Dragons of the Fallen Sun

Chapter Thirty-Two The Execution

The candle that kept count of the hours stood beside Silvan’s bed. He lay on his belly, watching the hours melt with the wax. One by one, the lines that marked the hours vanished until only a single line was left. The candle had been crafted to bum for twelve hours. Silvan had lit it at midnight.

Eleven hours had been devoured by the flame. The time was nearly noon, the time set for Mina’s execution.

Silvan extinguished the candle with a breath. He rose and dressed himself in his finest clothes, clothes he had brought to wear on the return march—the victory march—into Silvanost.

Fashioned of soft pearl gray, the doublet was stitched with silver that had been twisted and spun into thread. His hose were gray, his boots gray. Touches of white lace were at his wrist and neck.

“Your Majesty?” a voice called from outside his tent, “it is Kiryn. May I come in?”

“If you want,” said Silvan shortly, “but no one else.”

“I was here earlier,” Kiryn said, upon entering. “You didn’t answer. You must have been asleep.”

“I have not closed my eyes,” Silvan said coldly, adjusting his collar.

Kiryn was silent a moment, an uncomfortable silence. “Have you had breakfast?” he asked.

Silvan cast a him a look that would have been a blow to anyone else. He did not even bother to respond.

“Cousin, I know how you feel,” Kiryn said. “This act they contemplate is monstrous. Truly monstrous. I have argued with my uncle and the others until my throat is raw from talking, and nothing I say makes any difference. Glaucous feeds their fear. They are all gorging themselves on terror.”

“Aren’t you dining with them?” Silvan asked, half-turning.

“No, Cousin! Of course not!” Kiryn was astonished. “Could you imagine that I would? This is murder. Plain and simple. They may call it an ‘execution’ and try to dress it up so that it looks respectable, but they cannot hide the ugly truth. I do not care if this human is the worst, most reprehensible, most dangerous human who ever lived. Her blood will forever stain the ground upon which it falls, a stain that will spread like a blight among us.”

Kiryn’s voice dropped. He cast an apprehensive glance out the tent. “Already, Cousin, Glaucous speaks of traitors among our people, of meting out the same punishment to elves. My uncle and the Heads of House were all horrified and utterly opposed to the idea, but I fear that they will cease to feed on fear and start to feed on each other.”

“Glaucous,” Silvan repeated softly. He might have said more, but he remembered his promise to Mina. “Fetch my breastplate, will you, Cousin? And my sword. Help me on with them, will you?”

“I can call your attendants,” Kiryn offered.

“No, I want no one.” Silvan clenched his fist. “If one of my servants said something insulting about her I might. . . I might do something I would regret.”

Kiryn helped with the leather buckles.

“I have heard that she is quite lovely. For a human,” he remarked.

Silvan cast his cousin a sharp, suspicious glance.

Kiryn did not look up from his work. Muttering under his breath, he pretended to be preoccupied with a recalcitrant strap.

Reassured, Silvan relaxed. “She is the most beautiful woman I ever saw, Kiryn! So fragile and delicate. And her eyes! I have never seen such eyes!”

“And yet, Cousin,” Kiryn rebuked gently, “she is a Knight of Neraka. One of those who have pledged our destruction.”

“A mistake!” Silvan cried, going from ice to fire in a flash. “I am certain of it! She has been bewitched by the Knights or . . . or they hold her family hostage. . . or any number of reasons! In truth, she came here to save us.”

“Bringing with her a troop of armed soldiers,” Kiryn said dryly.

“You will see, Cousin,” Silvan predicted. “You will see that I am right. I’ll prove it to you.” He rounded on Kiryn. “Do you know what I did? I went last night to set her free. I did! I cut a hole in her tent. I was going to unlock her chains. She refused to leave.”

“You did what?” Kiryn gasped, appalled. “Cousin—”

“Never mind,” said Silvan, turning away, the flame flaring out, the ice reforming. “I don’t want to discuss it. I shouldn’t have told you. You’re as bad as the rest. Get out! Leave me alone.”

