by Aaron Ehasz
Viren felt confident that pointed ambiguity would create more motivation here than any specific threat could. He narrowed his eyes, and responded, “You know.”
The Crow Master’s lower lip trembled at Viren’s sudden change in tone.
“Now that I think about it … I’m just going to go ahead and take care of these for you,” the Crow Master said.
“I thought you might,” Viren said with a triumphant twinkle in his gray eyes.
Ouch. Rayla was starting to rethink this rose plan. But stabbing herself with a thorn was a small price to pay to avoid falling asleep and never waking up. Whenever she felt the magic of the strange music pulling her toward sleep, she pushed the point of the thorn that much harder into her hand to counteract it.
Rayla felt the presence of two bodies hovering over her. Then she heard that awful raspy voice. It was the dark mage from the castle—the girl who’d sent the smoke wolves after them. That mage must have been tracking the princes and followed them here.
Rayla made out more whispers, a male voice and clanking armor. The mage had brought some sort of warrior with her for extra protection. Rayla kept her eyes closed and her breath steady, hoping they would believe she had fallen for the sleep spell.
“Go on. Do it, Soren. What are you waiting for?” the dark mage asked. “She’s a Moonshadow elf. And she kidnapped the princes. You just have to—”
“I know, Claudia,” the male voice responded. “I’ve just never attacked someone who’s sleeping before. It doesn’t seem … sporting.”
Sporting? Since when was killing a sport? What was wrong with this warrior? Rayla refocused on her breathing. She had to stay alive and protect the princes.
“You want me to wake her?” the mage asked. Rayla detected some exasperation in her voice.
Then silence. Rayla slit open her eyes just enough to see this Soren character raise his sword high in the air.
“Wake her,” he whispered, poised to slice Rayla in two.
“And how long do you need her to be awake for it to be sporting?” the mage asked. “Ten seconds? Five?”
Adrenaline pumped through Rayla as she waited for the answer.
“One second,” he said quickly. “One second is sporting.”
Rayla tensed all her muscles.
“Okay, on three,” the mage said. “One … two …”
In an instant, Rayla grabbed the swordsman by the ankle and yanked him off his feet. His weapon clattered to the ground. Rayla leaped to her feet and faced her attackers.
“But how did you resist the sleep spell?” the dark mage asked her.
Rayla smirked and opened her fist. “Oh, I used this lovely rose to help me stay awake,” she said. Rayla buried her nose in the azure bloom and breathed deeply. A trickle of blood ran down her hand. “Hard to sleep with a thorn poking at you.” Then she tossed the rose away and unfurled her blades.
Soren and Rayla circled each other like two wolves vying for a single alpha spot. Soren twirled his sword back and forth and over his head. He was clearly nimble and skilled.
“Are we gonna fight, or is this a talent show?” Rayla asked. She’d never seen such a ridiculous display of bravado. How hard could it be to defeat this silly show-off? Rayla took a deep breath and ran headlong at him. She knew she was faster than he was, especially with all that armor weighing him down.
But when they clashed, Soren’s strength surprised her. He hurled his sword against her blades, and Rayla found herself backing up. She sprinted backward to get some space and then took a running leap, coming down on Soren from above.
But before Rayla’s legs connected with his skull, Soren kicked her in the stomach. She flew backward, hands on her gut. She’d had the wind knocked out of her, but Rayla got back on her feet. She charged and swept at Soren’s ankles with her blades, ready to sever them from his body.
Soren was ready for her—he jumped up and then landed on the blades, pinning them to the ground. Rayla struggled, but she could see Soren was off-balance. She did a backflip, freeing her blades, and he fell to the ground. Rayla hooked his sword with her blade and flung it away, disarming him. Then she pointed her blade at his heart.
“Gosh, I wish I had learned some of those sword acrobatics,” Rayla said. “Too bad you won’t be able to teach me after I’ve ended you with my blades.” As soon as she finished this guy off, Rayla would crush that dark mage. The princes would never even have to know about the encounter.
