The Queen of Death

25

“Kandler?” Esprë said. “What’s wrong?”

When her stepfather didn’t answer, the young elf pulled her shirt’s collar back up and turned on the wizard and her father. Kandler and Burch stood behind them, but neither of them said a word as she gazed at them. They didn’t move an inch. They didn’t even blink.

“What have you done to them?” Esprë asked Majeeda.

The deathless wizard gave Esprë a smug look and fanned her fingers, which crackled with the movement. “I’ve excused them from our little talk,” she said. “This is a conversation between elves.”

Ledenstrae nodded his approval. “We need to make our decisions about this based on what is best for our race. Peoples like humans and shifters cannot have the perspective our years bring. They cannot comprehend as we do the long-term effects of the choices we must make here today.”

Esprë steeled herself as her father reached out to caress her cheek. She had longed for such affection from him for years, but now it only made her want to run screaming into the streets. She’d not known much about him, except from what her mother had told her, and she’d discounted some of Esprina’s comments as naturally biased against the husband she’d abandoned back in Aerenal.

Esprë realized now how she’d become infatuated with the idea of her father rather than the real person. It had been easy enough—perhaps too easy, as she hadn’t had any new information about him to deal with since shortly after her birth. Once her mother died, her daydreams about her father had grown stronger, helping assuage her terrible loss. With one parent gone for good, she clung to the idea that she and her father would one day be reunited.

Kandler had been much more of a father to her than Ledenstrae, but she’d allowed her fantasies to come between them. When Esprina had been alive, Esprë had known that both she and her mother would outlive Kandler by several of his lifetimes. If they’d somehow had a child, as sometimes happened between humans and elves, she’d live longer that that younger sibling too.

It had been easier to keep Kandler at a distance, but then Esprina died, and Kandler had been all she had in the world.

“Why don’t you send me back to my father?” she’d asked the justicar once over a meal. He’d just come back from a mission with Burch and a couple friends, scouting the land that would soon after become the town of Mardakine.

Kandler had put down his fork and knife, then swallowed his half-chewed food. “Do you know your father?” he’d asked.

She’d shaken her head.

“Neither do I,” he’d said. “All I have to go on is your mother’s word, and from what she tells me he’s not a nice man.”

“He’s not a man at all. He’s an elf.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Wouldn’t I be better off with him?”

Kandler had stared at her hard. He’d come back the day before, covered in ash and singed by what he’d described as living fireball spells. His skin had looked like he’d stayed out in the sun far too long, and most of his eyebrows had fallen off after he’d bathed.

“I swore to your mother I’d take care of you if anything ever happened to you.”

“She made you do that?”

“She—she didn’t make me do anything. I made that vow to her, and she accepted it.”

“Why would you do something like that?”

Kandler had stuffed another bite of food in his mouth, and he’d finished it before he responded.

“I wanted to. We both lived dangerous lives. I knew something might happen to her.”

“Did she vow to take care of me if you died?”

Kandler had grinned at the joke. “I think she thought she already had that covered.”

They’d returned to their meal then. After a while longer, Esprë had pushed back her plate and spoke.

“I relieve you of your vow.”

“I didn’t make the vow to you.”

“You made it to my mother about me. I am her heir, and all her assets pass down to me, including the obligations of others. I absolve you of your vow.”

“Very well.”

Esprë had almost fallen out of her chair, but she’d recovered from her shock before Kandler had noticed—or so she’d hoped.

“I can leave then?”

Kandler had pushed back his own plate then. “You can leave any time you want. I’ll even go with you if you like, escort you back to Aerenal. I bet we could even convince Burch to come with us.”

“But?”

“But my vow still stands. I made it not just to your mother, but to myself. If you’ll allow me the honor, I’ll make it now to you.”

Esprë had pursed her lips at that. “Give me a moment to think about it.”

“Take as long as you like.”

After dinner, Kandler had taken Esprë for a walk outside the camp to look up at the moons and stars. When they’d reached the top of a hillock, they’d lain down on the grass to take it all in.

“Do you really want to go to Aerenal?” Kandler had asked after a quiet moment.

“No. I—I just wanted to make sure you wanted me around.”

Kandler had sat up. “Have I given you any reason to think I didn’t?”

Guilt had welled up in her for even giving voice to these thoughts, but she had pressed on. “You married my mother, not me.”

“You were always part of the package. I never thought otherwise.”

“Did you always want the whole package?”

Kandler had hesitated then, and she had waited for the lies to start. To her relief, though, he had spoken as honestly with her as ever.

“No,” he had said. “When I found out your mother had a child, it bothered me at first. The kind of work I do, it’s not easy to have a child around, even an elf-child, but …” “But? ”

“I don’t know when it happened really. I couldn’t pinpoint the exact spot, but I came to think of you as my child too.” He had torn his eyes from the sky and gazed back at Esprë where she lay on the ground. She had smiled up at him.

“I’m not going to start calling you ‘Father.’ ”

He had beamed down at her. “I can live with that.”

“Then I accept your vow.”

What Kandler hadn’t known then—and still didn’t know now—was that Esprë had made a similar vow to herself that night. She’d sworn to take care of him too, no matter what.

“Let them go,” Esprë said.

As she spoke, she felt the dragonmark on her back start to itch. She wondered if Ledenstrae or Majeeda would have been able to see the mark change if she hadn’t already covered it back up.

“Once Majeeda and I are done talking,” Ledenstrae said. “This is important. In fact, you could say your life depends on it.”

Esprë felt the black energy from her dragonmark start to spread across her shoulders and feed down her arms.

“This isn’t your decision to make,” she said. “It’s mine.” She narrowed her eyes at her father. “You’d really kill your own daughter?”

The elf arched an eyebrow at Esprë. “If she wasn’t mature enough to make such a decision herself.” He leaned forward. “If I found myself in your shoes, and the entire fate of my race depended on my death, I’d toss myself into the nearest volcano just to make sure there was no trace of me left to resurrect.”

Majeeda eyelids rustled like dry leaves as she batted them at the girl. “Young lady, you are fortunate that we are bothering to having this conversation at all. Many of our ancestors would have simply killed you on the spot rather than risk even a hint of the Mark of Death be found in their blood.”

“Maybe I have spent too much time among humans then,” said Esprë. “I don’t feel that lucky at all.”

The black power reached her hands then, and they began to glow. Her fingers felt like she had dipped them in ice, and they hungered for something warm in which they could bathe to relieve the sensation.

“Let them go,” she said again.

Majeeda gave Esprë a condescending smile at the threat in her voice. “Or else what?” Then she glanced down at the young elf’s glowing hands and burst into a dry, hacking laughter.

“My dear,” she said. “Do you think your dragonmark holds any power over me? I am long since dead. Do you mean to threaten to kill me if I do not release your two friends?” She giggled again, and it sounded like rain falling on a mound of brown leaves.

“No,” Esprë said. “Not you.”

Her hands shot out and grabbed her father’s arm. He yelped in pain and surprise and crumpled into his chair like a smacked child. Despite this, he seemed unable to pull himself free, as if all his muscles had knotted up at once, paralyzing him in his contorted state.

“Let them go, or my father dies.”