She shook her head. “The Lady?”
“The voice of the Word.”
“I know of the Word. Of her Knights. Angel was one. She came to us earlier. To help us. Is that why you were sent?”
“That’s pretty much it. I was told there was a talisman you must use and that after you had done so, I was to guide you to where you were supposed to go.” He paused. “I was told that Angel was hurt, and I needed to take her place.”
“She was hurt keeping us safe, protecting us from demons that tracked us to where we found the talisman.”
They stared at each other for a moment, not speaking. Then Logan shook his head. “I don’t know what to say. I can’t stop looking at you. I didn’t know there were Elves before I was told to come here. Even after I was told, I didn’t believe it. Maybe I still don’t.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. “I think maybe you do. Now. At any rate, we need you to believe if you are to help us.”
“I know that. I think what’s bothering me is that I didn’t know what to expect. I was looking for . . . something else.”
“And you found me.”
He nodded. “I guess that’s it.”
“No one is supposed to know about us, Logan. No one is supposed to believe we exist. That’s how we stay safe.”
“But now the demons know, don’t they? They’ve found you?”
She nodded.
“Are they here?”
She walked over and stood before him, so close she could have reached out and touched him if she had chosen to do so. She was too close, Logan thought. He stared at her. He had never met anyone like her, seen anyone like her, imagined anyone could make him feel like this. He didn’t care that she was an Elf. He didn’t care what she was. He barely knew her, and already he was thinking about things that he had never thought about anyone.
You will know who you are looking for, the Lady had told him when he asked, because your heart will tell you. He hadn’t understood until now what that meant.
He stared at her, and she stared right back at him. The connection was so strong it was palpable. He was suddenly confused and embarrassed. She shouldn’t have been able to tell what he was thinking, but she smiled as if she could.
“I’m Simralin Belloruus,” she said, taking his arm. “Walk back with me. It might take me a while, but I’ll explain everything.”
IN THE COOL OF THE PREDAWN, Kirisin walked from his sleeping quarters to the gardens that housed the Ellcrys. Ostensibly, he went alone, having been awakened by his sister before she left to assemble and make ready the hot-air balloon that would spirit them away after he had used the Loden. But he knew that in the shadows were Elven Hunters chosen by her to make certain he stayed safe. He didn’t see them, but he knew they were there. Sim wouldn’t have had it otherwise.
The path he followed was familiar, a path he had traveled hundreds of times in the company of the other Chosen on their way to offer morning greetings to the tree they were all sworn to protect. Biat, his best friend, Raya, Giln, and Jarn—how many times they had walked it. Erisha, as well, although it was hard to think about her now. He would have gone to the others last night and told them everything that had happened since his flight from the city. He would have assured them that he had not killed Erisha, that he had tried to save her, that he would try to save them. He would have told them everything. He would have stayed with them and slept in his old bed. But Simralin said no. It wasn’t a good idea. No one must be told what was going to happen. The danger of panic was too great. She didn’t even mention the possibility of word slipping out and reaching the demonkind if too many people found out what was planned. But he understood it anyway. Any reunions or explanations would have to wait until this was over.
So in a small act of rebellion, he had chosen to take this more circuitous route from the sleeping quarters she had selected for him. At least he could walk the path he had shared with his friends. They would be sleeping and would not wake before he had done so, and his visit to the Ellcrys would be finished by the time they rose. Not long after that, they would be enclosed in the Loden and explanations and reunions wouldn’t matter.
He thought about the consequences of his actions for a moment. So much could go wrong, and almost all of it had to do with him. If he faltered, if he misjudged, if he rushed or hesitated at the wrong moment, he would fail. If he failed, everything would be lost.
In the moments before rising, lying silently in his bed, just coming awake, he had considered the possibility of keeping another of the Chosen out with him, a safeguard against his death before the city and its people could be restored. Biat, perhaps. Steady, reliable, the perfect choice. But did he have the right to ask such a thing? The burden, after all, had been given to him. Whoever stayed behind with him would share that burden, no matter how hard he tried to argue otherwise. Biat or another of the Chosen would stand at his shoulder and by doing so face the same dangers he did.
It was Simralin who had put it in perspective when asked her opinion earlier this morning. She was crouched next to him in the darkness, dressed and ready, her weapons strapped about her waist and over her shoulders, preparing to leave.
“You could do that, Little K. But if the demons manage to harm you, even to get close enough to do so, everyone around you, myself included, will already be dead. The presence of another Chosen wouldn’t make a difference.”
“But what if I am killed accidentally, even though you have expended your best efforts to keep that from happening?”
“What if you lose the Loden?” she replied. “What if you break it? What if it gets stolen? You can speculate all you want, Little K.” She paused. “Why don’t you just ask the Ellcrys what she wishes you to do?”
Ask the Ellcrys. Yes, he had thought afterward, that was what he would do.
