to do with our parents?”
“That part I don’t know exactly,” Cursik said, his eyes darkening. “I never learned why those such as Mother and Father were chosen to assist the dragonkind after the War was over, but this letter names them as allies. Most mature dragons kill wood elves and high elves on sight, as do their minions, so it makes no sense.
“Mae and I thought that it might have something to do with the work our mother had done as a diplomat with the Qatu, so we headed for their settlement off the coast of the Volcanic Mountains.” He paused a moment before he spoke again. “We had gone to the Highlands, to the human outpost there and the dwarf settlement to try and trace our parents’ footsteps. Ginny, you remember that their final journey landed them in that outpost, yes?” She nodded. “We met another dark knight there, one that was known to Mae and other dark knights as a renegade. He asked to travel with us and we allowed it - but with much trepidation. Mae had not heard anything from Dorlagar since he left his studies in the Outlands.” Gin gasped at the familiar name, causing Cursik to pause for a moment and look over at her. “Are you all right, Sister? I know that I was more familiar with Mae than my family would have preferred, but…”
“No, it isn’t that,” she said. Her mind raced. Cursik and his mate, this Maelfie, knew Dorlagar. How had that happened? “Please, go on.”
Cursik looked at her suspiciously, but continued his tale. “We traveled with him for a week or so, but one night as we were camped in the Outlands, he told us that he had received terrible news from home and had to leave us. He handed over a rucksack that he said had enough loot in it to keep us on our path, wished us well, and then was gone.” His face darkened. “We investigated, and inside found the letter and the ring.”
Gin felt like the world had dropped out from under her. “Does that mean that…he killed…Mother and Father?”
“Oh, it gets much worse than that, my Sister. I wanted to go after him and demand answers, but Mae was weak from our last encounter and I could not leave her without…” He looked away from Gin, his face filling with shame. “By the time she was well enough to travel, he was long gone. I hope that he has met the wrong side of a broad sword since leaving us.” Cursik balled up his fists in anger. “We continued on to the settlement where we met a survivor of that expedition where our parents died: a woman who was one of the healers, and she was able to confirm for us by his description that it was Dorlagar who had killed them. With that knowledge, all that was left for us to do was find out why the dragonkind of Tooth and Scale selected our parents, and for that we ventured on to the Volcanic Mountains…where I lost her.”
“You don’t have to go on, Brother,” Gin whispered. Her parents were dead, her family destroyed, and it was Dorlagar had killed her parents. Dorlagar, who had taken many wounds in her defense, who staunchly refused to use his dark magic on her to heal himself when she no longer had the power to heal him, who was her friend and companion… but was he? She remembered the uncomfortable glances, and him calling for her the night she left. “This must be put right,” she muttered. Cursik looked up at her sharply. “I will put this right.”
“You will do no such thing, little sister,” he barked at her. “I have lost too much. To lose you along with Mother and Father and Mae…I forbid it!” Gin smiled at him as genuinely as she could, running her hand down the side of his face. As it had when they were children, her touch seemed to soothe him. They were two years apart in age, and had been inseparable as children.
“Of course not,” she lied, amazed at her own ability to look her brother in the eye and not tell the truth. Something else she had learned from traveling with the dark knight, no doubt. “I merely meant that when you are ready, you must continue your search, even if it means going back to where you lost your…Maelfie.” Cursik smiled at her through tears and Gin felt as though her heart would burst forth from her chest. “I do not think we should tell Lairky, Cursik,” she said, relieved when he nodded in agreement. “She would take off after Dorlagar and we would lose her too. We must tell her that Mama and Papa are not coming back, but not that we know the identity of their killer.”
“Aye, this will be our little secret,” he said sadly. “I should find lodging, Ginny, I’m exhausted. We can talk more tomorrow, yes?”
“Of course, and you will stay with me and Lairky,” she replied. “I will go out to hunt tonight and you can have my bed. I’m sure that Lairky will have thousands of questions about your victories in battle, so be warned.” She hopped off the table as Cursik gathered up his things and then she headed for the door, to be stopped cold by his hand on her arm. “Don’t worry; I will be back.”
“I mean it, Ginny, you forget that name, Dorlagar, do you understand me?” he hissed as he glared down at her. A chill ran down her back as she nodded. Cursik now was the spitting image of their father when he had been angry with Gin for skipping her studies with the druid guild master. “We need you here. I need you,” he said, his words lost in a sob as he grabbed her and held her fast against his chest. Gin bit her lip as she rubbed a hand absently on his back.
“Now then, do you really want Lairky to see you like
this? Stay at home with me, have some warm stew and a bit of ale and you’ll be back to yourself before you know it. I won’t be gone long, I promise.” Cursik smiled at her and she turned to open the door, a silent curse on her lips. She would make Dorlagar answer for this wrong, and soon.
Twelve
An almost palpable silence hung in the air as Dorlagar entered the arena just outside of Calder’s Port. Why had Gin asked him to meet her here? This was an area designated for the settlement of disputes and arguments by means of combat, often ending in death. The last time they had both been in the city it had ended so badly…he sighed as he remembered that day as the last time he had seen Gin.
He removed his helm, placed it on the ground with the rest of his traveling gear, and ran one tired hand through his gray hair. All that her message had said was to meet her here and to come alone, followed by her careful signature at the bottom. She would have no way to know that he had long since left Naevys and Nelenie’s company, departing the day after Gin herself left, and had been traveling alone ever since. He was still no closer to finding his sister. Dorlagar scanned the arena as he paused in the doorway. The walls were stone and higher than any man’s head. He walked over to one side and tentatively touched the wall. It was smoother than it looked, and he wondered if that smoothness was to prevent a combatant from scaling the walls to safety. Dorlagar moved toward the center of the arena.
As he approached the marble throne that was surrounded by a wooden structure, the place for whomever was to negotiate the dispute to sit, he thought he caught a glimmer of movement. “Who’s there?” he called out, his hand instantly closing around the hilt of his sword. There was no answer, so he moved closer to the throne. It was made of shining white marble, a stark contrast to the dull gray stones of the walls. While bloodstains were visible everywhere else in this desolate place, the throne appeared pristine, as though it existed outside of the grim reality of the arena.
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