But the mage was signaling to Soren, who was back on his feet and running at Rayla. He tackled Rayla hard and shoved her into an enormous puddle of thick, mucky mud. Rayla scrambled to her feet as the mage crushed something in her hands—was it a bird? A live bird?—and then flung the resulting goo on Rayla’s blades. Gross, Rayla thought, as the mage began chanting.
“What’s this goo?” she demanded.
“Just wait,” Claudia whispered. “Latem eht taeh hcuot gninrub,” she chanted. Rayla’s blades began to glow orange. Soon, they were red hot. With a scream, she dropped her weapons. Before she knew what had happened, Rayla found herself staring at the point of Soren’s sword.
“Any last words, elf?” Soren asked.
This idiot sure was dramatic. “Does ‘hot mud’ count as words?” Rayla asked.
“What do you mean?” Soren asked.
Rayla kicked some hot mud into Soren’s face, blinding him. But before she could enjoy her moment of triumph, she heard a scream.
“STOPPPP!!!”
Callum had woken up with a jolt. He felt like he’d just fallen asleep, but there was a commotion outside, not far from the camp. He jumped out of bed and ran toward the noise. When he reached the caldera, he could barely believe his eyes. Claudia and Soren were here! And they were facing off against Rayla, who was kicking mud as hard as she could at Soren.
“STOPPPP!!! Don’t fight each other! You’re not enemies!” Callum yelled. He ran in between Rayla and Soren, waving his arms like a maniac.
To Callum’s relief, everyone stopped fighting. Callum wondered what Claudia and Soren were doing here, but he didn’t really have time to ask.
“We found you!” Claudia said. She ran over to embrace Callum.
“Hey, Callum, your friends tried to kill me,” Rayla said.
Callum sidestepped Claudia’s embrace and looked at her for an explanation.
“She kidnapped you! We were just trying to help,” Claudia said.
“The elf threw mud in my face,” Soren yelled at Callum. “Some got in my mouth.”
Callum stifled a laugh. “Okay, okay, everybody! Knock it off a second. Just let me explain,” Callum said. He avoided eye contact with Rayla. It was clear she was furious. Her arms were crossed and her lips pressed together so tightly they were white.
“First,” Callum said, “Claudia and Soren, I don’t know what you’re doing here, but I’m really glad to see you.”
“Are you kidding?!” Rayla shouted. “They attacked me. How can you be glad—”
“Buhp-buhp-buhp—Rayla, pipe down,” he said. “Yeah, they’re two of my oldest friends, and I am glad to see them. But I’m not glad to see you trying to murder my new friend, Rayla, who happens to be—”
“She’s an elf!” Soren jumped in.
“Yeah …” Callum started. How could he explain his new friendship? “But she’s a ‘good’ elf.”
“What do you mean, ‘but a good elf’?” Rayla asked Callum. “Do you know any bad elves?”
Callum continued to avoid Rayla’s gaze. He had to be careful—he’d offended Rayla before when he’d told her his mistaken beliefs about elves.
“Callum, she kidnapped you and Prince Ezran. How can she be ‘good’?” Claudia demanded.
Callum shook his head.
“There was no kidnapping; we went with her by choice. Listen, it’s late—let’s all just get some rest and cool off.” Callum grabbed Rayla’s mud-covered hands and pulled her onto dry land. “If in the morning I can’t convince you that we’re
all on the same side here, you can fight each other then. Agreed?”
“Fine,” Rayla said. “Agreed.”
Callum looked expectantly at Soren and Claudia, who seemed to be communicating silently with each other.
Finally, Claudia nodded. “Fine,” she said.
“Whatever. Guess we’ll kill you in the morning,” Soren said to Rayla.
“That’s more like it,” Callum said. He was very confident he could head off any violence in the morning. Well, fairly confident. Somewhat confident. “Come on, I’ll show you guys where you can stay tonight.” He walked briskly ahead of everyone else toward the moon camp.
After a moment, Claudia caught up with him. “That was very assertive, Callum,” she said. “The way you handled that situation.”
