The Queen of Death

21

Esprë squirmed in the hard chair across from her father. She knew it was an expensive piece of furniture of the finest elf fashion, and it probably was worth a small fortune. Try as she might, though, she could not make herself comfortable in it.

Instead, she longed for the worn, rickety chairs around the table in her home back in Mardakine. She knew that she’d probably never see that town again. Even if the Mark of Death somehow disappeared from her skin, she could never return to the place where her burgeoning powers had unwittingly caused the deaths of so many of the townspeople. Now that she knew that the responsibility for those murders could be laid at her feet, she could never look the survivors in the face again.

The image of Norra, her best friend ever since she had come with Kandler to Mardakine, leaped into her mind. She missed Norra terribly, but should they ever find themselves in the same room again, Esprë knew that she would flee the place rather than confront the fact that her dragonmark had killed Norra’s mother.

With no home to go back to, Esprë wondered if there might be a place for her in her father’s life and land. She’d left Aerenal shortly after her birth, but that had been her mother’s doing not hers. Now it seemed like Ledenstrae meant to take her back with open arms. She could hardly believe her luck, but she couldn’t yet tell if that fortune was good or bad.

“Father?” Esprë said. “Where would we live in Aerenal?”

Ledenstrae beamed down at the elf-maid. “My family— which is yours too, of course—has places all over Aerenal . Our ancestors are wise and powerful, and they comprise one of the most powerful factions within the Undying Court. We would have our pick of places in which to reside.”

“Where would you take me?”

Esprë noticed that Ledenstrae had not offered Burch a seat with the others. The shifter had not seemed to notice the affront though. Instead, he stood watching over them, his head cocked to one side from time to time as if he were listening tor something.

“We would arrive in Pylas Talaear,” Ledenstrae said. “We could stay there for some time, until you feel more comfortable with proper society. She has been gone so long,” he said to Majeeda.

The ancient elf clapped her hands with glee. “As have I! We could practice our etiquette together.”

While the thought pleased Majeeda, it turned Esprë’s stomach. She knew that the elves of Aerenal all aimed to someday become deathless like Majeeda, to take their place within the Undying Court, but it seemed horrible and unnatural to her.

Was that why Esprina had taken her away from Aerenal? To save her daughter from an eternal life as such a horror? Or to save herself from the same?

“Why did my mother leave you?” Esprë asked.

The question slipped from her before she had a chance to consider it. As it did, though, she felt grateful for it. If her mother hadn’t trusted Ledenstrae, if she’d been willing to abandon her homeland to get herself and her daughter away from him, Esprë needed to know why.

Ledenstrae coughed hard and reached for a nearby platter on which sat a steaming teapot, a number of small cups and saucers, and a small selection of cookies that seemed as if they’d stood there untouched for decades. As he poured himself a spot of brackish tea into a cup and drank it, Majeeda scowled at Esprë as if she had thrown a soiled diaper into the middle of the floor between them.

“I’d rather not get into the details of the parting between your mother and I,” Ledenstrae said. “I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead.”

When he saw the disappointment on Esprë’s face, he continued. “I’d long hoped that your mother and I might reconcile. As elves, our lives are long. Perhaps we might not have reached an accord until we both found ourselves ascended to the Undying Court, but I had faith that it would someday happen.

“Perhaps that’s why I never bothered to track you down before now. In my heart, I thought that Esprina would one day come back to Aerenal with you. I never thought that she would be so horribly lost. To not even know where her body is …” “I know where her body is,” said Esprë.

Ledenstrae’s eyes flew wide. Esprë looked to Burch, who gave her a tiny shrug. She knew he would have preferred for her not to talk with her father about such things, but she’d already opened that door, so she continued through it. As she spoke, she saw Burch turn and leave. She wanted to ask him to stay, but she feared what he might say to her. As it was, neither Ledenstrae nor Majeeda paid him any heed as he went.

“Kandler and Burch found her body in the western part of the Mournland, near where they helped found Mardakine—that’s a settlement of Cyrans located in the bottom of a blast crater,” she said.

Ledenstrae perched on the edge of his seat, his eyes boring holes through Esprë. “What did they do with her?” “They buried her by a black river and placed a marker over her grave.”

Ledenstrae and Majeeda gasped in horror. The deathless elf clutched at her chest as if her dead heart might start beating again.

“Savages!” Ledenstrae said. “Did your stepfather not know what that meant, to bury an elf rather than recovering her body? It’s been years. The worms might have devoured every bit of her flesh by now.”

Now Esprë understood Ledenstrae’s shock. In Aerenal, she knew, the Undying Court evaluated the lives of dead elves. Those deemed worthwhile were brought into the court itself to sit at the sides of their ancestors. Others, who had not yet had a chance to prove themselves, were usually resurrected by magical means. Only the worst sort were abandoned to the cruelty of Dolurrh, the land of the truly dead.

“Those killed in the Mourning cannot be brought back to life in any way,” Esprë said. “Kandler would have moved the moons to bring my mother back to me. It couldn’t be done.”

“Is this true?” Ledenstrae asked Majeeda.

The deathless elf frowned, and Esprë wondered if her jaw might fall off. “From what I have been told,” Majeeda said. “I’ve never seen anyone actually try to work such magics on the victims of the Mourning. Those are the domain of the gods, and I fear I have ignored such beings now for countless years.”

“But Vol said—”

Esprë leaped up from her chair. It crashed backward behind her.

“Vol?” She could not feel the air in her lungs. “You’ve been in contact with Vol?”

Esprë watched her father’s eyes dart back and forth as he struggled to figure out what to say, what he could say to salvage the situation.

“I’m afraid so,” he said. “These are desperate times, I’m afraid, and I took desperate measures.”

“Do you even know who she is?”

“Of course he does, dear,” Majeeda said. “I introduced them.”

“Get out of my way,” Kandler said as he exited the basket.

Burch stood in front of him, his hands held up before him to keep the justicar from storming past him. “She deserved to know,” he said.

“That’s not for you to decide,” Kandler said. “She’s my daughter, not yours.”

Burch folded his arms across his chest. “You don’t want to try that line. She’s with her real father now.”

Kandler brought up the fangblade, which he’d never bothered to sheathe. Its tip came within an inch of Burch’s neck. At that moment, the justicar wanted to drive it straight through.

The shifter didn’t flinch. His eyes didn’t even flicker toward the sword.

“I don’t have time for this,” Kandler said. “Every moment she spends with that cold-hearted bastard, she’s in danger of—”

“What? Learning he’s a bastard?”

Kandler adjusted his grip on the fangblade. “Don’t joke about this.”

Burch unfolded his arms, the grim look on his face softening. “She’s a good elf, boss. She’ll figure this out on her own, and she deserves the chance to do it.”

“ But what if— ”

“You have to have faith in her.” Burch closed his mouth for a moment then tried again. “There’s a damn good chance we’re going to get ourselves killed here, soon. How are you going to protect her then?”

Kandler rubbed his eyes with his open hand. “You’d better be right.”

“Have I ever steered you wrong?” Burch grinned. “Don’t answer that.”