Kiryn thought it best to obey. He put his hand on the tent flap and was halfway out when Silvan caught hold of him by the shoulder, gripped him hard.

“Are you going to run to tell Konnal what I told you? Because if you are—”

“I am not, Cousin,” Kiryn said quietly. “I will keep what you have said in confidence. You need not threaten me.”

Silvan appeared ashamed. Mumbling something, he let loose of Kiryn’s sleeve, turned his back on him.

Grieved, worried, afraid, both for his people and for his cousin, Kiryn stood outside the king’s tent and tried to think what to do. He did not trust the human girl. He did not know much about the Knights of Neraka, but he had to believe that they would not promote someone who served them reluctantly or unwillingly to the rank of commander. And though no elf could ever speak well of a human, the elven soldiers had talked grudgingly of the enemy’s tenacity in battle, their discipline. Even General Konnal, who detested all humans, had admitted that these soldiers had fought well, and though they had retreated, they had done so in good order. They had followed the girl through the shield and into a well-defended realm, where surely they must have known they would march to their deaths. No, these men did not serve an unwilling, treacherous commander.

It was not the girl who was bewitched. It was the girl who had done the bewitching. Silvan was clearly enamored of her. He was of an age when elven men first begin to feel the stirrings of passion, the age when a man falls in love with love itself. An age when he may become drunk with adoration. “I love to love my love,” was the first line of a chorus of a popular elven song. A pity that fortune had thrown the two of them together, had literally tossed the exotic and beautiful human girl into the young king’s arms.

Silvan was plotting something. Kiryn could not imagine what, but he was sick at heart. Kiryn liked his cousin. He considered that Silvanoshei had the makings of a good king. This folly could ruin him. The fact that he had tried to free this girl, their mortal enemy, was enough to brand him a traitor if anyone came to know of it. The Heads of House would never forgive Silvan. They would declare him a “dark elf” and would exile him as they had exiled his mother and his father. General Konnal only wanted an excuse.

Kiryn did not for a moment consider breaking his vow to the king. He would not tell anyone what Silvan had told him. He wished very much that Silvan had never spoken of it. Kiryn wondered unhappily what his cousin planned, wondered what he could do to prevent Silvan from acting in some foolish, hot-headed, impulsive manner that would end in his ruin. The best, the only thing he could do would be to keep close to his cousin and be ready to try to stop him.

The sun hung directly overhead, its single eye glaring down through the gauzy curtain of the shield as if frustrated that could not gain a clearer view. The watery eye shown upon the bloody field being readied for yet another wetting. The sun gazed unwinking upon the sowers of death, who were planting bodies in the ground, not seeds. The Thon-Thalas had run red with blood yesterday. None could drink of it.

The elves had searched the woodlands to find a fallen tree that would be suitable for use as a stake. The Woodshapers crafted it so that it was smooth and sturdy and straight. They thrust the stake deep into the ground, hammered it into the soil, drove it deeply so that it was stable and would not fall.

General K.onnal, accompanied by Glaucous, took the field. He wore his armor, carried his sword. The general’s face was stem and set. Glaucous was pleased, triumphant. Officers formed the elven army into ranks in the field, brought them to attention. Elf soldiers surrounded the field, forming a protective barrier, keeping a lookout for the humans, who might take it into their heads to try to rescue their leader. The Heads of House assembled. The wounded who could drag themselves from their beds lined up to watch.

Kiryn took his place beside his uncle. The young man looked so unwell that Konnal advised him in a low voice to return to his tent. Kiryn shook his head and remained where he was.

Seven archers had been chosen to make up the death squad.

They formed a single line about twenty paces from the stake.

They nocked their arrows, held their bows ready.

A trumpet sounded announcing the arrival of His Majesty the Speaker of the Stars. Silvanoshei walked alone, without escort, onto the field. He was extremely pale, so pale that the whispered rumor ran among the Heads of House that his majesty had suffered a wound in the battle, a wound that had drained his heart’s blood.

Silvan halted at the edge of the field. He looked around at the disposition of the troops, looked at the stake, looked at the Heads of House, looked at Konnal and at Glaucous. A chair had been placed for the king on one side of the field, at a safe distance from where the prisoner must make her final walk. Silvan glanced at the chair, strode past it. He took up his place beside General Konnal, standing between Konnal and Glaucous.

