The Queen of Death

10

“Forget Aerenal,” Kandler said. “We’re going straight to Argonnessen.”

The others stared at him. Sallah, Esprë, and Monja gaped at him. Even Xalt’s jaw dropped. Duro grinned as he thumbed the edge of his axe.

Kandler couldn’t read Te’oma’s face at all, but if changelings were good at anything it was hiding their true selves. Even if he thought he could have picked up on how his words made her feel, he couldn’t have trusted his assessment.

Burch didn’t say a word. He just spat on the ground. From long experience, Kandler knew that meant the shifter was with him, whether he thought they were heading in the right direction or not.

“That’s madness!” Sallah said. “You can’t possibly be serious.”

“You want to sail straight into an entire continent full of dragons?” Monja said.

“It’s the stuff of legends,” Duro said. “Bards will sing of our deeds for generations to come!”

“Assuming we don’t all get killed,” Sallah said, shaking her head. “Who will sing a dirge for us if none survive to tell the tale?”

“Maybe the dragons will make up a song about us,” Burch said, smiling.

“It’ll be called, ‘What I Had for Dinner,’ ” said Monja, who didn’t smile at all.

Xalt stared at Kandler with his unblinking ebony eyes. “Why have you changed your mind?” he asked. “Would we not have a better chance against the dragons if we had the help of the Undying Court?”

Kandler looked down at the body of one of the assassins. Burch had hauled it up on to the bridge so that they could all take part in the discussion, even Esprë who had taken the wheel when they’d left Durviska behind. Kandler had wanted Sallah or Monja at the wheel, but Esprë had pointed out that, since she was in telepathic contact with Te’oma, she was the best choice. He’d had to agree.

As the dwarves toted the new supplies on to the Phoenix, they’d also brought the bodies of the assassins along and deposited them on the deck. “Consider it a way to repay the discount I’m giving you,” Krangel had said.

Kandler could only agree to that too. The crew of the Phoenix didn’t have a great deal of gold among them and little else to barter with. Krangel had given them a good deal on enough supplies to take them to the southern shores of Khorvaire, which would have to be enough for now.

Besides, Kandler had wanted to get a better look at the killers. He pointed down at the corpse on the bridge now. The blank eyes of the assassin he’d stabbed in the neck stared up at the open sky. Kandler reached down and removed the body’s gray hood.

Under the fabric, the corpse had a shaved head that— like his face—had been tattooed with white inks and darker shadings to resemble a bleached skull. The ears stood up straight and proud and bore fine points on their tops. “Elves,” Sallah said. “Are they one and all?”

Kandler glanced at Esprë and saw that she’d taken one hand from the wheel to feel the tops of her own ears. They bore points just like those on the corpse.

“They’re Stillborn,” Burch said from where he’d perched on the bridge’s rear railing.

“Look like adults to me,” Duro said, tugging at the roots of his beard.

“It’s a cult,” Burch said, “made up of a bunch of young elves who think waiting to die takes too long. They want to take the short path to the most elite club in elf society: the Undying Court.”

“They’d rather be dead than alive?” Esprë said.

Monja looked up at Kandler. “Haven’t you taught this girl anything about her heritage?”

Blood rose into Kandler’s cheeks. “Her mother came with her to Khorvaire when Esprë was just an infant. She knows about elf ways, but …” He looked Esprë wistfully.

Should he have taught her the ways of elves? When Esprina had been alive, he hadn’t worried about such things, and since then such things hadn’t seemed all that important. Carving out a life on the edge of the Mournland had always taken precedent over running through the details of distant land filled with people who hadn’t seemed to care about them at all.

“I know about the Undying Court,” Esprë said. “It’s just, well, why would anyone be in a hurry to die? To me, that’s one of the best parts about being an elf: the long life you can expect, unless something horrible happens to you.”

Kandler could tell her mother had crossed her mind with those words. These days, so many things weighed so heavily on the girl. She reminded him of those months right after Esprina had died. She’d been so morose he had wondered if she’d die of a broken heart as well.

