“So that its message may be hidden away once more?” the elf princess asked. “Your people should be, now more than ever, ready to hear the truth. Perhaps then they will not be so quick to embroil themselves—and my kind—in another war, a war where there was never anything to gain.”
“Its message?” Jev asked.
The elf flicked a couple of fingers toward Zenia’s clenched fist. The artifact grew warmer against her palm, and white light crept into her vision again.
Cursing, she dropped the artifact. She didn’t want to, but she also didn’t want to be knocked unconscious, not when the situation was tense and volatile.
But the vision found her, regardless.
“I thank you for guiding me through your countryside, friend human,” the elf princess said, smiling at the man riding the horse beside hers. From a mountain perch miles inland, they looked out toward the sea and Korvann sprawling along the shore.
The human, a handsome man who looked a lot like Jev, grinned roguishly at her. “Friend human? Is that all I am to you?”
The princess’s cheeks grew a shade pink. “I have enjoyed our journey to this point with you. Before I left the heartwoods, I hadn’t realized humans were so vigorous.”
The roguish grin grew broader. “Just some. When properly inspired.”
“It’s a shame I must return after I deliver this message.” She looked down at her palm, at a familiar ivory tree-shaped artifact resting there.
“I suppose I wouldn’t be welcome to visit.”
“Not with your people currently invading the heartwoods, trying to kill mine. But perhaps if the message is heard and understood to be true…” She curled her fingers around the artifact and firmed her jaw. “It will be. I will not fail my father in this.”
“I believe you.” The man—Jev’s brother?—leaned over and gripped her forearm. “Put up your hood. I can get you into the castle to see Prince Dazron—he’ll have to do since the king is leading the war himself and since he wouldn’t care anyway. Dazron is our main hope. The archmages of the Orders…”
“I’m told Earth and Air may be trusted and that they opposed the war, but that we must avoid Water and Fire.”
“I’d prefer to avoid them all. The prince is known to be reasonable.”
“Yes,” the princess agreed, “and though he supports his father in public, he’s privately spoken against the war and the way it is depleting your people’s resources.”
“Should I find it alarming that you know more about what the prince does privately than I do?”
“My people have ways.” She smiled cryptically at him.
“Just so long as you haven’t been investigating his vigor. He’s married, you know.”
“Really, Vastiun. You humans are so…”
“Appealingly unique and quirky?”
“You are quirky. Come.” She nudged her horse into motion and raised the hood of her green cloak over her blonde hair. “We are not far now.”
But as they rode down the hill, the road passed near a stand of trees. Dozens of men raced out from within, firing muskets and rifles. They were a ragtag bunch, appearing at first as bandits, but then two figures in blue rode out of the shadows on white horses. One wore the robe of an inquisitor and the other the attire of a monk. They sat astride the horses and watched as the bandits attacked the pair on the road.
The elf raised her hands, bringing some magic to bear, even as a dragon tear about her throat glowed a fierce golden. Jev’s brother fired at the bandits, taking down several, but the inquisitor shouted something, and the men did not falter in their attack. They rushed at the elf. Vastiun jumped down from his horse, drawing a short sword and attacking in close quarters. A crude explosive went off, the force hurling Vastiun into the brush at the side of the road. The attackers focused on the elf princess instead of him. She realized she wouldn’t drive back so many and whispered an enchantment, then hurled the artifact off the side of the mountain.
It floated out of sight and landed—the inquisitor did not see where. Vastiun, halfway to his feet again, gasped and grabbed the side of his head. As he bent over—in pain?—an arrow thudded into the princess’s heart. Vastiun cried out in rage and swung his sword at the thugs, but there were too many. She crumpled to the road and died, the arrow protruding from her chest. The men beat Vastiun senseless, then, under the inquisitor’s orders, ran down into the brush to hunt for the thrown artifact.
But they did not find it. Magic had hurled it farther than physical strength could.
When Vastiun woke, a vision burned in his mind, the resting place of the artifact. It was the last thing the princess had given him before dying.
With shaky limbs, he buried her in a cairn beside the road, then walked down the mountainside, magic drawing him to a place the others hadn’t found. He picked up the artifact and stared at it, experiencing the vision it had been crafted to show.
It sprang back in time thousands of years and showed human after human sneaking into the Taziira heartwoods and stealing dragon tears, occasionally from the hordes of slumbering dragons, as so many of the stories told, but more often from the homes of peaceful elves. Sometimes, they murdered those inhabitants to ensure nobody followed them back to their homeland across the sea.
These adventurers all returned sharing tales of how they’d bravely won the dragon tears or had stolen them from unsuspecting dragons, none of them mentioning the truth. Eventually, the elves took to the trees and made their homes difficult to find. Some of them sought revenge, leading humans to learn to fear their kind, but by the time the Era of Discovery came to a close, thousands of dragon tears had shifted into human hands. And as generations passed, humans forgot how they had come to have them and told stories of how the founders themselves had gifted them to the various human kingdoms.
Only the elves remembered the truth.