Konnal was not pleased. “We have a chair for Your Majesty. In a place of safety.”

“I stand at your side, General,” Silvan said, turning his gaze full upon Konnal. “I can think of nowhere I would be safer. Can you?”

The general flushed, flustered. He cast a sidelong glance at Glaucous, who shrugged as much as to say, “Don’t waste time arguing. What does it matter?”

“Let the prisoner be brought forth!” Konnal ordered.

Silvan held himself rigid, his hand on his sword hilt. His expression was fixed, set, gave away nothing of his inner thoughts or feelings.

Six elven guards with swords drawn, their blades flashing white in the sunlight, marched the prisoner onto the field. The guards were tall and accoutered in plate mail. The girl wore a white shift, a plain gown, unadorned, like a child’s nightclothes.

Her hands and feet were manacled. She looked small and frail, fragile and delicate, a waif surrounded by adults. Cruel adults.

A murmur swept among some of the Heads of House, a murmur of pity and dismay, a murmur of doubt. This was the dread commander! This girl! This child! The murmur was answered with an angry growl from the soldiers. She is human. She is our enemy.

Konnal turned his head, silenced the dismay and the anger with a single baleful glance.

“Bring the prisoner to me,” Konnal called, “so that she may know the charges for which her life is forfeit.”

The guards escorted the prisoner, who walked slowly, due to the manacles on her ankles, but who walked with regal bearing—straight back and lifted head and a strange, calm smile upon her lips. Her guards, by contrast, looked exceedingly uncomfortable.

She stepped lightly over the ground, seemed to barely touch it.

The guards slogged across the churned-up dirt as if it were rough going. They were winded and exhausted by the time they escorted their charge to stand before the general. The guards cast watchful, nervous glances at their prisoner, who never once looked at thetn.

Mina did not look at Silvanoshei, who was looking at her with all his heart and all his soul, willing her to give him the Sign ready to battle the entire elven army if she but said the word.

Mina’s amber-eyed gaze took in General Konnal, and though he appeared to struggle against it for a moment, he could not h himself. He joined the other insects, trapped inside the golden resin.

Konnal launched into a speech, explaining why it was necessary to go against elven custom and belief and rob this person of her most precious gift—her life. He was an effective speaker and produced many salient points. The speech would have gone over well if he had given it earlier, before the people were allowed to see the prisoner. As it was, he had now the look of a brutal father inflicting abusive punishment on a helpless child. He understood that he was losing his audience; many in the crowd were growing restless and uneasy, reconsidering their verdict. Konnal brought his speech to a swift, if somewhat abrupt, end.

“Prisoner, what is your name?” he barked, speaking Common.

His voice, unnaturally loud, bounded back at him from the mountains.

“Mina,” she replied, her voice cool as the blood-tinged Thon-Thalas and with the same hint of iron.

“Surname?” he asked. “For the record.”

“Mina is the only name I bear,” she said.

“Prisoner Mina,” said General Konnal sternly, “you led an armed force into our lands without cause, for we are a peace-loving people. Because there exists no formal declaration of war between our peoples, we consider you to be nothing but a brigand, an outlaw, a murderer. You are therefore sentenced to death. Do you have aught to say in answer to these charges?”

“I do,” Mina replied, serious and earnest. “I did not come here to make war upon the Qualinesti people. I came to save them.”

Konnal gave a bitter, angry laugh. “We know full well that to the Knights of Neraka ‘salvation’ is another word for conquering and enslavement.”

“I came to save your people,” said Mina quietly, gently, “and I will do so.”

“She makes a mockery of you, General,” Glaucous whispered urgently into Konnal’s left ear. “Get this over with!”

Konnal paid no attention to his adviser, except to shrug him off and move a step away from him.

“I have one more question, Prisoner,” the General continued in portentous tones. “Your answer will not save you from death, but the arrows might fly a little straighter and hit their target a little quicker if you cooperate. How did you manage to enter the shield?”