Caring for Esprë during those dark days had been the one thing that had kept Kandler going. If she hadn’t been there, he probably would have fallen into an abyss of despair himself. Her needs, her grief, had burned so much hotter than his own, and he’d used that as the light he’d needed to guide them both out of the darkness. If not for her and the never-shaken support of Burch, he might have lain down and died himself.

“Elves hope to ascend to the Undying Court when they die,” Burch said. “That’s the ultimate power for them, and they only get it after a lifetime of service to their people.” He spat at the corpse, and his spittle landed in the open eyes. “These clowns think the world owes them a shortcut.”

The shifter swiveled his head to focus his yellow eyes on Te’oma. “I hear they’re in bed with Vol.”

The changeling squirmed when she realized everyone was staring at her. “I’ve heard that too,” she said, “but I don’t know that it’s true. Vol rarely did more than give me orders. I didn’t know many of her others servants outside of Tan Du and his crew.”

Xalt stepped into Te’oma’s face. She flinched away from his stony eyes. “Did you bring them here?” he asked, voicing the question on everyone else’s mind.

Te’oma’s pale pink tongue licked her thin, white lips. She seemed ready to bolt, and Kandler tensed, hoping he could strike her down before her wings carried her away.

“No,” Te’oma said. “I’ve quit the Lich Queen. I want nothing more than to kill her. Since there’s little chance of that, I’ll go for the next best thing.”

“Which is what?”

The changeling’s white-eyed gaze fell on Esprë, who shivered in it.

“Keeping from her the thing she wants most. If I can’t be her killer, I’ll settle for being her spoiler.”

Kandler put a hand on Esprë’s shoulder. “This just makes me more sure. We can’t go to Aerenal. If Vol can send so many Stillborn assassins to find us in the middle of nowhere, we wouldn’t last a moment in the elf homeland.” Burch nodded. “Chances of finding help there weren’t much anyhow—even if we got an audience with the Undying Court.”

“Now you’re against that plan?” Sallah asked, exasperated. “Why did you side with it before?”

Burch bared his teeth in what Kandler hoped was a smile. Sometimes with the shifter it was hard to tell—on purpose. “I stand with my friends.”

Sallah’s face flushed with anger at this. “Are you implying that I have anything than the best interests of Kandler and Esprë at heart? ” Her hand rested on the pommel of her sword. Kandler wondered if it might burst into flames right in its scabbard with her so infuriated.

“Let’s just say I’m less conflicted. I don’t have a god I answer to.”

Kandler winced at the comment, then stepped forward and put his hand on Sallah’s. She had her sword halfway out of its scabbard.

“I’ve gone through too much here—lost far too much—for anyone to question my loyalties.”

Sallah shoved her blade back into its scabbard and tore her hand away from Kandler’s. “As much as I care for you and your daughter, I can’t watch you do this,” she said to him. “I can’t just sit here while you sail off through the sky with her toward certain death.”

“I’m all she has in the world,” Kandler said, angling his head around so he could look into Sallah’s eyes. “I have to do what I think is best for her.”

Sallah brought her head up and glared at him. “How could you possibly think that taking a young girl into the dragon homeland is what’s best for her?”

Kandler started to speak, but then shut his mouth. He’d had doubts of his own about this course of action, but he didn’t see any better choice. He knew that Esprë’s dragonmark would only grow stronger as time progressed, and the people who wanted to control her for it would only become more desperate and bold.

“She has to take a stand sometime,” he said, struggling to keep his voice even and low.

“Then let it be in Thrane,” Sallah said, clasping her hands around Kandler’s. “The Silver Flame will protect her. We knights can keep her from harm.”

Burch opened his mouth but Kandler shut him up with a stern glance.

“That would only bring the troubles to Flamekeep,” Kandler said. “We have to do this. We can’t wait for the troubles to come to us, to fight us on their terms. We need to set the conditions of the contest ourselves, not let them do it for us.” He looked deep into Sallah’s eyes. “Esprë is an elf. She’ll outlive me by hundreds of years. I only have a short time in which I can help her. We have to take matters into our own hands, and we have to do it now.”

Sallah dropped Kandler’s hands and stepped away from him. “Very well,” she said. “You go ahead and get yourself and your girl killed on your terms. I won’t stay to watch it. When this airship next lands, I’m getting off.”