Yelora

The Elemental towered above her, its vast body a wall of stone trapping her inside the hollowed-out meteorite. Her invisibility spell—when it was working—shielded her from its view, but it wouldn’t matter. It was after the crystals, and she was crouched inside the thickest pocket of them all. It would destroy her whether it could see her or not.

She spotted movement over its shoulder. Was that Sochee, scrambling down from the ridge? Her arrows were hopeless against this colossus of earth and stone.

No, whoever it was wore an indigo cloak. It was the Summoner! What was he doing here?

He waved his arms at her, having used petty magic to see past her invisibility shield. She ducked to avoid another furious blow from the Elemental’s fist to the meteorite’s shell. A chunk of crystal-laden rock dislodged and fell to the ground, crushed to dust under the Elemental’s fist. More crystals shook loose and fell, bouncing off Yelora’s shoulders and tinkling among the shards already strewn across the ground. Their potential swelled around her, like water rising from a warm spring, buoying her, tempting her.

So much power. And the Elemental was going to destroy it all!

But this magic is what would save Elfkind—the Oracle had said as much—and Yelora was not going to let it go easily. The Summoner caught her eye again, gesturing to her not in Elfsign but in the Imperial way—a gloved hand swiping toward himself. She understood it nonetheless. Come here.

Another blow from the berserking Elemental. The ceiling cracked above her with a sickening snap, like felled trees ripping apart. A falling chunk of the meteorite clipped her shoulder, and she cried out.

She had to stop the destruction, otherwise there would be no crystals left to use to save her people. Running to safety was not an option.

Yelora aimed her staff, reaching out to the power of the Riverstone. All around her, the meteorite hummed with its own power—a tumescent seed of destruction. The magnitude of it was overwhelming. Terrifying. It pushed against her, begging to be let in, an ocean of power.

She opened the door.

An arc of white-hot lightning shot from the staff, striking the Elemental in its sandstone chest. Purple veins erupted across it and within it, lighting it up from the inside. The Elemental halted, tiny eyes shifting rapidly in their stone sockets, as if it were afraid, as if the land itself could feel fear. Then the eyes stilled, no longer looking at the meteorite, but past it with a vacancy that chilled Yelora to her core. Its fists hung motionless at its sides. It trembled once, and Yelora felt the trembling inside her, too, as if she’d been the target of the staff’s ire. Then it crumbled, its form breaking into chunks before her eyes, stone turned to sponge, splitting when they hit the ground, like a dropped cake. What was once a menacing Guardian of Terris was now nothing more than a pile of damp sand and dirt. Where its eyes had been were two polished shards of black glass.

Ancient sprites! What had she done?

Her arms felt soft and useless, her hands numb. She had to look at them to see whether or not they still clutched the staff.

A brash, brine-soaked wind swept over the crash site from the Fellthara Sea. It lifted the topmost layer of sand from what had once been the Elemental. When the dancing particles settled, so too did Yelora’s gaze, on the two figures standing behind the wall of sandy ruin: Sochee and the Summoner.

Their mouths were open in silent horror, and Yelora felt the weight of it in her gut. What had she done? And was it even possible?

Sochee skirted the mound stiffly and came to Yelora, throwing her arms around her. She hardly felt them. The Summoner approached with more caution, studying the corpse of the Elemental as he did. Yelora held her breath as he kneeled in front of what had been its head. Could he awaken it? Did he have that kind of power?

He reached out a gloved hand and touched the blind black glass that had once been its eye, and she flinched.

“You killed it,” he said in a voice that held more wonder than anger. When he stood and turned her way, his cape swirled the dust at his feet. “Why did you do that? How did you do that?”

Yelora glanced at her feet. The crystals that had been there had crumbled to dust—their magic sapped.

Such power! Such monumental power—enough to kill an Elemental. How could she have known?

She nudged Sochee behind her. A hiccup escaped her. What she had done was sacrilege. Unforgivable. The Summoner would surely come for her, seize her, drag her before the Council for punishment. Let him try, she thought, staff at the ready. He would meet the same fate as the Elemental. The crystals would help her. There were more of them—so many more. She felt their hungry magic at her back.

“Do not come any closer, Wizard!” she rasped. Even her voice sounded wrong. Everything was wrong. Her hands didn’t feel right. They were someone else’s hands. Her heart didn’t feel right. It was changed. She was changed.

Or perhaps just terrified.

“M’lady,” Sochee whimpered from behind her. “No more. Please.”

The Summoner’s gloved hands were up, palms bared in surrender. “I’m not here to fight you, Your Highness,” he said. His brown eyes were wide and soft with honesty, but Yelora knew that he, too, stood amongst crystals. What would they do to a Wizard’s power?

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“You missed the Council,” he continued. “It is dire. We’re on the brink of war. In fact, we may already be at war, and the Alchemist wishes to ally with you. Together, we can figure out what to do about this new magic. What it’s capable of.”

His voice dropped off, as if he had practiced this speech and now realized how ridiculous it sounded. What it’s capable of. It was capable of killing an Elemental! How long would the Wizards remain loyal to the Elves with this level of power at their fingertips? Especially after what Yelora had done?

The mistake you have yet to make.

Sprites! This was it, wasn’t it? The mistake—because it had been a mistake. She hadn’t meant to kill the Elemental, only to drive it off. She hadn’t even known they could die.

No one would remain loyal to her after this. No one except Sochee.

“I won’t tell anyone about this,” the Summoner added, continuing toward her, palms still raised. “We’ll figure it out. Just... come with me to the Council chambers. The Dwarves and the Imperials are up in arms over this new magic. Tempers are hot. We need to convince them that we’re not trying to cut them out, we’re just trying to keep everyone from getting hurt. We don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

He was babbling, and Yelora was only half-listening anyway.

