by Lisa Smedman
Behind him, he heard Maalthiir howling orders. “Archers! Shoot that damned bird!” he shouted. “Bring down anything that flies.”
One arrow, two—and a flurry whistled into the air, but already Leifander had flown out of range. Silently praising the goddess for maintaining his skinwalking abilities even in the face of Nadire’s spell, he flew far to the south, to reinforce Maalthiir’s false impression that he was a Sembian spy. Only when he was certain he could no longer be seen did he dive to treetop level and turn back in the direction of the forest elves’ camp.
CHAPTER 15
As the tent flap rustled, Larajin jumped in alarm and raised her hand to cast a spell. Beside her, Doriantha drew a dagger with a slither of steel and Goldheart fluffed in alarm. But instead of the person Larajin most feared—Drakkar—pushing his way into the tent, it was Rylith, the person she most wanted to see.
The druid blinked once in surprise to see Larajin inside Doriantha’s tent, then immediately nodded as if finding Larajin there was something she’d half expected.
She looked around the tent and asked, “Where is Leifander?”
“We don’t know,” Larajin said in a tense voice. “Doriantha saw him perched on Lord Ilreth’s manor, and told him to meet her here, but he never arrived. Goldheart spotted him flying over the Red Plumes’s camp a short time later, but then he just … disappeared.”
Rylith’s eyebrows furrowed. “Disappeared?”
Instead of questioning Larajin further, however, she turned to the tressym and uttered a series of mrrows and yrrows, then finally, a soft growl.
Rylith switched back to the common tongue. “His disappearance doesn’t appear to be the Red Plumes’s work. I think it was some spell he cast upon himself—that he somehow managed to render his crow form invisible. As for his safety now…”
Her voice trailed off as a sudden commotion erupted, far from Doriantha’s tent. Larajin could hear the shouts of men, and the faint but unmistakable thrum-thrum-thrum of a volley of arrows being loosed. It sounded as though the noise was coming from the northeast.
“The Red Plumes!” Larajin said, stiffening. “Do you think it’s Leifander they’re shooting at?”
Doriantha joined Larajin in giving Rylith a tense, expectant look, but the druid merely sat quietly, listening. After a moment, the sound of bows stopped, and there were more distant shouts.
“If Leifander is the cause of that commotion, we can only hope he has escaped,” Rylith said. “As to that—we shall see.”
Doriantha nodded in acceptance, but Larajin jumped to her feet. “What? You mean we’re just going to sit here and wait? We should—”
Rylith silenced her with a gesture, then she pulled something out of a pouch that hung at her hip. She began to chant the words of a spell. The object was a fist-sized chunk of amber of a clear, yellow color. Within it was a single speck—an insect, Larajin assumed at first, but then the speck began to move. Larajin and Doriantha leaned closer, and Larajin’s breath caught in her throat as she recognized the moving shape for what it was: a tiny black crow.
“Leifander!” she exclaimed. “But where is he?”
She peered deeper into the chunk of amber. Its base was stippled and seemed to be moving—a pattern she recognized easily, after long days of flying over it: the treetops of the great forest.
“You see these lights?” Rylith asked, pointing out a faint sparkle at one edge of the amber. “That’s Essembra. He is coming back this way.”
Larajin sighed in relief and was surprised to hear Doriantha sigh, too. She’d thought the elf woman a battle-hardened veteran, not one to be overly sentimental about the welfare of individual members of her command. It looked as though Larajin had been wrong about her.
“Rylith,” Larajin said, “I have a problem. Someone else may also be headed this way. Earlier this evening, Drakkar—the wizard who was the cause of my fleeing Selgaunt—cast a spell on me. The spell embedded a magic thorn in my paw. I think it was some sort of tracking spell.”
Rylith’s eyebrows rose at the word paw. “Show me.”
Larajin pulled off her boot and extended her foot to the druid. Rylith peered at it, her tattooed cheeks puckering as she pursed her lips. Placing her amber in her lap, she held Larajin’s foot in one hand and prodded at the sole with a forefinger, as if feeling for something under the skin. She placed the flat of her hand against the bottom of Larajin’s foot and chanted the words to a spell.