“I will tell you and gladly,” Mina said at once. “The hand of the God I follow, the Hand of the One True God of the world and all peoples in the world reached down from the heavens and raised the shield so that I and those who accompany me could enter.”

A whisper like an icy wind blowing unexpectedly on a summer’s day passed from elf to elf, repeating her words, though that was not necessary. All had heard her clearly.

“You speak falsely, Prisoner!” said Konnal in a hollow furious voice. “The gods are gone and will not return.”

“I warned you,” Glaucous said, sighing. He eyed Mina uneasily. “Put her to death! Now!”

“I am not the one who speaks falsely,” Mina said. “I am not the one who will die this day. I am not the one whose life is forfeit. Hear the words of the One True God.”

She turned and looked directly at Glaucous. “Greedy, ambitious, you colluded with my enemies to rob me of what is rightfully mine. The penalty for faithlessness is death.”

Mina raised her hands to the heavens. No cloud marred the sky, but the manacles that bound her wrists split apart as if struck by lightning and fell, ringing, to the ground. The chains that bound her melted, dissolved. Freed of her restraints, she pointed at Glaucous, pointed at his breast.

“Your spell is broken! The illusion ended! You can no longer hide your body on the plane of enchantment while your soul walks about in another form. Let them see you, Cyan Bloodbane. Let the elves see their ‘savior.’ ”

A flash of light flared from the breast of the elf known as Glaucous. He cried out in pain, grappled for the magical amulet, but the silver rope that held it around his neck was broken, and with it broke the spell the amulet had cast.

The elves beheld an astonishing sight. The form of Glaucous grew and expanded so that for the span of a heartbeat his elven body was immense, hideous, contorted. The elf sprouted green wings. Green scales slid over the mouth that was twisted in hatred. Green scales rippled across the rapidly elongating nose.

Fangs thrust up from the lengthening jaws, impeding the flow of vile curses that were spewing from his mouth, transforming the words into poisonous fumes. His arms became legs that ended in jabbing claws. His legs were now hind legs, strong and muscular.

His great tail coiled, prepared to lash out with the deadly power of a whip or a striking snake.

“Cyan!” the elves cried in terror. “Cyan, Cyan!”

No one moved. No one could move. The dragonfear paralyzed their limbs, froze hands and hearts, seized them and shook them like a wolf shakes a rabbit to break its spine.

Yet Cyan Bloodbane was not yet truly among them. His soul and body were still joining, still coming together. He was in mid-transformation, vulnerable, and he knew it. He required seconds only to become one, but he had to have those few precious seconds.

He used the dragonfear to buy himself the time he needed, rendering the elves helpless, sending some of them wild with fear and despair. General Konnal, dazed by the overwhelming horror of the destruction he had brought down upon his own people, was like a man struck by a thunderbolt. He made a feeble attempt to draw his sword, but his right hand refused to obey his command.

Cyan ignored the general. He would deal with that wretch later. The dragon concentrated his fury and his ire upon the one, true danger—the creature who had unmasked him. The creature who had somehow managed to break the powerful spell of the amulet, an amulet that permitted body and soul to live apart, an amulet given to the dragon as a gift from his former master, the infamous wizard Raistlin Majere.

Mina shivered with the dragonfear. Not even her faith could guard her against it. She was unarmed, helpless. Cyan breathed his poisonous fumes, fumes that were weak, just as his crushing jaws were still weak. The lethal gas would immobilize this puny mortal, and then his jaws would be strong enough to tear the human’s heart from her breast and rip her head from her body.

Silvan was also consumed with dragonfear—fear and astonishment, horror and a terrifying realization: Cyan Bloodbane, the dragon who had been the curse of the grandfather, was now the curse of the grandson. Silvan shuddered to think what he might have done at Glaucous’s bidding if Mina had not opened his eyes to the truth.

Mina! He turned to find her, saw her stagger, clasp her throat, and fall backward to lie senseless on the ground in front of the dragon, whose slavering jaws were opening wide.

