The Darkling Tide (8 page)

Celeste passed the tall tree, and looked up into its depths. Some elves might not fully believe it had any connection to Eget Row, but it was the one tree around New Landanten that hadn’t died in the three years of winter they were suffering through.

Celeste liked to think for that reason alone, the tree was holy.

Celeste followed a stream of elves to the building to the right where all official meetings were held.

“Do you know what today is about?” Skye asked as Celeste fell in line beside him. Skye was one of her closest friends, and many people pushed for them to take their life vows together, but Celeste simply didn’t see Skye that way, nor did he want a romantic life with Celeste. They were happy with their friendship.

“No idea, I was out helping a harbinger through the Fey Forest when I got the call,” Celeste told him. Skye looked like many of the light elves, fair hair, milky skin, vibrant eyes. His eyes were purple where Celeste’s were blue. His hair was short where most elve’s was long. He wore leather armor, showing that he was more guardian in occupation than in title. His sun scepter hung from his waist, normally not used. Skye relied on the sword sheathed on his back for fighting.

“I heard it is a meeting with the dark elves,” Mari said, sideling up to them. She was younger than both of them by a couple years, but had been adopted as one of their clique when she showed the same dry humor Skye and Celeste had.

“What do they want?” Skye asked.

“Likely there’s darkling all over the place, threatening to swallow us whole and there’s only one hope!” Mari said.

“Open the scepters,” Celeste said, rolling her eyes.

The glowing white hallways opened up into an atrium. Golden light spilled through the stained glass ceiling giving a slight illumination to the chamber. The inside was normally filled with all kinds of plant life, but today the great hall was filled with elven bodies. To the left stood the dark elves, all brooding and serious, watching the light elves with their shadowed eyes. Their silvery blue skin seemed to shimmer a dark glow augmented by the sunlight.

To the right were the light elves, their chatter and excitement carrying to the rafters above.

Inside it was hard for Celeste to really focus on anything other than the thrum of wyrd from the scepters. The lamenting of the moon scepters met the music of the sun scepters in a kind of melody that no terrestrial ears should hear. It was a sound that resonated deeply with something deeper and older inside Celeste.

Celeste, Skye, and Mari joined those elves on the right side, but they didn’t join in the excited chatter. All three of them had been taken away from chores they were eager to get back to.

“Another harbinger?” Skye asked, drawing the other two into a conversation of their own.

“Yes, she arrived in the old Bauer Hall,” Celeste said.

“Were you able to gather anything on Gorjugan?” Mari asked in hushed tones, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

Celeste hadn’t given an official report yet, but there wasn’t much to report. “Things are pretty much the same, Hilda and Gorjugan haven’t figured out a way to get Anthros free from Eget Row, so we are safe for now.” She didn’t tell them the most worrisome part of her intelligence gathering. The God Slayer was now in Agaranth.

They haven’t gotten him free yet, but they are getting closer,
Celeste thought.
Why would Olik send it back? Did he send it back? Was it stolen from him?
She wondered.

But she didn’t have long to muse because the high chieftains were standing and calling all to order. They were a mix of light and dark elves, and though there was a divide among their people, the high chieftains seemed to get along rather well.

If only all elves could take the lead from them.
Celeste tried to reason with her sister, she tried to keep their relationship open, but Daniken was a problem there. Celeste didn’t worry about her parents. After a certain age that Celeste had already reached, elves naturally fell out of touch with their parents. They became nothing more than other elves to them.

The chatter died down abruptly and all eyes turned to the raised dais where the high chieftains congregated.

“We’ve gathered you here today on a matter that is most urgent,” Garth said, his wizened voice raising to the rafters. He was old and frail, according to elf standards, with long gray hair and startling blue eyes. He bore the fair complexion of the light elves. “We’ve been watching the darkling spread for some time now and, as we all know, they are only increasing in numbers. Their strength is overwhelming the Fay Forest.”

“We should have taken them out when they began pushing our people out of Landanten,” Charissa spoke, stepping up beside Garth. She was a dark elf. Though not as old as Garth, she was the voice for the dark elf chieftains. “Not only have they chased us out of our ancestral home, but they’ve chased all fay out of the forest to find homes elsewhere.”

“The Fay Forest has become their domicile,” Garth agreed. “Their numbers swell, and for a time we didn’t understand
how
they were coming to be in this world from the others, but now we do.”

Celeste perked up. Until this point it had all been more of the same thing they’d heard countless times.

But this was new.

“The veil between the worlds is weakening,” Charissa said, leaning heavily on her moon scepter. “They don’t need to use Eget Row any longer because there are points in each world they can bust through to the next. The Fay Forest, we believe, is one of those places.”

A worried mutter rippled through the assembled elves, and even the dark elves broke their cool façade to chatter about what this meant.

All Celeste could think about was how close to New Landanten the Fay Forest was, and what would happen to their
new
home if the darklings swelled beyond the forest. Would they be chased away again?

Celeste agreed with the dark elves, they needed to stop running. They needed to do something. What she, and most other light elves didn’t agree with was—

“We need to open the scepters,” Charissa said.