A foul, burning smell filled the air, and the spot on Larajin’s foot where the thorn had embedded itself became an intense point of heat and pain. Involuntarily, she jerked her foot back.
“What’s happening?” she gasped.
Beside her, Goldheart sniffed at the foot, then growled.
Rylith shook her head grimly. “The wizard’s magic is too strong. I can’t dispel it.”
Disappointment swept over Larajin as she cradled her aching foot. She’d been certain Rylith could help her.
“Drakkar will come for me, then,” she whispered. “He’ll find me.”
Outside the tent, a stick cracked, and Larajin jumped.
Rylith placed a hand on Larajin’s shoulder. “If he does, may the goddesses protect you. May they grant that you won’t have to face Drakkar alone.”
As if on cue, the tent flap whipped open. Leifander rushed inside, an urgent look on his face.
“Doriantha! Maalthiir is planning to—”
Noticing Larajin and Rylith, he halted in mid-sentence.
“Rylith,” he breathed, placing both hands over his heart and giving a quick bow. “It’s good to see you.” He glanced at Larajin. “And you, Larajin,” he added, though his words were strained. “I’m … going to need your help.”
“You were spying on Maalthiir?” Rylith asked.
Leifander nodded, his eyes sparkling.
“Sit,” Rylith commanded. “Tell us what you’ve seen and heard.”
Leifander did as he was told and began telling the others something about Maalthiir planning to carve a road through the forest to the upper reaches of the Sea of Fallen Stars.
“It must be the reason behind the alliance,” Leifander added. “Maalthiir knew the High Council would never agree to another road being built—especially not now. He probably hoped to gain the council’s favor by sending his soldiers to fight with us. Do you think they’ll grant him permission?”
Larajin, listening while she pulled her boot back on, now knew the name of the “master” Drakkar had spoken of earlier.
“Maalthiir isn’t planning to ask the council’s permission for anything,” she said grimly. “He won’t have to. Not once the drow control the forest.”
Leifander and Doriantha both gave her startled looks. Rylith’s eyes merely widened.
“The drow?” Leifander blurted. “What do they have to do with any of this?”
Quickly, Larajin related the story of what she’d seen and heard at the tower.
“Gods curse Maalthiir—and his wizard Drakkar!” Doriantha exclaimed. “That’s why they’re insisting all of the elf forces march toward Essembra. They hope we’ll leave the rest of the forest unguarded.”
Leifander’s eyes had a thoughtful look. “Drakkar,” he said slowly. “Maalthiir mentioned him.”
“What did he say?” Rylith prompted.
“Something about the mist that caused the blight. He said Drakkar could dispel it.”
“All of it?” Doriantha asked. “Impossible. It’s spread throughout the forest, over an area of many miles.”
Leifander shrugged. “Maalthiir made it sound as though Drakkar could dispel all of it at once with a wave of his hand.”
It was Rylith who made the connection. “The poisonous mist,” she said slowly. “It must be Drakkar’s doing.”
Leifander shook his head. “It’s no mere spell,” he said. “The mist came from wands—like the one I captured.”
“Wands that must have been made by Drakkar,” Rylith said, “and imbued wi
th a spell that made their effects permanent.” As she said the latter, she glanced at Larajin’s foot, then away again.
“Drakkar is at the root of this war,” Larajin said grimly. “He wormed his way into the Hulorn’s confidence, and got him to persuade Sembia’s Merchant Council to use the wands. He knew it would provoke the elves.”
“I suspected as much,” Rylith said, “but there’s more. The choke creeper ‘infestation’ that prompted the use of the wands—it too was deliberate.”
“You mean, someone planted the stuff?” Larajin asked.
She shuddered, remembering how the creeper had nearly strangled her.
As Rylith nodded, Leifander’s eyes widened.
“The Sembians!” he exclaimed. “It must have been them. When I carried the druids’ message to Thamalon Uskevren, in Selgaunt, I saw choke creeper sprouting in his garden. I thought it was a weed he’d foolishly overlooked, but now I see the truth. He must be involved in all of this.” His lips curved in a sneer. “It makes me feel dirty, to have this man’s blood in my veins.”