So now he was on his way to speak to her. Or, more to the point, on his way to the gardens so that she could speak to him. But his uncertainties had not faded as he had hoped. Instead, they had intensified. He was awash in doubts. Not about the wisdom of keeping out another Chosen to aid him, but about his own abilities. He was being asked to do so much. Without skills, experience, or even much in the way of wisdom, he was being given a responsibility no one should have to bear. How was he to carry it out? How did he invoke the Loden’s power? What was needed to persuade it to enclose the Elves and their city along with the Ellcrys? How would he know afterward where he was to go and what he was to do once he got there? Thinking about it, about all of it, was so overwhelming that he almost turned back from his meeting. Someone else should be doing this, he kept thinking. He was not the right choice.
When he reached the gardens, he stood at their edge for several moments, looking at the tree and gathering his courage. He wasn’t sure what he would hear or even that he wanted to hear it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go any farther.
In the end, he did, of course. He stepped out into the starlit brightness of the clearing, out from the trees into the open, flinching as the light fell across his face and revealed him. As if, somehow, she could see that he was there. He came forward slowly, drinking in her impossible beauty, discovering anew aspects he had forgotten. He stood before her, just out of reach, staring into her scarlet canopy, blinking at the reflection of light from her silver limbs, awestruck in her presence.
She chose me, he thought suddenly. She could have chosen someone else, but she chose me. To his surprise, the words comforted him.
He walked into the dark pool of her shadow and dropped to his knees, head lowered, eyes closed, motionless and silent, waiting.
Waiting.
What if she does not speak to me?
He felt the spidery touch of a slender branch brush against his slumped shoulders.
–My beloved–
He almost cried, so grateful was he, so relieved. “I have done what you asked of me,” he whispered aloud.
–Use the magic of the Loden and place me within, still rooted in my earth. Use th
e magic to place the Elves and their city within, as well. All of us belong within your safekeeping. Take us to where we will be made safe from what is to happen. You will know where that is and how you are to go. Others will show you the way. Others will go with you and protect you–
“But I don’t know how . . .,” he started, then stopped instantly as he felt the tip of the branch move to his neck.
–The path lies before you. The journey is set. You are my Chosen.
You are my beloved. You will know. You need no instruction or help to find your way. You need only your courage and your determination. Do you believe me–
“Yes,” he said at once. “I believe you.”
–Then do what you must, Kirisin Belloruus. Do what I have given you to do–
He might have said more. He might have asked her more. He might have tried to discover the answers to questions that remained unanswered. But her limbs withdrew, and she was gone. He knelt before her, staring up into her branches, searching for movement, for recognition, for something further. But nothing revealed itself. She had said all she would.
He rose after a moment, waited a moment longer, still hoping, and then took a deep breath, turned, and walked away.
LOGAN TOM walked next to Simralin Belloruus, head lowered in thought. She had just finished telling him everything that had happened to the Elves over the past few weeks leading up to the moment of his arrival, and he was trying to digest it. Trying to make it seem real might be a better way of putting it. He had seen and heard of some strange things in his time as a Knight of the Word, but never anything like this. That an entire city and its people could be saved from demons and once-men by being placed inside a gemstone was almost too much to accept.
Almost.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” she asked him, apparently able to read his mind.
She didn’t sound angry or disappointed. She sounded mostly curious to hear how he would respond. She looked over at him, and for what must have been the fiftieth time in the past hour he found himself wishing she would never look away.
“I believe you,” he said. “I would believe you if your story sounded three times this crazy.”
He had never been in love. He had not known what it would feel like. He understood what the term meant, but his life had not allowed for exploring its possibilities. There had been few he had really loved. His parents; Michael. That was it. And that was love of a different kind. Less intense, less hungry. What he felt for Simralin went so far beyond anything manageable that it shocked him. He could tell himself it was because he found her beautiful in a way that transcended anything he had ever known. But his attraction to her was a response to so much more. To her self-confidence and her way of speaking. To her smile and the quirky way she lifted one eyebrow when she was amused. To the way she carried herself. To the way she looked at him.
Feeling like this, being suddenly, impulsively in love, was so ridiculous and so reckless and wrongheaded that he could hardly come to grips with it. There was no space in his life for this. There was no time for it. He was engaged in the most important struggle of his life, entrusted with carrying out a mission that would ensure the survival of an entire nation—a race of people he hadn’t even believed existed before he found them. He needed to be cool and detached from everything but the responsibility he had been given. Yet here he was, imagining what it would be like if this woman were to love him back.
“Your brother,” he said, needing to break the silence between them. “So much depends on him. Is he up to that sort of pressure?”
She was looking away now, off into the trees. “Little K is a lot stronger than people give him credit for. He’s tough and he’s smart. He saved my life in the ice caves on Syrring Rise. He saved Angel’s life, too. Someone else—maybe almost anyone else—would have collapsed under the weight of the responsibility he was given. Fleeing his home and his city and his people when he had never been away for more than a few days and then just a short distance, using the Elfstones when he didn’t know what that would do to him, that took courage. I can’t even imagine what standing up to Culph and then to Tragen required.”
Logan nodded. “It might get worse.”
“It will get worse. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
He smiled despite himself. “Kirisin was doing pretty well with you as his protector. I don’t want you to think I’m trying to replace you.”
