Yelora

After miles of walking through the dank, rocky innards of the cliffside, morning filtered through the crack up ahead.

“We’re inside!” Yelora whispered, pulling Kashur along behind her.

She stopped at the opening to peer into the courtyard separating the rocky backside of the stronghold from the buildings her people had constructed, including the grand castle carved into the shell of the meteorite itself. It was completely different from the place she had left.

The carpets of purple shards she’d left behind had grown into a vast and hungry garden; thick black tendrils coiled like tentacles or prowled the narrow walkways tended by nervous Goblins. Hundreds of purple pods throbbed, fat as pea pods but people-sized with something alive inside—Elves no doubt. The garden was eating them the way it had tried to eat Bayne and the Emperor. How long had her subjects been inside? Were they still alive? Still able to be saved?

Not all of the Elves had been fed to the garden. Others were stuffed into cages like animals for transport. Sickly and exhausted, they leaned against one another as there was not enough room to even sit down.

Yelora’s muscles went weak. What had she done? She’d left her people alone, without a leader to face this.

And where was Sochee?

Kashur’s arm was around her, holding her tight, or perhaps holding her back. She wasn’t sure which. “It’s all right, M’lady, we will get them out.”

“We must open the gates.” Her voice shook. “We must do it now.”

“That’s the plan. I’ll cast the shade spell, and you can lead us into the castle to the gate mechanism.” He formed the token with his hands.

“How can I just leave them like this?” Yelora whispered, tears blurring the suffering before her eyes. “We should free them first.”

“We mustn’t tip our hand, M’lady.” Kashur’s voice was heavy. “But once our forces are inside, we will overwhelm the enemy. And they will pay.”

She turned to see his grim visage as dripping with fury as her own, and nodded. “Cast the spell.”

Shaded as two Disciples, they crossed the courtyard, careful to stay on the paths of dead white sand in between the crystal gardens. Yelora forced herself to look straight ahead, to ignore the intermittent shuddering of the life-sized pods and the Goblins fighting off the encroaching tentacles. The medicinal-sweet scent of the alien magic made her stomach sick. Only Kashur’s hand on her elbow kept her from losing her mind altogether.

How had it come to this? How had she let it come to this?

But no, she must not despair. They were about to end it, and end it, they would, in a fiery blaze if necessary. Goblin bodies would hang from the trees, charred and unrecognizable. And Mol Morin and that traitor, Ronith—Yelora would squeeze the life from their bodies with her very own hands.

“Slow down,” Kashur whispered. “You’ll call attention to us.”

Yelora blinked the angry tears from her eyes and slowed her pace. The castle was just up ahead. Wizard guards were posted at the entrance. Yelora moved into position to block Kashur as he made the token and whispered the words that would create a distraction so they could pass by without the Wizards checking their facade.

It worked. Yelora whipped to the left, taking the quieter passageways through the castle toward the front. Her stomach twisted to see the Wizards and Goblins occupying this great hall built by Elven hands for Elven dignitaries. What would have gone differently if Yelora had shown up for the Council, as requested?

My people needed me, she told herself, but that excuse felt thin in light of the current situation. Her people were imprisoned, being eaten alive in a crystal garden. And she still had no Elf baby to make it all worthwhile.

“How much farther?” Kashur whispered from over her shoulder.

“Just up ahead,” she breathed.

This had to work. It had to. She had to turn this ship, and she would. She had the Summoner on her side, and the Imperials and the Dwarves. Surely Mol Morin and his little monsters couldn’t stand against them all.

She turned a corner and immediately shrank back, gasping.

Mol Morin stood in the middle of a crescent of Wizards and Goblins, Ronith and Gorlo at his side. They’d walked right into an ambush.

“Ah, here she is, just as they said she’d be.” The Alchemist giggled, a horrid, foreign sound that sent icy fingers through Yelora’s veins. “Your new friends turned on you quickly, even more quickly than expected, as a matter of fact.” Mol Morin’s eyes were burning purple sapphires in his dark face. “Seems there’s one thing we can all unite around—our hate for an Elemental killer.”

Yelora reached for her staff, but two hands seized her shoulders, stopping her. She whirled to see Kashur, face grim, holding her in place. She tried to fight him, but she couldn’t move. Had he spelled her?

Reaching around her paralyzed limbs, he pulled out her staff and tossed it to a nearby Wizard. He slid the knife out of her thigh sheath and tossed that away as well. She tried to shout his name, demand what the Sprites he was doing, curse him for it, but she couldn’t move.

“Ah, my Summoner, how I’ve missed your presence around here.”

“I told you I’d bring her, Sir. It just took a little longer than we expected.”

What? Yelora’s heart throbbed in her throat. Had Kashur betrayed her?

Ronith leaned in to whisper something to the Alchemist, but he waved her off.