Fear for Mina, stronger and more powerful than the dragonfear, ran through Silvan’s veins. Drawing his sword, he leaped to stand over her, placing his body between her and the striking dragon.

Cyan had not wanted this Caladon to die so swiftly. He had looked forward to years of tormenting him as he had tormented his grandfather. Such a disappointment, but it could not be helped. Cyan breathed his poisoned gas on the elf.

Silvan coughed and gagged. The fumes sickened him, he felt himself drowning in them. Weakening, he yet managed a single wild sword swipe at the hideous head.

The blade sank into the soft flesh beneath the jaw, doing little true damage but causing the dragon pain. Cyan reared his head, the sword still embedded in the jaw, jerking the blade from Silvan’s limp hand. A shake of the dragon’s head sent blood spattering and the sword flying across the field The dragon was whole. He was powerful. He was furious. His hatred for the elves bubbled in his gut. He intended to unleash his poison upon them, watch them die in writhing, choking agony.

Cyan spread his wings and bounded into the air.

“Look upon me!” the dragon roared. “Look upon me, Silvanesti! Look upon my might and my power, and look upon your own doom!”

General Konnal saw suddenly the full extent of Glaucous’s deception. He had been duped by the dragon. He had been as much Cyan Bloodbane’s pawn as the man Konnal had despised, Lorac Caladon. In those last moments, Konnal saw the truth. The shield was not protecting them. It was killing them.

Horror-stricken at the thought of the terrible fate he had unwittingly brought down upon his people, Konnal stared up at the green dragon that had been his bane. He opened his mouth to give the order to attack, but at that moment, his heart; filled with fury and guilt, burst in his chest. He pitched forward on his face.

Kiryn ran to his uncle, but Konnal was dead.

The dragon soared higher, circling, beating the air with his great wings, letting the dragonfear settle over the elves like a thick, blinding fog.

Silvan, his vision dimming, sank to the ground beside Mina He tried, even as he fell dying, to shield her body with his own.

“Mina!” he whispered, the last words he would ever speak “I love you!”

He collapsed. Darkness closed over him.

Mina heard his words. Her amber eyes opened. She looked to see Silvan lying beside her. His own eyes were closed. He was not breathing. She looked about and saw the dragon above the battlefield, preparing to launch his attack. The elves were helpless, paralyzed by the dragonfear that twisted inside them, squeezing their hearts until they could not breathe or move or think of anything except the coming pain and horror. The elven archers stood staring up at death, their arrows nocked and ready to fire, but their shaking hands were limp on the bow strings, barely able to hold the weapons.

Their general lay dead on the ground.

Mina bent over Silvanoshei. Kissing him, she whispered, “You must not die! I need you!”

He began to breathe, but he did not move.

“The archers, Silvanoshei!” she cried. “Tell them to fire! You are their king! They will obey you.”

She shook him. “Silvanoshei!”

He stirred, groaned. His eyes flickered, but Mina was running out of time.

She leaped to her feet. “Archers!” she shouted in flawless Silvanesti elven. “Sagasto! Fire! Fire!”

Her clarion call penetrated the dragonfear of a single archer.

He did not know who spoke. He heard only the one word that seemed to have been pounded into his brain with the force of an iron spike. He lifted his bow and aimed at the dragon.

“Sagasto!” Mina cried. “Slay him! He betrayed you!”

Another archer heard her words and obeyed, and then another and another after that. They let fly their arrows and, as they did so, they overcame the dragonfear within themselves. The elves saw only an enemy now, one who was mortal, and they reached swiftly to nock their arrows. The first shafts fired from fingers that still trembled flew none too straight, but their target was so immense that even the worst shot must hit its mark, though perhaps not the mark at which it had been aimed. Two arrows tore holes in the dragon’s wings. One stuck in his lashing tail. One struck the green scales on his chest and bounced off, fell harmlessly to the ground.

Once the dragonfear was overcome, the elves would not be affected by it again. Now the archers aimed for the vulnerable parts of the dragon’s body, aimed for the tender flesh the scales did not cover, under the front legs, so near the heart. They aimed for the joints where the wings attached to the dragon’s main body. They aimed for the dragon’s eyes.

