Yelora

The Imperial militia descended upon the camp with war cries and a bloodthirstiness Yelora had not predicted. She urged her horse on, shouting along with them, Gorlo loping at her side.

The Imperials who could tolerate the magic of the crystals were something to behold. Their arrows landed with stunning accuracy between the Goblins’ purple eyes. Their strength was barbaric, all snapping limbs and spines. She saw one Imperial villager who looked like he might be a librarian by day crush a Wizard’s head between his bare hands. Chilling.

Was Kashur here, fighting by his faction’s side? She let her horse fall back as the others pressed on, driving the enemy forward, cutting them down as they did. The north woods were consumed in flames, casualties of the Wizards’ errant fireballs. Even though these were Imperial lands, it was a shame to let a mature forest like this one suffer. She reached up to touch one of the purple crystals in her crown, but paused.

She shouldn’t use the magic. It was destructive, poisonous, and a harbinger of enemies to come, if the Sky Engineer was to be believed. But it was so very powerful. It could snuff these fires in an instant, whereas her own natural magic would not be nearly enough, even with the boost from the convergence.

A grunt of exertion captured her attention. She slid off her horse and traced the sound to a person struggling underneath a smoking, toppled tree trunk. She recognized the boots, the trim cut of the pants, the royal blue cloak. Kashur!

No longer hesitating, she tapped the crystal, using its power to lift the weight off of him so he could roll free, then smothering the flames with a combined word and token.

Kashur lay on the ground and blinked at her. “Am I dead or dreaming? And if it’s either can I just say I pledge my undying love to whomever this ravishing creature is who has saved me?”

She restrained her smile and the thrill in her chest at finding him alive. “It pleases me to see you well, Summoner. Or at least not drowned.” She crouched down beside him, passing a hand over his shoulder. “And healed as well. That was a bad break.”

“There were these water Pooka with gills. They saved me. They made me breathe underwater, and they healed my arm.”

Annoyance prickled her and she narrowed her eyes at him. “Still full of mis-speak, I see.”

“I’m not mis-speaking!” He pressed a palm to his chest. “I swear it on my still-beating heart, which I pledged to you a moment ago and still don’t take back... respectfully, of course, with no expectations of any kind, Your Highness.”

“I might find your devotion more believable if you’d been the one to find me rather than the other way around.” She held out a hand.

He took it, letting her pull him to his feet. “I wanted to come after you. I really did. But the Pookas were so insistent, and, to be honest, I was a little afraid of them.” He brushed himself off, adjusted his cloak, and spotted Gorlo sitting on the ground, gnawing on his leash. “I see your little monster is still tagging along.”

“What did the Water Sprites want?” Yelora asked.

“Remember the little girl and the Dwarf we saw in the pool at Creation Falls?”

She nodded.

“They wanted me to find them.”

A strange sensation passed through Yelora, like a jolt of energy sizzling through the soles of her boots and ricocheting through her blood. If she didn’t know better, she would have looked for stones leaping one atop another, forming the shape of an Elemental.

But she did know better.

“I found them in this very camp,” he went on, “but then the Goblins attacked. We need to look for them. The little girl—she’s defenseless. And the Dwarf is... well, he doesn’t like me very much.”

“Hush, we’ll find them.” She placed a hand on his arm. “If the Water Sprites gave you this message, then Terris will provide a way.”

She didn’t understand it, but she couldn’t deny it. The Sprites had chosen Kashur, continued to choose him. He’d appeared in her vision—twice. He knew her darkest secret, and yet he’d said nothing to anyone about it. Although he didn’t know the worst of it: that there was only one Elemental, one embodiment of Terris, and she’d killed it.

Would he continue to side with her if he knew? And what if he knew that in at least one possible future, he was to die in her arms?

He covered her hand with his own gloved one, briefly, then pulled away and began to search the abandoned camp, long, strong legs carrying him across the devastated terrain. She followed, watching him flip his cape too often, gloved hand rubbing his stubbled chin in worry. Had his chin been stubbled when she’d kissed him in her vision?

