“But why didn’t we know you were an elf?” Serai’s childish confusion was endearing.
“Don’t be foolish, child,” Isabel said. “She disguised herself with magic to fit in.”
“Yes, I did, and I’m sorry.” Kiersten turned her attention to Serai. “But what are you doing here? Battle is no place for a child.”
“I’ll send her back to the castle before the ship takes off,” Rosae answered.
And just like that, everything was fine once more. Durstin allowed the tension to uncoil from his shoulders. He probably shouldn’t have been so worried, but he knew this was the moment she’d always feared, and he admired her strength to stand and face them. There were a few more uncomfortable moments of silence as she reacquainted herself with the last few, but then their faces slowly grew warm again. Many of the women embraced her, their faces full of understanding.
When everyone had settled again, Durstin stood straight and cleared his throat. “As many of you know, I have . . . disliked elves, especially for their actions since the Ardak invasion,” he said calmly. “But I was wrong to hold all elves responsible for the actions of a few. Kiersten has been with us this entire time, choosing to stay with us over returning to her people. King Ardair, the one who turned us away, has passed on. The elves who are left are welcoming us as brothers and sisters.
“The elf we are going to fight is the king of Garthurian—the elven village we found in the mountains. He murdered Kiersten’s father, threatened her life, and plans to align himself with the Ardaks. Let’s defeat him soundly, punish him for what he did, and stop him from making any deals ever again. But after that, my wish would be for us to be united in our future and fight together against threats to the planet, no matter where they come from.”
The speech seemed to have his intended effect, and Stephan stepped forward, his shoulders straight and his hand on the pommel of his sword. “I’ll go with you, my lady, to bring this elf to justice.”
The others did the same, and he knew they were united again in mind and spirit.
Kiersten met his gaze at the end of his speech, her expression full of the same wonder and gratitude.
∆ ∆ ∆
Mordjan divided the defense force divided into four squads which waited in several blocks in front of the ship. The squads were a mix of cyborgs, elves, and River people, with Mordjan ensuring that each group had a balance of the different skill sets they’d need to accomplish their mission.
Then each of the commanders were assigned a squad, and he strode up and down the lines, checking their armor and weapons.
When they were cleared, they marched onto the ship. He felt a sharp shiver of trepidation as he approached the Ardak ship for the first time to board. He had never been this close to one of their ships before, but he remembered well the enormous feline warriors that he had fought in the invasion.
There was an awful smell as they boarded, but no one else seemed to take any notice, so he gritted his teeth and made no comment. His squad was assigned to a laboratory, and after they were settled, he followed Mordjan down the corridor to join the other commanders in the control room.
The ship was beautifully constructed, and not even he could ignore the skill it would have taken to construct such a device. It was sleek in design and when he entered the main control room, the enormous wall of glass several stories high in front of him was so tall and wide it appeared the ship was open to the outdoors.
“It is amazing, isn’t it?” Mordjan asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “I can’t believe something this big can fly.”
He joined Kiersten by the window, where she was in conversation with Aielle.
“Believe it or not, the ship uses crystal power to fly.”
Kiersten’s brows rose in surprise. “Really? But doesn’t that deplete the crystals’ power for magic?”
“Yes, it does,” Aielle admitted. “And at a much faster rate. But there’s nothing we can do about that. The ship is the fastest transport we have, and the only one that allows us to leave the planet.”
“What about portals?”
“The elves from Garthurian are just now teaching us how to create them,” Aielle admitted. “But I don’t think you’d want to portal into space. And the ships have larger weapons that will allow us to fight the Ardaks.”
“I see.” Kiersten fell silent, examining the countryside below. She could make a portal large enough for the army to get through, but then her magic would be depleted. She needed all she had to fight Elsifan.
“Are you nervous?”
Kiersten gave a weak laugh. “I’ve been hiding from Elsifan for over two decades. Of course, I’m nervous. But I can’t let my fear stop me from saving Aurora. And he is most certainly trying to destroy it.”
“I’m sorry for what happened to you . . . and your father. We’ll do our best to avenge his death.” Aielle strode off toward her husband, and Kiersten turned toward him in dismay.
“Should we tell her about her mother before the fight?”
He examined the elven queen’s retreating form. “It could be dangerous. She might not be able to control her emotions well enough to fight. I doubt she would be a match for Elsifan if he’d been able to fell her mother so easily.”
Guilt knifed through him as they decided against telling Aielle until the battle was over, even though he knew it was to protect her. The younger queen might not forgive them, but at least she’d be alive.
Durstin turned away from the window to look up at the control platforms, which were suspended over the floor of the control room. Tordan, Mordjan, and Roihan—a cyborg he’d just met—were on three different platforms with Tordan on the highest level above the floor and the other two on the second level.
For a moment, he felt a twinge of jealousy toward the cyborgs. They obviously had the ability to fly the ship, and their technological advancements had given them many extra powers. He’d seen Tordan in battle. His cousin was faster, stronger, with better hearing and vision.