The other elves lifted their heads now. Dozens at first, then hundreds shook off the dragonfear and grabbed up bow and arrow, spear and lance, and joined the battle. Cries of horror changed to fierce exultation. At last, they were able to face in combat the foe who had brought despair and ruin and death to their land and their people. The sky was dark with arrows and with the dragon’s falling blood.

Maddened by the pain, Cyan Bloodbane made a mistake. He did not retreat from the fight. He could have withdrawn, even now, grievously hurt as he was, and flown away to one of his many lairs to nurse his wounds. But he could not believe that the puny people who had been subject to his will for so long could possibly do him mortal harm. One enormous breath of poison would settle them. One breath would end it.

Cyan sucked in that breath and let it out. But the breath that should have been a killing cloud came out a gasp. The poisonous gas was little more than a mist that dissipated in the morning’s soft breeze. His next breath rattled in his chest. He felt the arrows sink deep into his bowels. He felt their points perilously close to his heart. He felt them puncture his lungs. Too late, he tried to break off the battle. Too late, he sought to flee his tormentors. His torn and broken wings would not hold the air. He could not maintain his altitude.

Cyan rolled over on his back. He was falling, and he could not stop his fall. Plummeting to the ground, he realized in a final moment of bitter despair that his last wrenching moves had carried him away from the battlefield, where his body crashing down on top of the elves might have taken many of his enemies with him. He was over the forest, above the trees.

With a last defiant roar of fury, Cyan Bloodbane fell onto the trees of Silvanesti, the trees that he had twisted and tormented during the dream. The trees were waiting to receive him. The aspens and the oaks, the cypress and the pines stood firm, like bold pikeman. They did not break beneath his weight but held strong and true as their enemy smashed into them.The trees punched through Cyan Bloodbane’s scales, pierced his flesh, impaled him on their splintered limbs. The trees of Silvanesti took their own full measure of revenge.

Silvanoshei opened his eyes to see Mina standing protectively over him. He staggered to his feet, dazed and unsteady, but improving with each passing moment. Mina was watching the battle against the dragon. Her face held no expression, as she watched the arrows meant to pierce her own body penetrate the body of her foe.

Silvan barely noticed the battle. He could see and think only of Mina.

“You brought me back from death,” Silvan whispered, his throat raw from the gas. “I was dying, dead. I felt my soul slipping away. I saw my own body lying on the ground. I saw you kiss me. You kissed me, and I could not leave you! And so I live!”

“The One God brought you back, Silvanoshei,” said Mina calmly. “The One God has a purpose for you yet in this life.”

“No, you!” he insisted. “You gave me life! Because you love me! My life is yours, now, Mina. My life and my heart.”

Mina smiled, but she was intent on the fight. “Look there, Silvanoshei,” she said, pointing, “This day you have defeated your most terrible enemy, Cyan Bloodbane, who put you on the throne, thinking you as weak as your grandfather. You have proved him wrong.”

“We owe our victory to you, Mina,” Silvan said, exultant. “You gave the order to fire. I heard your voice through the darkness.”

“We have not achieved victory yet,” she said, and her gaze was farseeing, abstracted. “Not yet. The battle has not ended. Your people remain in mortal danger. Cyan Bloodbane will die, but the shield he placed over you remains.”

Silvan could barely hear her voice over the cheers of his people and the furious howls of the mortally wounded dragon.

Putting his arm around her slender waist, he drew her near to him, to hear her words better.

“Tell me again, Mina,” he said. “Tell me again what you told me earlier about the shield.”

“I tell you nothing more than what Cyan Bloodbane to)d you,” Mina replied. “He used the elves’ fear of the world against them. They imagine the shield protects them, but in reality it is killing them. The magic of the shield draws upon the life-force of the elves to maintain its life. So long as it remains in place, your people will slowly die until at last there will be no one left for the shield to protect. Thus did Cyan Bloodbane mean to destroy everyone of you, laughing all the while because your people imagined themselves to be safe and protected when, in reality, they were the means of their own destruction.”

“If this is true, the shield must be destroyed,” said Silvan.