Larajin’s cheeks flushed with anger as Leifander talked about Thamalon Uskevren—her father—like a common criminal, but it was Rylith who reprimanded him.
“Leifander! I will not have you speak this way. You are not thinking. The Sembians have nothing to gain from this war. It has cut off their trade with the cities of the north. You are wrong about your father. Thamalon Uskevren is a friend to the elves. The choke creeper was in his garden because he was trying to help us—he was trying to find a way to exterminate it without using the wands.”
Leifander’s mouth opened. “You knew this all along? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted you to draw your own conclusions about your father,” Rylith answered.
In the uncomfortable silence that followed, Leifander’s face colored. He stared into the distance, then slowly nodded.
“You’re right,” he said at last. “I wasn’t thinking. There is only one person who has anything to gain in all of this.”
“Maalthiir,” Doriantha spat. “All of the strands of the web lead back to him.”
A brief silence followed, broken only by the sound of Gold-heart’s wings rustling as she worried a frayed feather with her teeth. Doriantha held up her dagger. Her eyes glittered as brightly as its polished steel.
“I say we kill the spider,” she said. “Maalthiir must die.”
She started to rise, but Leifander caught her arm.
“Don’t!” he exclaimed. “You’ll only be playing into his hands. Make an attempt on his life, and he’ll have an excuse to turn on us.” He gestured in the direction of the Red Plumes’s camp. “Maalthiir has already tricked us into permitting hundreds of his soldiers to march into the heart of Cormanthor. He’s hoping for a falling out—maybe not so soon as this, but eventually. If an incident doesn’t occur on its own, he’s planning to cause one.”
Grudgingly, Doriantha sank back down again.
“Something has to be done,” Rylith added, “but Leifander is right, Doriantha. Even if you succeed in killing Maalthiir, it will not stop this war. It will only throw tinder on the flames and force us to fight on three fronts: the Sembians, the drow, and the Red Plumes. We will be defeated—and the great forest will be lost.”
Though the discussion was animated, Larajin was only half listening. Instead she pondered Somnilthra’s prophecy. Somnilthra had said that, together Leifander and Larajin could heal the rift between human and elf and end the war. She’d told them to make use of a heart and to use love rather than hate.
A heart in love …
Larajin realized the answer. Love, she reflected, could make people do things they would not ordinarily do—foolish things, things contrary to their nature. Larajin herself had played love’s fool less than a year before. Smitten with love for Diurgo—a noble who barely acknowledged her existence—she’d tried to follow him on his pilgrimage to Lake Sember. She hadn’t cared about the consequences. The furor caused by her leaving Stormweather Towers without telling anyone where she was going, the anxious moments she’d caused her family, the possible dangers she’d face. It hadn’t even mattered that Diurgo felt nothing for her. She’d ignored all of this and run after him, driven on by the beating of a love-smitten heart.
Her eyes fell on Doriantha. At first she saw only the tattoos, rough clothing, and feathered braid, then she looked deeper and saw a woman whose keen intelligence and fiery spirit would cause any man to fall in love with her, even a city-bred human.
Perhaps, if the goddesses were willing, even a human with a pathological hatred of elves. If Maalthiir were in love with an elf, Larajin realized, he might abandon his plans to backstab her people, but could it be done? Could the two goddesses work together through Larajin to fill his heart with a love that went beyond the foolish, into the realm of the foolhardy?
If they could—if Maalthiir’s love was strong and foolish enough—he might even be persuaded to work at brokering a peace between his elf allies and Sembia—or even to use his army against the drow…
Then Larajin realized the flaw in her plan. Thanks to Leifander spying on Maalthiir, the Red Plumes were as stirred up as a nest of hornets. There was no way she was going to get close enough to cast a spell on him, even in tressym form. Yet the attempt would have to be made that night—before Drakkar found her.