She shook herself. He was a Wizard, once an Imperial, of all things, and she was the Elf Queen. She did not need a man in her life as anything more than an occasional plaything.

Although he would make an entertaining plaything, under other circumstances.

Her stomach rumbled with hunger. The last thing she’d eaten was a sausage that morning. As they passed an overpicked blackberry bush, she stopped to pluck a sad handful. She carried them over to him. “Perhaps you could use your power? Fatten them up for us?”

His brown eyes were as rich and dark as the coffee his people loved to drink. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Mol Morin took it away.”

Her lips parted in surprise. His hands had been bare in her vision. He’d cupped her face. His skin had been soft and cool against her cheeks. “Then why are you still wearing the gloves?”

He studied his hands, as if he were wondering the same thing. “It’s not completely gone, but if I can keep from using it until after the convergence, it will disappear entirely.”

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When had this taken place? She wracked her memory, then recalled storming in on Kashur and the Alchemist in the barge’s cargo hold, Ronith and their enemies hot on her trail.

“Is that why you were wet and naked?”

He gave her a lopsided grin. “Thank you for noticing.”

She popped a bitter berry into her mouth and smirked. “You must be pleased.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. The thing is, I don’t think Mol Morin took my power as in made it go away. I think he took it as in took it. To use.” Kashur gestured at Gorlo. “That finger he’s missing—it was in Mol Morin’s lab.”

“Sprites!” Yelora pondered it. “He used it to make the Goblins. The finger and your power.”

“I think so. That man has been a mentor to me, a father figure even, for years. And I hardly recognized him. He’s changed. The Mol Morin I knew wouldn’t do something like that. He was tough, but he was good.”

His gloved hand touched hers as he accepted a couple of berries from her palm. Despair emanated from him like a scent, and a deep ache opened inside her as she watched him wander away from her, continuing his search. She longed to tell him what she’d seen in her vision—the joy on his sunlit face, the baby in his bare, un-mottled hands. He deserved to know that a happy ending was possible, even if it wasn’t guaranteed.

Perhaps she should tell him. And not just that—everything. The Oracle had instructed her to find allies. He was the only person who’d proven he could be trusted.

She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could begin, Kashur’s attention was drawn to a puddle of dead land. He crouched down. “Yelora, come here. Look at this.”

Anticipatory dread slithered over her, like an unspoken curse. Something inside her knew what she would see before she saw it: oily black tendrils growing out of the devastated land.

“Have you seen this before?”

“Yes,” she breathed. “In the Sky Engineer’s spinning wheel.”

He whirled on her. “What did you say?”

She took a deep breath. “I found a healer who ended up being an Elven Sky Engineer in hiding. I demanded a reading, and part of my vision showed me this.” She took a deep breath. “According to her, it’s the next step in the evolution of this alien magic, preparing the way for a new enemy which will arrive with the convergence. She called them the Celestiri.”

For once the Summoner appeared speechless, his melancholy-laced playfulness transforming into undiluted terror. “She told you this?”

“There’s more,” Yelora said, before she could stop herself. Inside her, bells clanged, rattles clattered, and even the charred trees around her seemed to whisper a warning. She pushed back on them all. “She confirmed that the rumors were right. There is only one Elemental in all of Terris,” she confessed. “And I killed it.”

She waited for his wrath, but he only said, “Oh, Yelora.”

Tears pricked her eyes. “I didn’t mean to.” The words were tumbling out now. “I knew I needed to secure the crash site. I knew it was important. And I knew I needed him—” She nodded at Gorlo. “I didn’t realize how powerful the crystals were. I never thought I could kill an Elemental. That I could kill Terris itself, making us vulnerable to whatever it is that’s coming.” Her hands shook. Her chin trembled. Her blood throbbed with the horrible truth of it. She dropped to her knees, face in her hands. “Sprites smite me, what have I done?”