“But I doubt if even our strongest sorcerers could shatter its powerful magic.”

“You don’t need sorcerers, Silvan. You are the grandson of Lorac Caladon. You can end what your grandfather began. You have the power to bring down the shield. Come with me.” Mina held out her hand to him. “I will show you what you must do.”

Silvan took hold of her hand, small-boned, fine. He drew close to her, looked down into her eyes. He saw himself, shining in the amber.

“You must kiss me,” she said and she lifted her lips.

Silvan was quick to obey. His lips touched hers, tasted the sweetness for which he hungered.

Not far distant, Kiryn kept watch beside the body of his uncle.

He had seen Silvanoshei fall. He had known that his cousin was dead, for no one could survive the dragon’s poisoned breath.

Kiryn grieved for them both, for his cousin, for his uncle. Both had been deluded by Glaucous. Both had paid the price. Kiryn had knelt beside his uncle to wait for his own death, wait for the dragon to slay them.

Kiryn watched, astonished, to see the human girl, Mina, lift her head and regain her feet. She was strong, alert, seemingly untouched by the poison. She looked down at Silvanoshei, lying at her side. She kissed the lifeless lips, and to Kiryn’s amazement and unease, his cousin drew in a breath.

Kiryn saw Mina act to rally the flagging spirits of the elven archers. He heard her voice, crying out the order to fire in Elvish.

He watched his people rally, watched them battle back against their foe. He watched the dragon die.

He watched all with boundless gladness, a gladness that brought tears to his eyes, but with a sense of unease in his heart.

Why had the human done this? What was her reason? Why had she watched her army kill elves one day and acted to save elves the next?

He watched her embrace Silvan. Kiryn wanted to run to them, to snatch his cousin away from the girl’s touch. He wanted to shake him, shake some sense into him. But Silvan would not listen.

And why should he? Kiryn thought.

He himself was confused, stunned by the day’s awful events.

Why should his cousin listen to Kiryn’s words of warning when the only proof he could offer of their veracity was a dark shadow that passed over his soul every time he looked upon the girl, Mina.

Kiryn turned away from them. Reaching down, he closed his uncle’s staring eyes with a gentle touch. His duty, as a nephew, was to the dead.

“Come with me, Silvan,” Mina urged him, her lips soft against his cheek. “Do this for your people.”

“I do this for you, Mina,” Silvan whispered. Closing his eyes, he placed his lips on hers.

Her kiss was honey, yet it stung him. He drank in the sweetness; flinched from the searing pain. She drew him into darkness, a darkness that was like the darkness of the storm cloud. Her kiss was like the lightning bolt, blinded him, sent him tumbling over the edge of a precipice. He could not stop his fall. He crashed against rocks, felt his bones breaking, his body bruised and aching. The pain was excruciating, and the pain was ecstasy. He wanted it to end so badly that he would have been glad for death.

He wanted the pain to last beyond forever.

Her lips drew away from his, the spell was broken.

As though he had come back from the dead, Silvan opened his eyes and was amazed to see the sun, the blood-red sun of twilight. Yet it had been noontime when he had kissed her. Hours had passed, seemingly, but where had they gone? Lost in her, forgotten in her. All around him was still and quiet. The dragon had vanished. The armies were nowhere in sight. His cousin was gone. Silvan slowly realized that he no longer stood on the fie’d of battle. He was in a garden, a garden he dimly recognized by the fading light of the waning sun.

I know this place, he thought dazedly. It seems familiar. Yet where I am? And how do I come to be here? Mina! Mina! He was momentarily panicked, thinking he had lost her.

He felt her hand close over his, and he sighed deeply and clasped his hand over hers.

I stand in the Garden of Astarin, he realized. The palace garden.

A garden I can see from my bedroom window. I came here once, and I hated it. The place made my flesh crawl. There—a dead plant. And another and another. A tree dying as I watch, its leaves curling and twisting as if in pain, turning gray, falling off. The only reason there are any living plants at all in this garden is because the palace gardeners and the Woodshapers replace the dead plants with living plants from their own personal gardens. Yet, to bring anything living into this garden is to sentence it to death.