The vision faded, and Zenia lurched upright with a gasp. She had fallen to the cobblestones. Had someone snatched the artifact while she was knocked out? No, she was lying right on top of it, the ivory carving digging into her hip. She pulled it out as she looked around for the elves or other threats.
Everyone in the courtyard lay crumpled on the cobblestones except for Lornysh and the elf princess. Or the woman Zenia had assumed was the elf princess from the original vision. The blonde female who’d died in the vision had looked so much like this person standing in front of her and looking at her.
“My twin sister,” the elf said quietly, holding Zenia’s gaze.
Zenia swallowed. With every human in the courtyard unconscious, the elf could have walked over and taken the artifact at any time.
“I wish to finish what she started, to make sure your people know the truth, that we are only your enemies because your people made us so. Humans coveted our magic, since they had none of their own, and took it by force. And the dragon tears were not even ours to give. We promised long ago to keep them for the dwarves who originally mined them from a rare vein imbued with magic. They used the gems against each other in a civil war that lasted centuries. Finally, their leaders rounded them all up and gave them to us so they could no longer use them against each other. They have been a mixed blessing for our people to say the least.”
“Why should I believe you?” Zenia asked. “Or this.” She thrust out the artifact.
On the cobblestones beside her, Jev groaned faintly. Elsewhere, a few other people also stirred.
“It is your choice to believe as you wish,” the elf said, “but you should sense the truth in the Eye of Truth. It was given that name for a reason. It was created to show only truths and for those who partake in its visions to understand that.”
“Magic could make me believe anything, I suppose.” Unfortunately, Zenia found that she did believe the story. Sazshen herself was as much to blame as a carved piece of ivory. She’d been so evasive. Had she known exactly how the Order had acquired—no, attempted to acquire—the artifact? “Basically, your people want our people to
know that we originally stole the dragon tears?”
“We do. My father believed that if you all knew, or at least if your leaders knew, then perhaps you would realize…”
“We should be asking forgiveness rather than trying to take over your continent and suborn your kind?” Jev asked, grimacing as he rose to his knees.
Had he heard the whole conversation?
Zenia touched his shoulder, wanting to know what he believed. His family was so tied up in all this. What did he think should be done?
“We do not require your contrition,” the princess said.
Lornysh grunted. In disagreement? It was the first noise he’d made since Zenia woke. Visha lay crumpled next to him on the lip of the fountain, and she hadn’t stirred yet.
The princess smiled knowingly at him but did not otherwise respond to him.
“And we do not ask that you return all the dragon tears, though there are some among us who have argued for that, yes. Argued that we take the war to your shores and recover all of them we can. They were only ever a small faction among us, but I believe your spies learned of their wishes and shared their words with your King Abdor. And that was all it took.” The princess shook her head, her eyes holding an eternal sorrow that made her seem far older than she appeared. “All we hope for is a more restful peace going forward. If your leaders know the truth, perhaps it will ensure that.”
As more people stirred in the courtyard, all seeming to have seen the vision and to understand the conversation going on, Zenia stared down at her fist, at her fingers closed around the artifact. It was still slightly warm, but it didn’t seem to be oozing any magic now. No visions. No attempts to manipulate her.
“I think if you took it to our soon-to-be-king, Targyon, he would be willing to listen,” Jev said, then lowered his voice. “If the Water Order allows it. It was clear to me—” he touched his temple, “—that they didn’t want it to reach Prince Dazron five years ago. They may have decided humanity was better off not knowing its past. For their own good. Or for the status quo. I don’t know.”
Jev didn’t look at Zenia, and she was glad. She did not want to see an accusation in his eyes. She hadn’t known about any of this, but here she stood in her blue robe, clearly a representative of the Water Order.
“Your own family seems to have made a similar decision,” Lornysh said, coming around the fountain and leaving Visha.
She was stirring now, frowning and lifting her head, and that made Zenia uneasy. Heber, too, had his eyes open, though he lay on his stomach, simply watching for now. Biding his time?
“To keep the truth hidden,” Lornysh added.
Jev frowned. “Vastiun must have fled—joined the army and sailed overseas—to avoid the wrath of the Water Order. Maybe he feared he would never be able to get close to the prince once they realized he’d recovered the artifact. He told me none of this, not even when he lay dying in my arms. He simply mentioned the girl that he regretted losing.” Jev lifted his eyebrows toward the elf princess.
“My sister was a lovely person.”
“And then I, knowing nothing of the importance of the artifact, bundled it up with the rest of Vastiun’s belongings and sent it home.” Jev turned toward his father and also looked toward his grandmother. “What happened after that? Somebody knows. And was that Corvel’s skeleton we found in the woods? Someone shot him. On our land.”
Zenia expected the father to flinch or give away knowledge of the event, but it was Visha who clenched her jaw and glared defiantly over at Jev.
“I never saw his belongings, and I’ve no idea where your mother’s butler went,” Jev’s father said.
Zenia almost nudged Jev to get him to look over at his grandmother, but his head turned in that direction without assistance. Her defiance didn’t change. There was no shame in her eyes. She almost looked proud. By the founders, she hadn’t trekked out to the meeting stone and shot the butler, had she? And if she had, why would she be proud of that?