Then he felt a wave of shame. The Ardaks had tortured his cousin’s people unimaginably, before, during, and after the process of turning them into cyborgs. If they had greater powers after being turned into cyborgs, then that was the least of what they deserved. He had no right to be jealous of it.
Tordan glanced down at him, and he thought he saw understanding in his steel-gray eyes.
Durstin turned back to the window, admiring the view as the ship began to rise. He’d been to Renwyn only twice before—the first time when he’d come to meet with the Ardaks before the invasion, and the last time when he’d stood outside the shield begging for King Ardair to help him. So, he hadn’t realized that a river flowed on the other side of the castle, meandering downward to the sea.
The castle was no less spectacular from the air, and when they turned to head for Garthurian, his eyes took in the spectacular view of the mountains in the distance, their snowcapped peaks pure white.
The trip was fast, the cyborgs taking the ship down into a clearing.
“Garthurian is over there.” Kiersten pointed to a forested area nestled between mountain peaks.
He frowned. “I don’t see anything.”
“Right.” Her lips quirked up at the corners. “I forgot, you don’t know about the dome. We have a shield that makes Garthurian appear invisible to outsiders.”
“You do? Why didn’t Renwyn have that?” It would have been a lot easier for the elves if their dome hadn’t been visible to the Ardaks.
She tilted her head. “I’m not sure, but I can see if I can find the magic that was used. It may be a special type of crystal or a special spell they didn’t know.”
“We damn sure could have used one at Vierten,” he muttered. “We wouldn’t have had to flee.”
Kiersten laid a hand on his arm. “I think we were meant to be there when we were. If we hadn’t been, we never would have found the Cave of Knowledge.”
He shook his head. His wife had always had
the belief that things were happening exactly as they should. But since the Ardak invasion and all the death and devastation he’d seen, he’d found it a lot more difficult to subscribe to her philosophy.
Durstin was shocked to see the land below them become a blur, and they traveled at a speed he could never have imagined.
They arrived at Garthurian in minutes, landing relatively far from the shield so their ship’s arrival wouldn’t be heard by their enemies.
Durstin was one of the first to disembark from the ship, and he turned to watch the others, admiring the efficiency with which Mordjan was readying the army.
It gave him hope for the battle to come.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kiersten
The army marched toward Garthurian, the air cold, the ground covered with snow. Kiersten was filled with nervous anticipation. She was not looking forward to the upcoming battle with Elsifan.
She opened the shield, turning to let the others enter, smiling at their shock—evidenced by open mouths and widening eyes—as they passed from the snow outside to the temperate forest within.
But then the first cries of battle hit her, and she saw flashes of magic through the trees in the direction of the palace.
“I have the shield, my queen,” Rydaeron said, stepping up to take over. “Go and take back your crown.”
She ran ahead into the woods, finding Roihan and Aria defending the trail from elves on both sides while Aielle shielded the center so the rest of the army could run through the middle toward the palace.
She hurried past them, and Roihan raised his sword briefly in acknowledgement. “Go get him!”
Someone grabbed her from behind, she spun and almost unleashed a blast of magic, but then she saw it was Chihon, one of the upgraded cyborgs. She snuffed out the magic.
Chihon eyed her. “We need to get you to the front.”
At her nod, he charged through the trees, clearing the way for her.
Valdjan met them at the entrance to the courtyard, and even if she hadn’t seen him before she would have known him just by the devastation on his face. He wanted that key back.
Tordan was also there, and she saw his and Durstin’s squads quickly regroup. Then they hurried into the courtyard of the palace, and she had almost reached the door when the quiet turned to chaos. The courtyard doors closed behind them, locking the two squads inside.
Elves threw magic at them from all sides, ice daggers, fireballs, boulders, and she threw up an enormous shield to get as much of it as she could.
“Valdjan, Kiersten, Durstin—go inside, leave us!” Tordan commanded as he reached an elf with his sword and beheaded him.
The command was counterintuitive; she didn’t know how long they could keep up with the onslaught. There weren’t that many elves, maybe fifty, but they were fighting with everything they had.
“Now!” his voice thundered.
A roar from above shook the air and she looked up to see Mordjan and Roihan flying—actually flying—over the wall. Mordjan pointed at the gate and shot a beam of light, and it literally disintegrated in front of her eyes.
Valdjan and Durstin had just reached her, and Durstin grabbed her arm and hauled her to the great doors. She used her magic to throw them open, and as they slammed wide the echo sounded through the building.
There’s nothing like a grand entrance.
She marched straight into the great hall, finding Elsifan sitting on the throne on the dais at the far end of the enormous room with several of his followers around him. Mithran, Elsifan’s father, was there, and next to him stood Liath and Sepheth.
Elsifan waved a hand and the doors behind them flew shut, the air inside the hall growing colder.
She proceeded forward, forcing herself not to think of what they’d done to her father, of what she wanted to do to them. She didn’t stop until she was at the bottom step.
Elsifan’s smile was a sneer, his expression remaining confident. “Kerryth! How lovely to see you again. And I see you’ve brought friends.”
“I guess you’re still worried about keeping that throne, seeing how you sit on it throughout the night.”