Larajin’s gaze fell on Leifander, and in that moment she remembered that the prophesy was not hers alone to fulfill. Her brother had a role in all of this, too. That was what the goddesses had been trying to tell them, all along. The twins must combine their magic. Together, they could do anything.
The thought filled Larajin with a sudden rush of hope, leaving her giddy. Breathless, she interrupted the discussion.
“I know how we can do stop this war,” she cried, “how we can mend the rift between human and elf. It was just as Somnilthra said, we have to use love to conquer war.”
She turned to Doriantha, and saw open skepticism in the elf’s eyes. The hardest part would be persuading Doriantha to play along with what would sound like a ridiculous plan, but if the spell Larajin cast on Maalthiir was strong enough, Doriantha could even slap him across the face without dampening his feelings for her. She needn’t even pretend to care for Maalthiir. She just might relish the thought of tricking him into using his Red Plumes to rid the forest of drow.
“Doriantha,” Larajin said, “I’m going to tell you something I know will sound crazy, but please hear me out. Leifander and I will need your help.”
Before Doriantha could reply, Larajin turned to the druid and said, “Rylith, we’ll need your help, too. Would you be able to use your amber to locate Maalthiir?”
Rylith nodded.
Larajin turned to her brother and asked, “Leifander, could you summon up a breeze and use it to carry a small, light object in a precise path over a distance of several hundred paces?”
He made a dismissive gesture. “Child’s play.”
“Could you do it if you could only see the object in Rylith’s amber?”
“I suppose,” he said, frowning, “but to what end? And what object?”
Larajin picked up a downy feather that Goldheart had preened from her wing, noting with satisfaction that it was predominantly red—Sune’s sacred color.
“This feather,” she said.
Leifander and Doriantha stared at her blankly, but on Rylith’s face Larajin saw the dawning of a smile. Quickly, Larajin began to speak.
Larajin completed her prayer and held up the tressym feather. Small and downy, it was perhaps the most unusual “weapon” of war ever wielded. Tiny though it might be, it vibrated with magical power. Its color had deepened to a vivid crimson that almost seemed to glow in the darkness, and the scent of Hanali’s Heart wafted from it as though it had been soaked in perfume.
“It’s ready,” she told Doriantha. “Now it’s time for you to kiss it.”
Doriantha hesitated, her lip curling, then leaned fo
rward. She gave the feather the briefest of kisses, and stared skeptically at it.
“Are you sure this will work? Isn’t the enchantment on it too obvious?”
“Only up close,” Larajin said. “It’ll be Leifander’s job to blow the feather up against Maalthiir in such a way that he doesn’t see it coming until it’s too late.”
Overhead, a thickly leafed duskwood tree swayed in the wind, throwing a patter of shadows across the moonlit forest floor. The breeze—cool and refreshing, and carrying rich woodland scents—had been summoned by Leifander. He sat cross-legged on a mossy boulder, eyes closed and arms extended. His hands drifted in lazy circles, fanning the breeze that fluttered the glossy black feathers in the end of his braid.
Rylith, standing next to him, peered intently into her amber. “I see him,” she said softly. “Maalthiir is at the center of a group of soldiers. He has just passed through the northern gate and is walking in the direction of the manor house.”
Larajin nodded. “We’d better hurry. Once he’s indoors, it will be more difficult.”
She strode to where Leifander sat and held the feather up in front of him. “Ready?” she asked.
He drew a deep breath, opened his eyes, then nodded. Larajin let go of the feather, which started to drift to the ground. Leifander exhaled. Caught by his breath, the feather at first tumbled through the air, then seemed to find its bearings. It floated away through the forest, weaving its way through the trees.
“Quickly,” Larajin told Rylith. “The amber.” Then, to Doriantha, “Go now. The feather will reach him before you do.”
As Doriantha slipped away into the night, the druid raised the fist-sized chunk of amber so Leifander could peer into it. The image inside, which a moment ago had shown a group of Red Plumes striding up Rauthauvyr’s Road, suddenly shifted. Something rushed into view from a distant point, deep within the amber’s yellow depths. It drew close enough for Larajin to recognize it as the tressym feather—and it was gone.