She would have to hide the dead Elemental before her people arrived. They had sent the kestrel for them, and they would already be on their way. The closest Riverland Elves in Faylmoor Glen would arrive first, before nightfall, certainly. Then Malith Roost. The rest would follow in the days that followed. It would not take them long to fortify this place. They’d use the magic of the crystals to bolster their protection spells. The Riverstone in her crown hummed with fresh power even when she simply thought of casting a spell. Her staff was still pointed at the Summoner. She pulled it back for fear she might sizzle him with a thought.

She should kill him. He had seen what she’d done. He was the only one besides Sochee, whom she could hear breathing softly behind her, like an animal in hiding.

But she didn’t want to kill him. Hadn’t she done enough killing? Besides, the Oracle had said she’d need allies.

“We have to hide this. I’ll help.” He was still blathering on, stepping gingerly over the hot, blasted terrain where the dead Elemental lay in pieces, looking like something alien and unrecognizable even in its own native Terris. The Summoner tugged off a glove, and Yelora tensed, but his spell was not for her. He wasn’t even facing her. What a fool to turn his back on an enemy, but perhaps he didn’t think of her as an enemy. Foolish young man. Did he not now everyone was a potential enemy?

He crouched down and dug his fingers into the soil. Unearthing the tender roots of grass, he ran his fingers along the runners. And they grew.

Sochee sucked in a breath behind her, coming out from Yelora’s shadow to watch as new runners shot out from the ones his fingers caressed, sprouting bright blades where there once was nothing. It reminded her of the day Queen Fara had pulled the creature from the sacred waters—something from nothing—but this was different. The runners and blades stretched and expanded, creating a mat of green that spread over the corpse of the Elemental like a blanket, as if the Wizard were simply tucking the great giant into bed. He didn’t stop until the entire mound was covered in new life, yellow wildflowers dotting its surface. It was a lie of monumental proportions, and yet she was grateful. Grateful and distrustful at the same time.

“It is obvious this is not natural,” she blurted.

“I’m not finished.” Scouting around the green mound, the Summoner found a scorched acorn. He tossed it in the air with his gloved hand, winking at her as he caught it in his bare one. Immediately the acorn sprouted and began to grow into a tree. The Summoner planted it in the warm soil, his hands never leaving it as it grew from a sapling to a small oak and then a large oak, and then a massive, towering tree that would have taken several Elf lifetimes to grow. Its canopy stretched over the buried Elemental, blanketing it in cool shadow. Roots boiled up from the ground as they stretched in all directions, throwing shards of crystal to the side as they erupted.

Yelora had never seen anything like this. Not from Wizard nor Elf. It surpassed the technology of the Dwarves as well. And he didn’t even look tired.

A flash of fear jolted her. He must be using the new magic.

“That’s enough! You’ll waste them!” she cried out.

He did stop, but only because the tree stopped growing. “I’m not using the crystals.”

“I’ll not tolerate you to mis-speak to me, Wizard.”

“I speak truth, M’lady. It is the work of my curse alone.”

Yelora remembered then.This was the power that had grown their caged creature from a small horrible thing to a larger, more horrible thing. It was the reason he wore the gloves.

Why did he refer to it as a curse?

He tugged the glove back on, then brushed the ash off his dark pants and swirled his cape to shake the dust off its hem. His gaze flicked from Yelora to Sochee, and he gave her a polite nod, as if he’d only just noticed her there. “Shall we go, then?”

She locked eyes with her friend. Yelora’s hand moved, an instruction delivered. Sochee acknowledged it.

“You want me to go to the Council chambers with you?” she asked the Summoner. “Ally with the Wizards and convince the Dwarves and the Imperials to let us control the new magic. What makes you think I can do that?”

“Well...” He looked confused. “You’re the Elf Queen now. And it’s not about who’s standing against who—not yet anyway. We just need to convince them to let us study this new magic. Make sure it’s safe.”

Yelora reached down and picked up a crystal, hefted it in her hand. “Magic is never entirely safe. The Dwarves and the Imperials have never had it before, and now they do. Why would they hand that over?” She blinked at him. “I wouldn’t.”

He hesitated. “Your Majesty... you have to come with me. We don’t want another Rift War.”

She pressed her lips together, studying the crystal in her hand. It was a pretty trinket—long, smooth shaft, lit purple from within. “Here’s the thing—”

She smiled as one of Sochee’s poison-laced wasps plunged its wooden stinger into his neck. He cried out, a look of surprise taking over his face. His hands moved into spell position, but it was too late. The poison was fast-acting, and paralyzing. He sunk to the grassy knoll he’d just created, eyes still wide open.

Squatting beside him, Yelora brushed the long dark hair off of his moist brow, traced a finger along one of his rounded ears. He was attractive, for an Imperial. She’d enjoyed her share of Imperial men over the decades. His brown eyes were wild now, but when he was relaxed they had a softness to them, a misleading trustworthiness that she was sure served him well in negotiations with women and men alike. She slid a hand into the pocket of his cloak and found the portal, closed up into a palm-sized silver compact, and one of Sochee’s bees. How had he gotten that?

He’d crumpled onto his arm in what looked like an uncomfortable position. She tugged the arm out from under him and laid a paralyzed, gloved hand across his chest. Just because she could, she took the other gloved hand and pressed it there, too. She leaned on his chest, her face very close to his, his large, gloved hands piled between her small, pale ones.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Summoner, but I’m not going to the Council chambers,” she said into his frozen face. “And neither are you.”