Anger swelled through the ranks of light elves. The dark elves merely nodded their agreement. Most of them had already opened their scepters and were able to wield them as weapons. As far as she knew, the dark elves were only using the staves as protective agents. But the dark elves had scouts and guardians of their own, and unlike the light elves that kept to the boarder of the city and the harbinger settlement in the mountain passes below, the dark elves ventured out into the Fay Forest,
looking
for darkling to hunt. Celeste couldn’t deny that it would be much better to have a weapon that she could use to strike down the darklings rather than keeping them at bay, but at what cost?

“At what cost?” Celeste asked, not realizing how loud she’d spoken. The light elves quieted down and turned to her.

“I’m sorry?” Charissa asked, turning to her. All eyes shifted to Celeste. She rolled her shoulders, uncomfortable with the attention.

She cleared her throat and stepped forward to the center of the chamber between the ranks of dark elves and light elves. Celeste looked up at the chieftains on the dais high above. Stained glass cast a halo of backlight around them.

“At what cost are we willing to open the scepters?” Celeste asked. “There are other races to consider in this, not all are beings of the light.”

“That eventuality is a worst case scenario,” Charissa told her. Garth stepped back to let the dark elf speak. “We don’t know for certain that opening the scepters in the Fay Forest would do anything more than wipe out the darkling tide.”

“But we don’t know that it
won’t
do more than wipe out the tide,” Celeste said. It was an old argument, and Charissa hardened her mouth into a line, refusing to get into this debate again.

“The chieftains have decided this is the best course of action,” Charissa said.

“Yes, but how do we
open
the scepters?” Celeste asked. She knew the methods, and that was another issue.

“We aren’t specifically saying that when we open the scepters we will spill their light through the Fay Forest, and therefore into other worlds,” Garth said, stepping forward to ease the anger in his light elves. “But with the scepters open as weapons, we can fight the darklings and maybe drive them back to a point that we can heal the Fay Forest and rid Agaranth of this winter.”

The light elves muttered agreement.

“Yes, but
how
do we open the scepters?” Celeste asked.

“Your chieftains have spoken.” Charissa sniffed and tucked her hands behind her back.

“No, it’s a valid question,” Garth said. “Many of you already know how to open the scepters, and I’m sure Celeste does as well, that’s why she’s asking. The scepters seem to only respond to the blood of an unchosen harbinger.”

Now that it was confirmed, outrage roared through the atrium. For the longest time the light elves had only assumed what opened the scepters, but now that it was confirmed...

So many scepters have already been opened,
Celeste thought, turning to look at the dark elves.
How many harbingers have they killed?
Because it didn’t just take blood, it took the dying blood of a harbinger.

How could they waste so many potential harbingers of light
just
to open the moon scepters?

“But how is such a thing to be done? How many people have you murdered?” Celeste asked. She couldn’t keep the outrage out of her voice.

Garth raised his hands for silence. The elves obeyed. “We are studying all possibilities to opening the scepters,” he said.

“And if blood is the only way to do it,” Charissa said. “We only choose those we know will join the darklings.”

“But an unchosen harbinger is impossible to tell if they will be a harbinger of darkness or a harbinger of light.” Celeste said. No one seemed to pay any attention to her now. Everyone was too lost in their own thoughts and the chieftains went back to easing the minds of the gathered elves.

Celeste melted back into line with Skye and Mari. She scanned the crowd looking for Daniken, but she couldn’t find her sister anywhere among the dark elves.

Celeste stood outside, oblivious to the cold and stared into the well beneath the tree. She couldn’t believe what had happened. How could the light elves side with the dark elves? How would they find another way to open the scepters?

At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before Garth sides with the dark elves and we are all blooding harbingers to open our scepters.

“Well, looks like that issue has been settled for us,” Mari said, joining Celeste in gazing into the well.

Celeste looked away from her reflection and to her shorter friend. Mari pulled herself up to sit on the edge of the well, which was chest high on Celeste. Skye came strolling along behind her and leaned against the wall. He crossed his arms over his chest.

“I think things are going in a very dangerous direction,” Celeste said, turning her attention back down to her reflection.

“Soon we will be heading down to the harbinger school and stealing away kids in the night,” Mari agreed.

“Just like humans
thought
we did in ancient times,” Skye said.

Celeste chuckled without humor. In days past humans were afraid of the elves and the fay folk who lived in the forest, they used to think they would come out at night and steal their children away, leaving behind one of their own brood to plague the family. Apparently elves were to blame for bad parenting.

“How far do you think Garth will let them go?” Mari asked.

Celeste turned and looked back at the meeting hall they’d just left. “I don’t think it’s really safe to talk about that here,” she said.

Mari nodded, slid off the well and led them all down the road and to her home. Celeste shut the door behind her and took off her boots. To the right of the door was a fireplace where embers glowed merrily. The one floor structure was warm and hung with soft blue tapestries. Large cushions were arranged on the floor for sitting, and Celeste took one closest to the fireplace.

Elf dwellings were a series of chambers without doors. In the back of the house was where the bathing chamber was customarily kept, and along the hallway from the main room to the bathing room were archways that led into the dining halls and sleeping chambers.