“Bring her to the dungeons, Kashur. My Blood Mage will accompany you as she seems to think you might not be entirely trustworthy. I explained to her, however, that you would never turn against me. How you’re closer to me than you are to your own father. And how I’m the only one who can take away that curse you’re so desperate to have lifted. You’d never do anything to jeopardize that.”

Mol Morin’s gaze fell on Yelora as he spoke the words.

Of course! How foolish had she been to trust Kashur when he was so inextricably bound to his mentor? He’d kissed her. He’d said they would fight for the Elves. Pretty sentiments, pretty words—all for show just like his curls and his swirling capework. Underneath it all, Kashur, like everyone else, was just out for himself.

Just like you, Yelora.

Yes, she’d been out for herself, but only to be the best leader for her people. To be a worthy Queen of the Elves. Then she’d let herself fall for the Summoner’s charms, show weakness to the Imperials and Dwarves, and look at what had happened. She’d forgotten the most important tenet of rule: a show of strength. Fara had practically beaten it into her.

Kashur held one arm and Ronith the other as they dragged her, still paralyzed, down to the dungeons. At least when Yelora had locked Kashur up it had been in a tower, where he could see the sky. She hit the cold, stone floor hard and face-down, tasting salty water on her lips. They’d built this place so close to the sea that when the tides came up, they worried their way inside.

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She didn’t look up at Kashur, even though she felt him standing there, looking at her.

“Let’s go, Summoner,” Ronith growled. “I’m not leaving you two here alone.”

Yelora couldn’t sit up, couldn’t turn her head if she wanted to. But she could move her lips, her vocal cords.

“Sochee!” she groaned, forcing her voice as loud as she could make it. “Where’s Sochee?” It took all her will to find the strength to flip her head and see Ronith and Kashur side by side outside the bars, their monstrous shadows rearing up behind them.

Ronith didn’t answer.

“Sochee,” Yelora whispered, squeezing her eyes shut. The salt she tasted now could have been seawater or it could have been her tears.

“I’ll find her,” Kashur said.

“No, you won’t,” Ronith growled.

Kashur didn’t argue as they turned and headed up the stairs, leaving Yelora alone to weep in the darkness.

***

Yelora woke to the sound of metal scraping against the stone floor. The paralysis had worn off and she was able to sit up and see a bright-eyed Goblin retreating and a lump of gray mush on a plate. Where it disappeared into the shadows, another figure appeared... Mol Morin. With Ronith and Gorlo beside him.

Yelora dragged herself up to sitting. Her muscles were cold and stiff, but she mustered her dignity and curled her legs under her. “What do you want, Alchemist? Have you already tired of the view of betraying your fellow Terrans? Of betraying Terris itself?”

Mol Morin crouched just outside the bars, his movements sharp and strange for a man of his age, as if his old joints had been replaced with insect parts.

“I’m not a traitor, Queen Yelora. I’m a survivor. And if you’re smart, you can be, too.”

What was he talking about? “You throw me in the dungeon and now you’re here to what? Negotiate?”

He scooted closer to the bars, his sapphire eyes glowing, his smile too wide, the muscles of his face not quite right. Not natural.

“They’re coming soon—they’ve been readying Terris for their arrival.”

Yelora suppressed a shudder. “The Celestiri.”

“Yes!” he hissed. “They will come and there will be nothing we can do about it. Nothing... but to survive it.”

Was the Alchemist mad? Yelora searched Ronith’s amber gaze, but found nothing there. She was as useless as ever. “What do you mean survive it? We must fight them.”

“We will not win a fight. However, they are willing to share, but not with all of us. I’ve secured the Wizards a place here with my loyalty. I can secure the Elves a place, too. We are all magicals, and Terris will be a land of magicals. The Imperials and Dwarves can fall to the wayside, like so much chaff. You and I, Yelora, we can thrive, even after they come.”

Her stomach roiled. “I’d rather fight for the Terris we already have.”

“You have destroyed any chance of that.”

Should she tell him about the baby Elemental? Something warned her not to. “Perhaps you underestimate us. Even without magic the other factions have something to offer. The Dwarves have their technology. The Imperials have a relentless drive. We can work together to fight these... interlopers.”

“No.” He dismissed her with a flap of his hand. “Their brutality will be unmatched against all who stand against them. The suffering will be...” he trailed off, face falling, then flickering as if with a painful memory. “...unprecedented.”

“You can’t know tha—”

“I lived through the Rift War! I can know it! And they have shown it to me.” Mol Morin’s chin trembled. “We won’t stand a chance.”

“So you’ll just hand Terris over to them?” Yelora spat. “You coward! All you Wizards are cowards! You, your so-called Blood Mage! Your Summoner!”