Only one tree survives in this garden. The tree in the very heart of the garden. The tree they call the Shield Tree, because it was once surrounded by a luminous shield nothing could penetrate. Glaucous claimed the magic of the tree kept the shield in place. So it does, but the tree’s roots do not draw nourishment from the soil. The tree’s roots extend into the heart of every elf in Silvanesti.

He felt the tree’s roots coiling inside him.

Taking hold of Mina by the hand, Silvanoshei led her through the dying garden to the tree that grew in the center. The Shield Tree lived. The Shield Tree thrived. The Shield tree’s leaves were green and healthy, green as the scales of the green dragon. The Shield Tree’s trunk was blood-colored, seemed to ooze blood, as they looked at it. Its limbs contorted, wriggled like snakes.

I must uproot the tree. I am the Grandson of Lorac. I must tear the tree’s roots from the hearts of my people, and so I will free them. Yet I am loathe to touch the evil thing. I’ll find an axe, chop it down.

Though you were to chop it down a hundred times, a voice whispered to him, a hundred times it would grow back.

It will die, now that Cyan Bloodbane is dead. He was the one who kept it alive.

You are the one keeping it alive. Mina spoke no word, but she laid her hand on his heart. You and your people. Can’t you feel its roots twisting and turning inside you, sapping your strength, sucking the very life from you?

Silvan could feel something wringing his heart, but whether it was the evil of the tree or the touch of her hand, he could not tell.

He caught up her hand and kissed it. Leaving her standing on the path, among the dying plants, he walked toward the living tree. The tree sensed its danger. Gray vines twined around his ankles. Dead branches fell on him, struck him on the back and on his shoulder. He kicked at the vines and tossed the branches away from him.

As he drew near the tree, he felt the weakness. He felt it grow on him the closer he came. The tree sought to kill him as it had killed so many before him. Its sap ran red with the blood of. his people. Every shining leaf was the soul of a murdered elf.

The tree was tall, but its trunk was spindly. Silvan could easily place his hands around it. He was weak and wobbly from the aftereffects of the poison and wondered if he would have the strength to pull it from the ground.

You have the strength. You alone.

Silvan wrapped his hands around the tree trunk. The trunk writhed in his grasp like a snake, and he shuddered at the horrible feeling.

He let loose, fell back. If the shield falls, he thought, suddenly assailed by doubt, our land will lie unprotected.

The Silvanesti nation has stood proudly for centuries protected by the courage and skill of its warriors. Those days of glory will return. The days when the world respected the elves and honored them and feared them. You will be king of a powerful nation, a powerful people.

I will be king, Silvan repeated to himself. She will see me puissant, noble, and she will love me.

He planted his feet on the ground. He took firm hold of—the slithering tree trunk and, summoning strength from his excitement, his love, his ambition, his dreams, he gave a great heave into his own heart for when it released, his strength and his will increased. He pulled and tugged, his shoulders straining. He felt more roots give, and he redoubled his efforts.

“For Mina!” he said beneath his breath.

The roots let go their hold so suddenly that Silvan toppled over backward. The tree came crashing down on top of him. He was unhurt, but he could see nothing for the leaves and twigs and branches that covered him.

Angry, feeling that he must look a fool, he crawled out from under. His face flushed with triumph and embarrassment, he wiped the dirt and the muck from his hands.

The sun shone hot on his face. Looking up, Silvan saw the sun, saw it shining with an angry red fire. No gauzy curtain obscured its rays, no shimmering aura filtered its light. He found he could not look directly at the blazing sun, could not look anywhere near it. The sight was painful, hurt his eyes. Blinking away tears, he could see nothing except a black spot where the sun had been.

“Mina!” he cried, shading his eyes, trying to see her. “Look, Mina! Your God was right. The shield is down!”

Silvan stumbled out onto the path. He could not yet see clearly. “Mina?” he cried. “Mina?”

Silvan called and called. He called long after the sun had fallen from the sky, called long into the darkness. He called her name until he had no voice left, and then he whispered it.

“Mina!”

No answer came.