She gave him a look. “Does what I think worry you?”
He shrugged.
“You don’t seem like someone who cares what others think,” she pressed, making it sound like she was very sure. “You seem pretty self-sufficient.”
“That’s how it is with Knights of the Word. They work alone. They live alone.” He paused. “Worrying about what others think can get you killed.”
She was quiet for a moment, and then she said, “Tell me something about yourself.”
He looked over at her. “Tell you something?”
She nodded. “I told you everything about what happened to me. Tell me about what’s happened to you. About what you’ve been doing that brought you here.”
He was surprised at how eager he was to do so. He started at the very beginning, with his meeting with Two Bears, and then carried forward to his last visit from the Lady. He skipped some of it, the things that she didn’t need to know, the details of his battles, of his private struggles. He kept it simple and straightforward, telling her of the Ghosts and the gypsy morph and what was going to happen. She listened without interrupting him, watching his face, the look so intense he could feel its heat.
When he was finished, she gave him a smile. “If you weren’t standing here, if someone else told me this story, I would think it was just a story and nothing more.”
He smiled back. “I would think the same. If I hadn’t lived it.”
“Do you know where we’re supposed to go, even if Kirisin isn’t sure? Do you know where we will find this boy and all the other children? Angel’s children?”
He thought about it a moment. He didn’t know exactly, but somehow he thought he could find it anyway. Maybe Trim would know the way. But Trim had disappeared. There hadn’t been a sign of him since Logan had first encountered Simralin.
“I can get us to where we need to go. Then it’s up to the boy Hawk.”
Ahead, cottages appeared through the trees. The sun had risen behind them, a hazy orb hanging low in the east, still screened by the forest, its light diffuse and silvery. The predawn silence had given way to a steady rise of birdsong. From somewhere not too far ahead, a dog barked and voices could be heard.
“We’ll be there in a few minutes,” she said. “Arissen Belloruus will need to hear what brought you to us. But he will be happy you’ve come.”
They passed through the trees and found a pathway leading to the cluster of houses. The scent of flowers filled the morning air. Logan breathed it in.
“I’m happy you’ve come, too,” Simralin said suddenly.
She said it in a bold, challenging way, as if speaking the words cemented something between them that she understood better than he did. He looked over at her, but she was already striding ahead of him.
“This way,” she called back.
He had an odd thought at that moment, one he hadn’t had since Michael’s death.
He would follow her anywhere.
TWELVE
I T WAS THREE HOURS AFTER SUNRISE, the sky a brilliant blue sweep through the tangle of the forest branches, the sun a bright orb hanging low on the eastern horizon, the day smelling of new life and fresh possibilities. Kirisin Belloruus stood on a rise east of the city, just at its edge and deep within the concealment of the forest. He carried the three blue Elfstones and the Loden, all tucked within his pockets, and he was dressed in the clothing he would wear when they made their escape into the mountains. A handful of Elven Hunters stood nearby, armed and ready to leave with him. Another handful of Elven Hunters, all Trackers, had s
pread out in a screening movement that would detect any enemy approach.
The King and more than a thousand of his Hunters were gathered at the west end of the city, forming a screen between the demon-led army and Arborlon. When the city and its people were encapsulated within the Loden, the Hunters and their King would shift their defenses to protect Kirisin. Retaliation would be quick once the demon leaders got over their initial shock. They might not realize right away that Culph and Tragen were dead and that Kirisin was acting not at their behest but on his own . . . though it wouldn’t take long for them to figure it out. No word had been received of his return, of his capture and subjugation, or of a time or place that the Loden would be used. When the Elves and their city disappeared, there would be an immediate response.
Kirisin knew that he’d better not be anywhere close when that happened. The plan was to make sure he wasn’t.
The boy looked up at the sky and then off into the distance. It was all so surreal that he was having trouble believing it. He still didn’t know for certain that he could use the Loden. He certainly didn’t know how. The Ellcrys had told him nothing, only left him with the impression that when the time came, he would know instinctively. He supposed this was possible. After all, hadn’t he known instinctively how to use the blue Elfstones? Well, after the first time, anyway. Would he need a first time with the Loden? How much time would he need? How much would he get?
He squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth in response to his uncertainty. Trust in yourself! He mouthed the words silently, took a deep, steadying breath, and opened his eyes again. He wished this waiting were over. He wished he were doing something. But he had been told to wait for the King to signal that all was in readiness, that the army was in place and able to protect him.
As if anyone could really protect him. Even Sim.
He peered downward through the trees to the city. Arborlon’s people were awake, but almost none of them understood the enormity of what lay ahead. They had heard about the attack on the High Council and the resulting deaths. They had been told that a meeting of the new members of the High Council had been set for midday today. They knew that no one was to leave the city for any reason until permission had been given. Home Guards were blocking all routes, a protective measure to assure that no one would be caught outside the city and left behind. Almost no one understood what that meant. Aside from new First Minister Ordanna Frae and two other ministers who had survived Tragen’s attack, no one understood much.