“Grandmother?” Jev prompted.
“He was going to take it back to them.” Visha pointed at Lornysh and also at the princess. “To some stinking elves. While we were at war with them. It was a betrayal. He betrayed his own people, and that’s a crime deserving of a hanging or a shooting. The law says so. Kingdom and Order.” She turned her defiant stare on Zenia, but only for a moment.
“You didn’t do it,” Jev said. “Follow him out there and shoot him? Surely not…”
If anything, Visha’s expression grew more defiant. “You think I can’t defend what’s right? Boy, I fired at Ska invaders that came onto our property and thieved our horses during the Border Wars. You think I can’t shoot when the law demands it? Or just when it’s right? When people run off and become damn elf sympathizers? I did it before. I did it to my own blood.” For the first time, her defiance slackened, and her voice developed a quaver. “You can’t let your own blood betray the kingdom, betray you. No matter how much… I didn’t mean to kill her though. Just a warning. She was going to leave her own boys to run off with them. It’s not right. Not right. I didn’t raise her like that. I didn’t.”
Zenia watched Jev’s face as the words tumbled out, as the woman’s self-righteous proclamations turned into a confession.
“The cairn,” Jev said numbly, looking to Lornysh.
Though puzzled, Zenia didn’t say anything. She had her own dilemma to consider.
But before she could return to pondering the carving in her hand, Visha faced her. “You going to arrest me for it, girl?”
Founders, was she supposed to? The woman had just confessed to not one but two murders. It was technically a kingdom matter, nothing to do with the Orders, but had she attempted a third murder?
“Did you try to crush me in that rockfall?” Zenia asked.
Jev winced. The accusation wasn’t for him, but this was his grandmother. Would he try to take some of the blame? It wasn’t his fault.
Visha glanced over at one of the armed guards, a man who pointedly did not look back. He studied the cobblestones at his feet and didn’t meet anyone’s eyes.
“I arranged it,” Visha said. “You had no right to be here, no right to thieve what rightfully belongs to our family now. What’s been locked up for five years and should stay locked up for five hundred. But I saw you looking. I knew what you were thinking and that you felt it with your own magic. I never thought an inquisitor would want to let out those elf lies, but they’ve got sympathizers everywhere. You never know.”
Visha didn’t realize that she and Zenia—or at least she and Sazshen—had been on the same side. They had both wanted to keep the truth locked away.
“And I was right, wasn’t I?” Visha added. “First chance you got, you ran up there and stole it.”
“I had orders from the archmage to retrieve it.” Zenia couldn’t help but feel guilty at having done exactly what the woman accused, but this was her mission, and her crimes were nothing compared to the ones Visha had perpetrated.
Jev stood still, his lips parted, looking as stunned as if someone had slammed a sledgehammer into his chest. Surprisingly, his father wore a similar expression. Zenia guessed he knew something about the artifact, but she wagered this was the first time he’d heard his wife had been murdered.
“Inquisitor Cham,” the elf princess said. “The crimes that have occurred here have been human and are in your domain, save for one.” She extended a slender finger, pointing at Zenia’s fist. “Will you return the Eye of Truth to me? To my family? I will show it to your new king, and then I will take it to the other kingdoms and share this knowledge there, as well. If you relinquish the artifact. It was carved long ago by a relative of our family, so it is rightfully ours.”
“Can’t you just tell the king the truth?” Jev recovered from his shock enough to give Zenia a concerned look. Of all the people here, only he knew how much this mission meant to her. What she could potentially gain if she returned victorious and handed the artifact over to Sazsh
en.
“Not many humans are inclined to believe my people, especially right now,” the princess said. “But the Eye of Truth was made long ago by a talented half-elf mage, a distant relative of mine, as I said. He lived as a hermit, trying to be neither a part of your world nor ours. Because of his neutrality and the power of truth he imbued in the carving, your leaders will be more inclined to believe the artifact than my lips. Inquisitor Cham?”
“Will you take it by force if I don’t give it to you?” Zenia asked.
She rubbed her thumb over the artifact. If she believed all that had been shown to her today, she had to accept that returning it to the elves was the right thing to do. But if she did so—if she handed it over willingly—would Sazshen forgive her? Would she still consider Zenia as her successor? As the next archmage to lead the temple into the future?
No, not that last. If Zenia handed over the artifact to an elf, it would be more than failing to complete a mission. It would be choosing a side. Not the side Sazshen and the temple were currently allied with.
“I will not,” the elf princess said. “I am a diplomat, not a warrior.”
“I wish you’d said yes,” Zenia said bleakly.
The elf tilted her head, curious. Jev shared Zenia’s bleak expression. Yes, he understood. If she did her best to succeed but failed her mission, perhaps… perhaps that would be forgivable. But to turn her back on her mission…
“Maybe you can say you weren’t given a choice,” Jev murmured. “Would that be better?”
“Maybe. If it were true. But even if I were inclined to lie to the archmage… Well, you can’t lie to an inquisitor.”
“Ah.”
Zenia opened her palm, offering the artifact to the princess. She wouldn’t toss it or walk it over there. She couldn’t go that far.