Yelora

The carriage clattered along Ambush Pass, throwing pebbles into the lengthening shadows as Yelora and her attendants hurried on their journey. They were a long way from the familiar forest lands of their kind, and Yelora felt their vulnerability in her bones like the weight of the crown on her head.

It was a dangerous trek, but there was no other choice. Their race was dying. In an attempt to save it, the Elven Faire had gambled and lost. Now it was Yelora’s job to clean up the mess.

“We should stop, my queen,” Ronith said in her deep, resonant voice, knives at the ready. “These woods are not to be crossed at night.”

Sochee muttered agreement as she hung a lantern burning with sleepy yellow-green light.

Yelora didn’t want to stop, not with their cargo, but Ambush Pass was aptly named. The foreign trees around them whispered their threats. The air was bitter with the snuffed campfires of yesterday’s thieves. She whispered a command to the two bone-white mares. Their hooves clopped to a stop.

“We’ll prepare camp.”

“Here, my queen?” Ronith’s amber eyes glittered under her cowl.

“A shade spell from the royal staff will provide protection,” Yelora replied, then chastised herself. She should have said my staff.

“What about the noise?” Ronith asked.

As if on cue, a low, disturbing giggle rippled from the carriage compartment behind them.

The Dark Elf was right. A shade spell would make them invisible, but not silent. They were supposed to have cleared the Shambling Wood by nightfall. Ambush Pass would have been long behind them if not for those infernal Imperials clogging up the roads with their raucous, drunken processions. What was it they celebrated this time of year? Fellsmen’s Folly? Who celebrated someone’s folly?

Their captive in the cage chuckled again, as if it could read Yelora’s mind, but Elven minds were not so weak.

“We’ll just have to keep it quiet then, won't we?” she snapped.

Sochee and Ronith exchanged a glance from either side of her, like shots fired across a ship’s bow. Patience, Yelora, she reminded herself. Remember how Queen Fara ruled. Frigid as a winter’s day. Calm as a night pond.

The carriage compartment rattled, and a high-pitched keening emanated from behind them.

“Have you fed it?” Yelora asked Ronith, working to keep her voice regal, untroubled.

“At the previous stop, m’lady.”

“Well, give it something more before it chews off its own fingers.”

Ronith’s cape rippled as she alit. While they waited, Sochee smiled at Yelora and fluttered her fingers, revealing a small egg-shaped wooden doll with a crown etched on its head. A horizontal crack around its middle told Yelora it was a nesting doll. Suppressing her own smile, she plucked it from the Wood Elf’s fingers and opened it, but inside, instead of another doll, a fat, sweet bloodberry filled the cavity. Yelora popped it into her mouth and bit down hard, letting the tangy juice explode on her tongue. Sochee giggled as Yelora gave her a red-stained smile. Bloodberries were her favorite. No matter the changes, no matter the titles, her childhood friend always grounded her.

Animalistic sounds of feeding drifted through the green curtain at their backs, and Sochee’s smile fell, her brow creasing. “What kind of animal are we transporting, my queen?”

Yelora didn’t enjoy hiding things from Sochee, but the Elf Mage had been very clear: that was a question she and Ronith were only to answer for the Alchemist within the protected walls of the Wizards’ Lair. The Elementals were always listening. Of course, with this delay, they wouldn’t reach him until tomorrow.

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Witless Imperials. Every rotation there were more and more of them. Meanwhile, her own people dwindled, like stars blinking out in morning light. If she wasn’t careful, one day there would be no Elvenkind at all.

A crashing noise from the woods startled Yelora. She gripped her staff and Sochee readied her bow. Night had fallen. The moon was a waxen orb above, painted with mist.

“Think twice before attacking the Elf Queen’s delegation!” Ronith barked from the ground.

Orange light danced in the brambles, followed by the uncontrolled laughter of Imperials. Ronith flicked her wrist, and a moment later a jagged metal knife quivered in the trunk of a tree beside the surprised face of the man staggering into the clearing.