He grimaced. “No. I felt a disturbance in the shield, and by the magic I deduced it could only be you.”
She snorted. “Black magic. Your mother would be so proud.” A quick sideways glance at Elsifan’s father told her that even he was not necessarily proud, although he would back his son despite his wrongs.
Elsifan rose, his eyes livid. “She would be proud. While you’ve been gone, I’ve opened the hidden archives and taught our people new magic. The term black magic means nothing except to cause the ignorant to fear it.”
She narrowed her eyes. “That isn’t true. Black magic is a perversion of nature, Elsifan. We aren’t supposed to have access to it. This is why it was hidden!”
“Why did they keep the archives then?” he asked, his voice triumphant.
“In case someone like you came along, so we’d know how to defend ourselves,” she shot back. “We aren’t the only elves who exist in the universe, Elsifan. This is also why they hid the Crystal Cave and the Cave of Knowledge. They are only available now, when we are in danger of being obliterated.”
“But we aren’t in danger of that! I’ve made a deal with the Ardaks and you can come with me. We can go back to the homeworld.” His eyes changed, softened. “We could go home. It would be great.”
“You can’t seriously believe I would go anywhere with you. I’ve seen your plan for Aurora, seen how few you take with you.”
He frowned. “How did you see it?”
“I found the Cave Of Knowledge.”
His jaw went slack. “No.”
“Yes.”
He stepped toward her. “I don’t believe you! I searched for it for centuries myself, finding nothing, and you . . . the elf who abandoned her people was the one to find it? I don’t believe you. You’re going to have to come back with more proof than that.”
Her eyes widened. “I don’t need any more proof than that, and you know it.”
“Where is it then?” he demanded. “Show me!”
“I would never show you where it is in a million years.” Kiersten could tell Elsifan was tiring of the verbal sparring, and hoped the other elves would be able to open the side doors. Otherwise, they were all stuck in here with a mad elf. “You’re mad if you think I would ever give you that power. And you’re madder still if you think I’ll allow you to terrorize my people for another day.”
“Really? And yet they’ve been so loyal since you left.”
“That’s because they don’t know what you’ve done. You murdered my father!”
Elsifan’s eyes narrowed. “Be careful of your accusations. All you have is the word of this—mountain man. And is he your . . . mate?” He sneered down the bridge of his nose at Durstin.
“He is a king! And he was given a vision in the Cave of Knowledge!” Her eyes narrowed. “Proving our old saying that one can never outrun the past.” Kiersten surveyed the others. “We all knew there was something wrong with my father’s death. Elves at his age simply don’t die in their sleep!”
“He was old, his mate was gone. We’re on another planet. There are many reasons he might have died,” Elsifan retorted.
“Those reasons don’t change the fact that you killed him!”
Elsifan’s eyes narrowed. “Prove it.” At her silence, Elsifan’s voice grew more confident. “Come now, prove it to all of us beyond a shadow of a doubt.”
Durstin pointed to Liath and then Sepheth, the elves who had helped with the murder. “They were with you that night. Liath used vines to pin him in place and Sepheth used a spell that withered the king’s golden tree branches from his wall.”
There was a gasp from the elders.
“How could an outsider know what powers you wield?” one of the elders demanded.
“Kerryth could have told him, she’s his mate.”
“But not even she knew ab
out the golden branches,” Geeeroo commented. “That was kept secret from everyone who is not an elder.”
“Maybe he did break into the king’s chambers. Maybe he has been doing black magic,” Theoduin broke in. “Is that what you did, boy?”
Suddenly, all eyes were on Elsifan. But some of their faces had changed, their looks accusing. Even his father looked horrified.
Elsifan raised his hands. “Surely, you don’t believe the wild accusations of this outsider and a coward who ran from her home. I would never have murdered our great king.” His eyes burned into her. “She could have known about the golden branches. Her father told her almost everything. I still say this proves nothing.”
Kiersten turned to Durstin, hoping there was something else he could say that would prove the vision, but he gave a slight shake of his head.
And then she realized what the knowledge crystal was for. There was only one way she could prove the vision, one spell left. She didn’t want to do it because it would deplete nearly all of her magic and leave her almost helpless, but there was no other way.
Drawing on all of her magic, she pulled out the crystal they had gotten after the second test, and prepared to use a spell her father had taught her long ago. Raising her hands, she held the crystal high and projected her magic through it into the center of the throne room. She almost lost her focus when she saw her father, larger than life, asleep in his chair, just the way she remembered him almost twenty years ago. The door opened and three elves came in. When they threw back their hoods, the elven audience gasped. It was clearly Elsifan, Liath, and Sepheth, just as Durstin had recalled.
She couldn’t watch, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away as her father tried to fight with the golden branches. When Elsifan said he had ways to control her, she knew she’d been correct to run away. Then when her father begged Elsifan not to hurt her, she felt a stake of agony go right through the center of her chest. And last, when Elsifan pulled the golden light from her father’s chest and it turned to blackness, she knew there was no power on Aurora that would stop her from killing him.
Durstin Page 11