“I want a place for my Goblins as well. My children. They’ve been so loyal. So good.” Mol Morin hooked Gorlo’s leash with a finger, forcing the creature to tiptoe sideways over to him. He pressed the little monster against his side in a strange and uncomfortable embrace. “You’re going to help me with that.”

Yelora scoffed.

“My Goblins need legitimacy. They were born of Elves, but they are not Elves. You will overcome this deficiency when you offer half your queendom to them.... through marriage.”

Her entire body prickled. “What?”

“When you are sealed to Gorlo, the father of all my goblins, then the Elves and the Goblins will be inextricably bound. And since the Goblins are loyal to me, the Elves will be forced to be as well. They will follow the lead of their King and Queen. And we will all march into this brave new world together.”

Every cell in her body vibrated with fury and horror. “You’re insane!”

Ronith slunk forward and tapped his shoulder.

He ignored her. “The wedding will take place tomorrow, on the day of the convergence, just in time to greet our new arrivals.”

Ronith tapped him again. “My Lord, you never said anything about—”

“Things will be different,” Mol Morin offered Ronith a gentle smile over his shoulder. “But we’ll figure them out. Together.”

“I’ll never consent!” Yelora shouted. “Never!”

“I’m not sure Gorlo understands enough to consent, either,” Ronith said.

“Shut up!” Yelora whirled on her in a panic. “Don’t you dare open your traitorous mouth! You have been a blight since the day Fara pulled you from Creation Falls. The darkness in you would be our undoing! I tried to tell her, but she loved you anyway! Now look! Look what you’ve done! You’re as disgusting a monster as that thing you obsess over! In fact, why don’t you marry it?”

The Alchemist giggled his unnerving titter. “Now, now, Yelora, it has to be you. You do realize that. It comes with a price, but it comes with a prize as well. The moment the marriage is finalized, your Elves will all be freed.”

Yelora froze. “What about the ones trapped in those crystal pods?”

“I’m afraid it’s too late for them. But as for the others. Sochee...”

Yelora’s breath caught in her throat. “Sochee? Where is she? Is she still alive?”

“Still alive. Not in a pod. Salvageable.”

Think, Yelora, think! Don’t let your feelings overwhelm you.

“Remember, not only will your people be free, but there will be a place for them in this new world order. The Elves will survive, whatever the future holds. That’s what you’ve been fighting for, isn’t it, Yelora? Isn’t that why you came to me in the first place? Looking for a way to secure your people’s future? It’s more important than ever now that you’ve destroyed Creation Falls.”

He waved a hand, and a Goblin scampered up to him with a scrying bowl. He tilted the contents toward her and she saw the devastation. A dying jungle overrun by the alien garden. A river choked with dead fish.

She clawed at her chest. She couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t she breathe?

“I saw the rest of the witch’s premonitions, you know. I only showed your allies the part where you killed the Elemental, but I saw the rest of it.” His voice dropped. “I know you have feelings for my Summoner.” He chuckled. “He’s a handsome devil, I know. I tried to berate some of that cockiness out of him, but it never worked. And though he’d never betray me, I can tell that he has feelings for you, too. He doesn’t want to hurt you. He wants you to have an Elf baby, fresh and new and perfect. We all want that.”

Slow breaths, Yelora, she urged herself as the visions came back—Kashur smiling with an Elf baby in his arms, and then dying in hers.

“He doesn’t have to die,” Mol Morin crooned. “The future can be manipulated, if the right force is applied. You can have your Elf baby, and Kashur can live. I want both of those things to happen. Just like you do.”

Yelora breathed in and out, her gaze switching from the long, sympathetic face of Mol Morin to Ronith’s pinched, amber-eyed glare, to Gorlo chewing on the nub of his finger.

“Things will just be different,” the Alchemist went on. “Not necessarily bad. It will take some getting used to.”

Yelora’s blood trembled with the decision. What kind of a world would they be bringing that Elf baby into, if she agreed to this? A Terris overcome by alien magic? Poisoned? What would be better—to bring a child into a rotten husk of a world or to fight to the end only to have the Elves suffer and die anyway? Have Kashur bleed out in her arms?

He’d betrayed her. She’d watched it happen, but for the life of her, she could not believe it.

She lifted her chin. “Where is Kashur? I would speak with him.”

“You are not in any position to make demands, Your Highness,” the Alchemist said.

Yelora’s chin trembled. He was right. She’s been stripped of her power. Her alliances were stolen. Her trust, betrayed. If she agreed to this perverted alliance, would this give the Elves a fighting chance? Allow Kashur to live? And leave the answering of unanswered questions for tomorrow? Perhaps, if she agreed to this, when the time came she wouldn’t have to answer them alone.

Or perhaps she would. Fara always said being queen was a lonely job. Yelora had never felt lonelier.

“I’ll do it,” she said, face falling into her hands. “I’ll marry Gorlo.”