“Ho there!” he said, smiling as if she’d thrown a garland at him rather than a weapon. “Blessed Fellsman’s Folly to you, fair Elven mistresses of the road!” His shirt was open at the front and wet, due to some foul-smelling beverage having spilled down it—Yelora could smell it from her perch. The hair on his bare chest glistened.

An Imperial woman staggered up behind him, clacking an unbearable wooden instrument and muttering a throaty, unintelligible song—something from the south, no doubt. “Oh!” she cried, her mouth falling open as she spotted them. “What a pretty carriage!”

“Keep your distance!” Ronith’s voice was like lightning inside a storm cloud.

“No need for that, no need!” the man wheedled. He yanked the knife out of the tree and spun it like a magician. Walking it back to Ronith, he pulled his hand back quickly as she snatched it from him. “There’s a rollicking party just around here somewhere.” He glanced behind and around himself as if the party of which he spoke might suddenly rise up out of the ground like an Elemental. “You should join us.”

“We’ll pass,” Yelora clipped.

“Are you sure?” the man continued. “Thieves frequent this road. It’s not safe.”

“I can tell your fortune,” the woman added, pulling bones from her pocket. “For a few crowns.”

Yelora felt the sneer come on before she stifled it. Imperials and their unclean persuasions.

“M’lady.” Sochee’s hand moved in a one-handed Elf-sign. There is safety in numbers.

This was what Yelora liked least about being queen—the moments that could forge or shatter you. Their expedition was an important one. Her people’s very existence depended on it. Yet, all could be lost simply by spending the night in the wrong place, with the wrong people.

Of course, Imperials were always the wrong people. It was a disgrace. The Elf Queendom had once shone upon these lands as brightly as a second sun, but look what had been handed down to her. Ashes. Bones.

Yelora lifted a hand and signed back. We cannot. The Elementals are always listening.

Sochee signed again. I don’t understand. What are we hiding from the Elementals? Her friend paused, eyes soft, fingers halting before moving again. Of course, you have no obligation to tell me.

Yelora pressed her lips together. Sochee would find out eventually, and it was important that her friend understood the weight of things. We had a pact with them. Queen Fara broke it.

Sochee’s face cracked in horror, and Yelora felt guilty burdening her with politics. As a Wood Elf, raised with whittling knives and awls, Sochee was friendly and talented with her hands. She’d been brought along for her problem-solving skills, to see to the horses and the carriage, and as company for Yelora because she couldn’t bear to make this journey with the Dark Elf alone. Sweet Sochee did not see the things Yelora saw—the treachery of men, the greed of the Imperial emperor, the fickle, ever-present threat of the Elementals. Neither did she see the boy slipping from behind the skirts of his mother into the shadows and, finally, their carriage, in search of Elvish treasures. Yelora pretended not to see him either.

“A free reading,” the woman chirped, no doubt to lure their attention away from her thieving son.

The bones rolled across the sandy dirt, falling into place like fate. Showing their truest faces.

Soon Yelora would show hers—the face of a leader who made the difficult decisions. Yelora could pull the boy out, yes, but for what? It was too late to stop him from seeing what was inside the carriage. As long as he remained inside, their secret was safe, but if his feet touched ground again, the connection to Terris would be made, and like electricity, the signals would spark and travel through the great unbroken neurons that linked the living land to its colossal embodiments—the Elementals. It took wisdom and strength of mind to hoard the most dangerous form of energy—information—to oneself. An Imperial boy had no hope of doing that. Especially not a frightened one.

Not that he had a hope of leaving the carriage alive.

No, this thievery attempt would be the boy’s last, and while that was sad, Yelora could use it to her advantage. The people of Terris must know that even with the old queen’s retirement, nothing had changed. The Elf Queendom was still something to be respected. Revered. Feared.

An otherworldly snicker, like marbles rolling along a long, empty corridor, caught the Imperials’ attention.

The woman’s eyes grew into luminous orbs. “What’s inside there?” she asked in a small voice. The man’s cheek twitched.

Yelora smiled. “The price of your greed.”