“Oh, I guess,” he said, shrugging casually. He was all jittery though, like he always was when Claudia was around. It was a sort of pleasant uneasiness that he hadn’t felt at all in the past week. Then he thought about Claudia’s primal stone. She would probably want that back. It would be best to tell her right away that he had smashed it. Maybe she would forgive him once he explained he really had no choice, and that smashing the orb was the only way to save the dragon egg so Zym could hatch. Callum opened his mouth.
“Your hair’s a little messy,” Claudia teased, interrupting Callum’s train of thought. She licked two fingers and tucked a stray wisp behind his ear. “There you go,” she said.
Callum’s brain froze, and his face got hot. What was it he’d wanted to tell Claudia? He hoped Rayla hadn’t witnessed Claudia stroking his head. He glanced over his shoulder.
Rayla was staring at him.
Well, glaring was more like it.
It was very early morning, but Viren had been awake for hours, thinking. Finally, he got out of bed and entered his study, shutting the door firmly behind him. He crossed to the sheep portrait and swung it open to the secret passage that led to his other, less official, study.
Harrow had given Viren the freedom to build his offices as he liked. “I want you to do your best work,” he’d said. So Viren modeled the passage to his secret study after the stylings of his old mentor, Kpp’Ar. His mentor loved to integrate secrets and puzzles into architecture—he thought of it as a man-made magic.
A few minutes later, Viren was descending the spiral staircase into his secret study. Commander Gren stood chained to the wall near the entrance. Viren had almost forgotten that he’d imprisoned General Amaya’s interpreter only a few minutes after promising the general that Gren would lead the search for the princes. A shadow of a smile passed over Viren’s lips at the memory.
The prisoner had grown a layer of stubble over his goofy face, but otherwise looked no worse for wear.
“Good morning,” Gren said.
Viren ignored him.
“I … I assume it’s morning,” Gren continued, stammering. “Come to think of it, I have no idea what time of day it is.”
Viren sighed. Gren was the least of his problems. He continued down the hallway to the cell where the Moonshadow elf Runaan had been held.
“Good whatever time it is,” he heard Gren call out after him.
Viren returned to the rune mirror in Runaan’s former cell. When he’d stolen the human-sized mirror from the Dragon Queen’s lair a few months ago, he’d known it was special and powerful. But it wasn’t until Runaan, the leader of the elven assassins, refused to tell him the mirror’s purpose that the weight of its power dawned on Viren. Had Runaan been too awed to reveal the mirror’s true nature? Was he too horrified?
Whatever his reasoning, the Moonshadow elf had chosen a fate worse than death over revealing the mirror’s secrets. Out of anger and frustration, Viren had captured Runaan inside one of his cursed coins, where the elf would remain trapped forever.
Viren glanced at Runaan’s empty shackles, which were still locked shut. Then he swirled his hand at a candelabra, lighting all the candles simultaneously. He had a single goal for the day—to unravel the enigma of the mirror.
“Today is a special day, mystery mirror! It is the day you finally reveal your secrets to me,” he said to his own reflection. He lifted a small glass vial from his robes. Dark black fluid had settled at the bottom of the vial. “This true-sight serum will strip away all illusions and allow me to see you for what you really are.”
Viren had hesitated to use this serum, but after numerous failed attempts to uncover the magic of the mirror, he had no other recourse. He held the last of an unusual liquid that he had inherited from Kpp’Ar. The liquid was a rare serum that the Oracles of Ophidia were said to have used long before the fall of Elarion in order to see through the illusions of the world. They would harvest venom from the fangs of eyeless vipers; and it was said that the venom had to be extracted on a moonless night. All it took was a single stray beam of moonlight to taint the serum and bring out its most dangerous qualities. Instead of clearing one’s illusions, a dose of tainted serum would drive a person into a permanent, irrecoverable madness.
Viren removed the wooden stopper with care.
“Neddih si tahw laever eye gniees eurt,” Viren chanted. The liquid immediately responded, bubbling and gurgling like hot tar. Viren grimaced. Was something going wrong? Was the serum supposed to become hot and boil like this? Perhaps this was a warning that the serum was tainted. But he knew this was his only chance—he was out of options.
