Yelora

Yelora watched Mol Morin walk around the cage, peering at the grayish creature inside with detached interest. It was hugging its bony knees with clawed hands, its babyish face hidden, warped toes curling around the cage floor’s bars.

The Wizards had provided the Elves a large room to share for the night and an austere breakfast. On the long, winding climb to the Alchemist’s laboratory, Yelora had glimpsed the broken slabs of the old Oracle through the facade spell. Now, with the light of morning shining through the balcony windows, she held her hands in her lap as Mol Morin—the real Mol Morin—examined the creature. Ronith shifted nervously in the chair beside her. Sochee was tending the horses.

The Summoner stood over her shoulder, silent and unmoving. He’d blinked his long lashes in a sheepish look on the way in and she’d torn him apart with hers. Perhaps he was now murmuring a spell to make himself disappear. She could only hope.

But he could not disappear what he had done—mis-speaking to her. Calling himself the Alchemist when he was not.

And she had told him much. Too much.

“It doesn’t look terribly dangerous,” the Alchemist said, putting his pipe to his lips.

“It bit a chunk the size of an apricot out of my advisor’s cheek,” Yelora retorted.

His eyebrows raised. “And I’m guessing the other Elven babies never did that?”

Her blood rumbled in her veins like lava inside a fault line. They had not come all this way to be mocked. “The Elf Queendom requests assistance from the Arcane Sect on a matter of grave importance to our people. Will you not give it to us?”

“Now, now, your Highness, I did not mean to offend.” The Alchemist poked the slender bowl of his pipe between the cage bars and touched it to a deformed foot. The creature raised its head, glaring at him with hatred as it seized the hot end, wrenched it out of the Alchemist’s hand, and began to stab at him with the pointed mouthpiece. The rows of teeth in its mouth glittered like sharpened pearls.

“It is ornery, isn’t it?” the Alchemist mused, abandoning his pipe and moving to his workbench. “Doesn’t seem to feel pain, either.”

Ronith sighed as they waited while he worked. Yelora smoothed the green cloth of her breeches. The Summoner coughed lightly, as if clearing his throat to say something.

“Do not speak to me,” Yelora hissed, cutting him off before he could begin.

“I just wanted to—” he whispered.

“Are you hard of hearing as well as deceitful?”

She heard the uncomfortable shifting of his boots on the stone floor. It was too late for a forgetting spell. That was petty magic that only worked in the moment, and, besides, a Wizard would be certain to counteract it. Because he had deceived her at the mill last night, the Summoner now knew of the Elves’ transgressions and their weaknesses. Of course, he was the right hand of the Alchemist and as such should be able to be trusted with such secrets. But he had obtained the knowledge illicitly. And he’d made her look and feel a fool.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The Elves and the Wizards had always been allies, but the Wizards were a sect, not a race, and both the Alchemist and the Summoner were of Imperial blood. Not that she would have been happier if they’d been Dwarves.

Mol Morin returned to the cage with a folded paper cupped in his palm.

“Can you cure it?” Yelora asked, her voice sounding too eager even to her own ears.

“I am optimistic.”

Crouching down, he blew onto the paper, sending a fine green dust into the creature’s face. It hissed and sneezed before its wide, yellow eyes began to blink long, slow blinks. Then it collapsed.

“Kashur,” the Alchemist said brusquely, and the Summoner leapt into action, fiddling with the cage lock, while the Alchemist aimed a bitter half-smile Yelora’s way. Nothing about this felt optimistic.

But this had to work. They were all out of options.

The Summoner lifted the creature out while the Alchemist pushed the cage aside with his foot and muttered strange words, sprinkling a circle of white powder on the stone floor. Yelora and Ronith exchanged a glance as the Summoner laid the creature inside the circle, then moved away, careful not to disturb the barrier.

The Alchemist fetched a metal bowl, stood over the circle, and began to speak in a tongue-twisting language. The bowl in his hands glowed. Yellow tendrils danced upward from it, curling into a white sphere, and the temperature in the room rose, as if a star were being birthed between the Alchemist’s hands. The Alchemist dumped the sizzling ball of magic into the air, where it hovered over the child, spitting energy. The metal bowl clattered on the floor as he uttered incantations with palms outstretched, his voice deep and melodious, the air around him sparking with electricity. Yelora thought she smelled burning hair. Was it hers?

The flaming ball lowered onto the child. The energy broke over the tiny, prone body like water from a quickly overturned bucket of water, then clung to its contours, making it glow like some celestial creature. Yelora’s breath caught in her throat. The Elvish symbols in her and Ronith’s skin flashed awake, white bioluminesce responding to the powerful magic around them.

That was a good sign.

The Alchemist dropped to a knee, studying the creature in its cocoon of light. Ronith leaned forward in her chair for a better look. Yelora found herself doing the same. The child was encased in light, but it still had claws, still had odd, long toes and a malformed face.

It hadn’t changed.

“Kashur,” the Alchemist said.

The Summoner winced.

“Kashur,” the Alchemist repeated, more forcefully.

Yelora gave him a hard look, and the Summoner tugged off one of his black leather gloves as he strode to the Alchemist’s side. The old man whispered to his protege, and the young Wizard caught her eye once again, his gaze almost guilty as he reached out a pale, mottled hand that didn’t match his tanned neck and face. He laid it over the glowing creature. The blanket of energy bucked and swelled.

Heat burned Yelora’s skin. It was unbearable. She and Ronith backed away from the white-hot magic, pressing themselves against the cool stone of the far wall. Ronith’s yellow eyes were as translucent and fearful as a forest cat’s. Yelora knew her eyes showed fear, too. This was magic far different from the natural magic the Elves practiced, but this is what they had come for. To cure this creature of whatever ailed it. To turn it into a healthy Elf-baby. And then Yelora could work with these Wizards to find a way to bring other healthy Elf-babies into Terris without resorting to dark magic. She would not fail. She would save her people, and no one would doubt that she’d been the right person to claim the throne.

The stone wall was cool against one cheek while the Wizard’s magic burned like the sun against the other. Yelora closed her eyes and whispered a prayer to the Sprites: Give us your blessing, fair forest spirits of the ancestors. Aid us in this righteous work.

Then, like the snuffing of a candle, the brightness blinked out. They were back in a normal, sunlit laboratory—two Elves standing against a wall. Two Imperial Wizards looming over a child.

But it was no longer a child.