A Threat of Shadows (18 page)

“You’d best shut your mouth, cousin,” Douglon said. “You’re not well thought of here.”

Brandson rummaged through Patlon’s cooking wares and brought a piece of thick-crusted bread to Alaric. “You look a bit worn out.”

When Alaric lifted his hand to take it, Brandson’s eyes widened at the bloody bandage. “Here.” He tore off a piece of the loaf.

Alaric took it gratefully and sank his teeth into the bread. It was dry and coarse and possibly the most delicious things he had ever eaten.

Brandson and Milly unwrapped Alaric’s hands one at a time before rewrapping them in clean bandages. Alaric ate the last bite of bread and flexed his hands. It was going to be days before his hands were useful.

Leaving Brandson, Milly, and Douglon to watch Patlon, Alaric began the long walk back to the clearing with the Ayda tree.

When Alaric reached the tree, one thin branch brushed across the top of his head.

“It’s nice to see you, too,” he answered. “I didn’t realize you could control your branches. I suppose it makes sense, though. The branches are sort of your fingers, aren’t they?” Where sunlight trickled through the pale green leaves, her bark was glimmering silver. “What kind of tree are you?”

The tree quivered a little.

“You invented it, didn’t you?”

It quivered again.

“Well, don’t drop any seeds. I don’t think the world is ready for a forest of Ayda-trees.

“We scared off the borrey. But then we found Patlon hiding where they stashed Milly. I don’t know if I can trust the dwarves not to kill each other, so let’s change you back.”

Alaric reached out his hand toward the trunk but paused at the thought of putting his blistered palm on her trunk. As far as he knew, he wasn’t going to contribute any energy to this process, just provide Ayda with an image of herself, something she could focus on. Still, it took some effort of will to put his aching palm on the trunk.

“All right,” he said, “I’ve got you fixed in my mind.”

He stood still for several moments, eyes closed, mind focused on an image of Ayda. When nothing happened, he glanced up. She was still a tree. A tree reaching toward the sun and swaying in the breeze with more exuberance than the others.

“Ayda! Pay attention.”

The tree settled down a bit. Alaric focused on Ayda as an elf again.

No energy flowed out of his hand, but where his skin touched the trunk, the warmth of his hand leeched out, leaving his fingers ice cold. He gasped and tried to pull his hand away, but it was fixed on the tree. His fingers grew white until they were as pale as the trunk.

The coldness moved up his arm, the warmth being leeched out from deep within muscle and bone. It crept higher, and Alaric tugged on his arm with his other hand.

A branch snapped down and swatted the Keeper across the cheek. Alaric looked up at the tree, realizing that he had lost his focus.

He froze. The tree was not turning back into Ayda. Instead of resolving down into her body, the branches were stretching out farther, solidifying into a disjointed tangle of limbs, eyes, and gaping mouths. Directly above his head, a tortured face emerged out of the wood, its mouth open in a silent scream. Branches stretched out into clawed hands and twisted legs. Eyes bulged out, wide and sightless.

Alaric stared in horror until another branch stung him across the arm. Squeezing his eyes shut, he dragged his focus back onto the idea of Ayda, desperately holding an image of her as an elf in his mind. The cold seeped into his chest. He clung to the image of Ayda as his knees buckled and he dropped to the ground.

The darkness stirred sluggishly and warm hands pulled at him. He dragged his eyes open to see Ayda, once again an elf, standing over him.

“Now I know why we use elves instead of humans as our anchors,” she said, her voice far away. “I almost sucked the life right out of you.” She knelt down next to him.

He couldn’t breathe, his body was heavy and dull, and blackness flowed into the edges of his vision. Ayda took his numb, white hand and held it close to her mouth. She breathed across his fingertips. Warmth surged up his arm like a wave. It flowed into his chest, and Alaric’s lungs drew in a rush of air.

Alaric sat up as though he’d just woken up from a long sleep. His vision was clear, and every trace of exhaustion was gone. Only the burns on his hands still hurt, and even that pain was deadened. He looked up at Ayda. She was fair and glittery and normal. Or as normal as Ayda could be. “What happened?”

“I drew too much out of you,” Ayda said as she sat down beside him.

“I didn’t know I was contributing to the process.”

“You weren’t supposed to,” Ayda said. “I just needed an image to grab on to.”

Alaric rubbed his fingers, which were now back to their proper color. “Well, the grabbing hurt more than I thought it would.”

“It shouldn’t have. Sorry. I wasn’t paying quite as much attention as I should have been. You see, there was a lovely sunbeam that I had caught in my upper branch, and…” She paused and smiled at Alaric’s glare. “I didn’t notice how hard I grabbed.”

“Do you know of any other time when a human was used for an anchor? What if I hadn’t been able to bring you back?” Alaric asked. “Were you just willing to live out the rest of your centuries as a tree?”

“You aren’t just a human, you’re a Keeper. That makes you slightly more useful. And you make it sound like it would be bad not to change back. I like being a tree.” She looked exactly as she always had, with no trace of disjointed limbs or eyes.

“You were terrifying,” he told her. “I thought the anchor was just a focus because trees are distractible. What were all the arms and legs and faces? I didn’t know you could change into anything other than…you.”

“I suppose in a way that is me, too.”

She was a monster with dozens of limbs and heads? Alaric opened his mouth to ask more, but at the dark expression on Ayda’s face, he paused.

“Now,” she said briskly, “it is easy to get distracted as a tree, but did you mention Patlon?”

Alaric groaned and stood. “Oh, I almost forgot. He was making camp inside the Stronghold. I’ll be amazed if they haven’t killed each other yet.”

They started across the clearing.

“You seemed surprised that I was at Prince Elryn’s changing,” Alaric said. “It was during my years at court, so I attended with Queen Saren. I don’t remember meeting you there, but there were a lot of elves.”