He crouched down, enveloping her in his arms without waiting for an invitation. “You couldn’t have known.”

She buried herself in his embrace like a seed, turning her face to the scent of campfire and spices. It was not a queenly thing to do, but she needed a moment, just a moment, to not be queenly. She needed a moment to mourn, to regret, to taste the bitter fruit of the mistake she had made.

And the mistakes still to come. Mistakes that could lead to Kashur helping her save the Elves but dying for it.

It was all too much. What the witch was asking of her was impossible—to unite the Peoples of Terris against a powerful enemy who already had the upper hand? Who had succeeded in getting Yelora to kill the only Guardian of Terris, had wooed all the factions with addictive, powerful magic, who’d poisoned their home, and who, even now, was planning an invasion that she had no power to stop?

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t save all of Terris, but she could save her people. That’s who she was responsible for. She had Gorlo; she knew he was the sacrifice required to reverse the Elves’ sterility. And, if Mol Morin was compromised, she needed to warn her people anyway. She needed to return to the crash site to defend it, as their leader, as their queen.

And, maybe, if she distanced herself from Kashur, he wouldn’t have to die.

She pulled out of his embrace and stood, wiping the tears from her face. “I must warn the Elves and return to the crash site,” she said. “You stay here. Find the Imperial girl and the Dwarf. Do what the Sprites have asked of you.”

His face crumpled as he stood. “Really, Yelora? You want to split up? Now?”

“That’s Your Highness to you.” She stalked back towards her horse, Gorlo complaining as she dragged him along.

“Are you kidding me? This is important!” He trailed her like an Imperial peddler. “I spoke to a Sky Engineer, too, by the way. She was so terrified of what’s coming that she committed suicide by my hands! Held them to her face, wouldn’t let me let go. Terris is in danger. We’re all in danger! We need to warn the Dwarven and Imperial leaders about the threat. We don’t have to tell them what you did, but they need to know we can’t count on the Elementals for help. Or, Elemental, I suppose.”

“You can do all that.”

“Alone?”

“You were doing it alone before I arrived.”

“But now you’re here. The people we need to talk to are just up that way”—he pointed— “marching on the crash site, which is where you want to go anyway!”

She greeted the horse with Elvish whispers and caresses. “I can’t wait for a lumbering army. And what if they don’t believe me? What if they capture me? I’m the enemy.”

“I’m the enemy, too, in case you forgot.”

“But you’re... more charming. You have a better chance of convincing them. I’ll just... put you all in danger.” Immediately she regretted saying the last part.

“Put us in danger?” His brows knitted for a moment, then jumped. “Wait a minute! You saw something else in the Sky Engineer’s vision, didn’t you?”

She ignored him.

“You did see something! What was it?”

“Nothing!” She mounted the horse and frowned down at where he clenched the reins. “Let go of my horse, Summoner.” She fought for the horse’s head, but he held it. The mare whinnied in confusion.

“Tell me what the Sky Engineer showed you,” he demanded.

“No.” She flicked her wrist in a petty curse, and Kashur let go of the mare with a cry of pain.

“Hey, that’s a rotten trick.”

She swiveled the horse around to where he couldn’t reach her bridle. “I could’ve done worse.”

“That should be your nickname,” he grumbled, shaking his smarting wrist.

“Go find the girl and the Dwarf,” she said, tying Gorlo’s leash to the saddle so he could run alongside. It was his own fault he couldn’t ride with her. When she’d tried, he always bit or licked her. “We’ll meet again, Summoner.” She gave him a small smile. “One way or another. That I can promise.”

“Wait!” Kashur cried, his voice going up an octave. “Was I in the vision? Me personally?”

“Goodbye,” she said, turning the horse to the hills.

“Not so fast!” a child’s voice cried out.

Yelora pulled back on the reins to find the crossbow pointed right at her.