Viren leaned his head back and pulled his lower eyelid down. He stared directly at the vial as he tilted it toward his iris. The moment a small black drop touched his eye, he felt a terrible searing sensation, and purple smoke hissed from his cornea. Viren gasped in agony. Then he steeled himself and repeated the process on the other eye. The burning pain seemed to shoot from the pupil all the way through his skull. Viren could no longer retain his composure—he screamed and clutched at his face. Had he blinded himself?
After a few seconds, the pain began to recede. Viren blinked open his eyes. He wasn’t blind, but his vision was fuzzy. There was a soft purple glow around the room, and Viren could make out his face in the mirror. His pupils were white. As his eyes adjusted, Viren saw a negative image of the room reflected in the mirror. This was unusual, but hardly the reveal he had hoped for. There was no new information! Viren hurled the empty vial on the ground, smashing it into tiny pieces.
“Nothing, nothing, nothing!” he shouted, pointing a finger at the mirror. “You’re powerless, useless! I thought you were going to be something special … something important!”
Viren froze when he saw himself ranting in the mirror. Was he nothing?
He shoved the mirror away, and then grabbed a candelabra and hurled it across the room. The small flames licked at the books and scrolls scattered around the floor. The books began to catch fire. Viren watched the growing blaze with mild disinterest. After a few seconds, he closed his fist to extinguish the inferno.
The cell remained smoky as the last embers faded into darkness. But then Viren noticed the room was no longer completely dark. A dim light emanated from the mirror.
“What’s this?” Viren said.
He walked around to look directly into the mirror. It no longer bore his reflection. From the dark room Viren now stood in, the shimmering glass revealed another room entirely. It looked like a parlor or library—shelves lined with books and plush chairs carefully placed around a marble floor.
Viren gasped. “What is this place?”
Soren had passed a fitful night’s sleep in one of the small stone huts scattered about the grounds of the so-called Moon Nexus … whatever that was. Quaint, thought Soren, taking in the dome-shaped ceiling and the circular tables and windows.
Soren had spent most of the night alternating between trying to figure out how Callum had become friends with an elf and fantasizing about chopping off the head of said elf.
Soren glanced over at his sister. Claudia sat slumped at a half-moon-shaped granite table. It looked like she’d had even less sleep than he had.
“Hey, Clauds, did you know that the circles under your eyes are almost as dark as your hair today?” Soren asked. He wasn’t sure what kind of response he’d been hoping for, but all he got was a grunt. “Well, anyhoo, I’ve totally figured out what’s going on—why the princes have gotten so chummy with the elf.” Soren couldn’t believe he was just remembering about Moonshadow Madness. It was a horrible disease he’d learned about at that summer training camp his dad used to send him to. A counselor had told Soren all about how an elf could bite a human during a full moon and, from then on, the human would do the elf’s bidding.
“Don’t talk to me until I’ve had my hot brown morning potion,” his sister snapped. Her eyes were still half-closed. Soren stood by politely as Claudia took a long sip from a steaming cup. Once her eyes had fully opened, she turned her gaze on Soren and sighed.
“Okay. Go on.”
Soren couldn’t wait to tell Claudia his theory. “She must have bitten them, and now they both have Moonshadow Madness!”
Claudia opened her eyes as wide as they would go. “What?!”
“I know it sounds crazy, but I’ve been thinking about it all night, and that’s the most logical explanation,” Soren said.
“Soren, I’ve never heard of Moonshadow Madness. Where did you hear about it?” Claudia asked.
Soren paused. “Camp,” he said.
“AHAHAHA.” Claudia laughed long and hard. Then she stood up and swatted Soren’s shoulder. He was starting to feel less secure about his theory.
“Whatever. So you don’t agree,” he said. “We still need to do something—Dad gave us a mission.”
“To bring the princes home,” Claudia said, her face growing serious.
“Right,” Soren said. Then he thought about the cryptic conversation he’d had with his father. The one where his father suggested it might not be so bad if the princes came home dead. “To bring them home,” he repeated. “Unless a terrible accident occurs. Accidentally.”
Claudia looked at him like he was speaking another language. “What?”
“Nothing. My point is …” Soren trailed off as he formulated a plan. “I have an idea.” He snapped his fingers. “We should stuff the princes in sacks!”