Ayda continued walking for a moment before answering. “I wasn’t there.”

“Really? Were there many absent?”

She shook her head. “Only one.”

“Where were you?”

She ignored the question. “You understand what the ceremony meant?”

“It named Elryn heir to the elven throne. Sometime you need to sit down with me and explain the elven royal family tree. The Keepers are always annoyed that we can’t pin down exactly how you are all related, and no elves ever explain it. But Elryn is King Andolin’s eldest son, right? Isn’t it your custom for the eldest child to be the next ruler?”

Ayda laughed, “The custom is not mine, but it is what my people do. We aren’t as bound by the idea of inheriting the throne as you humans are, but more often than not, the crown is accepted by the eldest child.” She shrugged. “I had a role to play in the ceremony that I wasn’t interested in. So I left and let someone else do it.”

Alaric snorted. Elves didn’t shirk responsibilities. Whether it was because of a sense of communal consciousness or just a cultural trait, they accepted their roles in elven society without complaint. True, there was little structure to the elven culture, but Alaric had never heard of one refusing to do what was asked of them.

“Ayda, sometimes when you talk, you sound more human than elf.”

“That’s what my father said. He blamed it on my mother.”

Alaric looked at her in surprise. “Was she human?”

Ayda’s peal of laughter rang through the trees. “Do I look like my mother was a human? You’re a Keeper, so you must have heard of Ayala.”

Alaric stopped. “Queen Ayala was your mother?”

Ayda nodded and stopped as well. She turned toward him and smiled a patient little smile.

“If she’s your… then you…”

Ayda nodded encouragingly.

“Princess Aydalya?” he asked in amazement.

“At your service,” she curtsied. “I am Aydalya, daughter of Queen Ayala. First born of King Andolin, elder half-sister to the crowned Prince Elryn.”

“Elder!” He stared at her for a long moment. “You should have been named heir!”

“That was the role I didn’t want.”

Chapter 20

Princess Aydalya? Not only had he found an elf, he’d found the only living elf princess. What was Princess Aydalya doing wandering around the northern edges of the kingdom with a bunch of treasure hunters?

“My brother was the better choice for heir,” she continued. “His mind was built for ruling and planning and listening.” Ayda reached up and touched a leaf. “Mine is… less steadfast.”

“More human?”

Ayda laughed again, “That’s what my father would say.”

“So, your mother was captured by goblins and rescued by the human, Boman. She then lived with him for the rest of his life.”

“For forty years, yes,” Ayda said. “When she returned to the forest, she had developed some human-like tendencies. When she married my father, he said she proved that humanness was contagious. When I was born, he decided it was also hereditary.” She looked ahead to where the forest still blocked their view of the caves. “May we continue now, Keeper?”

Alaric fell into step beside her again. She was Princess Aydalya. Even traveling with Queen Saren to the elves, he had barely received more than a nod from King Andolin. Elves just weren’t interested in humans. A few elves had been assigned the job of making the human visitors comfortable, and they had been polite but distant. His mind swirled with questions for her.

“So was that when you left your people? The day of the ceremony?” It was hardly the most important question, but he needed somewhere to start.

“No. I went to the southern edge of the Greenwood for that day only. Once the ceremony was finished, I returned.” She was silent a long moment. “I thought I had ended any plans my father had for me.”

“He had another?”

Ayda’s face shadowed again. “He didn’t plan it, but he still forced me into a terrible fate.”

“More terrible than becoming queen?” Alaric asked wryly.

Ayda took a deep breath, and the trees around them stilled. Alaric glanced around uneasily.

“More terrible than you can imagine,” she answered.

The moment passed, and the forest breathed again.

They walked in silence for several minutes. Alaric kept a watch on her from the corner of his eye. It was unnerving that she walked so soberly beside him. His mind still shot out question after question. She was an elven princess who had first refused the throne, then left her people. Each of those facts alone demanded a long explanation, but she was walking so pensively, he couldn’t bring himself to ask.

“The elves thought that Elryn had changed into a tree very quickly,” he said, looking for a new subject, “but it took him several minutes.”

A smile cracked her somberness.

When she didn’t comment, he continued, “They said Elryn was faster than any elf they had ever seen.”

“It drove him mad!” she said, bursting into laughter. “He had praise heaped upon him for how fast he could change, and the whole time, he knew what I could do. When we were children, we used to race. If you can call it a race.”

“He never told anyone?”

She shook her head. “It wasn’t his secret to tell. Until today, no one else has seen me change.”

“How do you do it? Are you some sort of… elf prodigy?”

Ayda’s laughter rang off the nearby trees. “Hardly. I’ve always been mediocre at everything. Except changing. And I don’t know why I’m so fast at that. Elryn says he has to coax his body into changing shape. For me, it’s like stretching. At any given moment, I think my body would rather be a tree.”

“You’re good at that freeze-the-fire trick,” Alaric motioned to the flame that still hung around his neck.

Ayda’s smile faded from her face. “That’s a more recent skill.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

She sighed. “Neither had I.”

“What is it?” Alaric raised the flame toward her. “Is it flame or stone?

“It’s a flame still. Well, it has the potential to be a flame still. Or maybe the longing to be a flame.”

“Can you turn it back into a flame?”

Ayda’s eyes widened. “Oh, you don’t want that. The potential it has keeps building up in it. I changed one back, once. It had only been still for a few minutes, but when I changed it back, it quickly grew to several times bigger than it had been. The one you have has been still for so long, it would be huge if I changed it back.”

Alaric held the flame as far away from him as the necklace would allow. “Is it going to happen on its own?”

Ayda laughed. “No, it takes some very specific manipulating to coax it back into a flame. It couldn’t do it on its own.”