The Queen of Death

33

“Hard to starboard!” Xalt called from the airship’s bow. The two long-necked soarwings had split up and dove further down as Esprë came at them. She couldn’t see them under the tip of the bow, so the warforged had run ahead to serve as her eyes.

She coaxed the ship into a tight circle that peeled off down and to the right. As she did, one of the soarwings spun into view, and she aimed straight for it.

The deck pitched sharply under her feet, and she gripped the wheel tighter to keep from flipping forward on to the main deck below. She heard Monja yowl in protest as she lost her footing, but when she glanced toward the halfling, she saw that the shaman had been forethoughtful enough to grab one of the leather straps on the bridge’s console before she’d fallen.

“There’s no way I’m going to be able to hit that thing,” Esprë said.

As if to prove her point, the soarwing flung itself out of the airship’s path and rolled off to the port. Esprë tried to follow it, but it zoomed away underneath her, and she lost track of it again.

“Where’d it go?” she asked, scanning the sky. A dull panic gripped her as she thought of the soarwing swooping in from some unknown angle and plucking her from the bridge.

Te’oma spun in an almost lazy circle and watched the attack unfold below her. It seemed like some distant image in a scrying pool, something that was happening far away and that could not possibly have any effect upon her. It would be so easy to just keep riding that thermal until it took her far from the reach of the lizardmen, the people on the ground, the ones on the airship, and even from Vol herself.

But to do that would be to admit defeat, to acknowledge that the Lich Queen had beaten her. While the changeling knew she had no hope of standing directly against such a powerful figure, she was still determined to do what she could to become a thorn in the horrible monster’s bony side—metaphorically, at least. To do that, she needed to keep Esprë alive but out of Vol’s reach for as long as she could.

The fact that this might help redeem Te’oma for all the ills she’d done in her life had not escaped her, but since the gods had never seemed to care for her, she didn’t care about them. Who would the redemption be for? Her? The spirit of her dead daughter?

Sometimes Te’oma wondered if her daughter watched over her from beyond the grave. If so, did she wish her well or ill? The changeling had never been much of a mother, and she wouldn’t be surprised if the girl had grown up hating her.

Despite that, Te’oma had always loved her daughter, even if she hadn’t known how to raise her. She’d known that giving her up had been wrong, and in her lowest moments she’d considered going back for her.

Once she’d gone so far as to track the girl down. She’d met her in the street, posing as a doddering old woman who’d confused the girl for her own daughter. She’d not even known her name, but she’d recognized the people who had taken her in.

As they walked down the street, they’d each put their arms around her and laughed with her in such a loving way. Te’oma’s heart had nearly burst with jealousy at the sight. She’d tried to summon up some gratitude for the fact that they’d taken in this stranger’s infant and raised her to be healthy and happy, but the bitterness at everything she’d missed—of her own accord, which only made it worse— drowned all that out.

As the elderly woman, Te’oma had stumbled into the girl’s path, and the kind child had reached out to lend her a hand. When they’d touched, the feel of the girl’s hand on her own had nearly reduced Te’oma to tears. She’d been grateful that she’d chosen to use a form in which such strange and sudden displays of emotion wouldn’t seem so out of place.

That girl was long dead now, and Vol—who had promised to bring her back—had destroyed her body and any chance for her to return.

At first, Te’oma had wanted to avenge herself on the Lich Queen, who’d used her so callously as little more than a weapon to be aimed at her foes. Later, she realized that Vol might never have been able to revive Te’oma’s daughter. Even if the changeling had brought Esprë back to Illmarrow, there would be no way that Te’oma could have forced the ancient, long-dead elf to live up to her part of the deal. Vol may have stuck to the bargain, but she just as likely might have not.

Te’oma had let her emotions control her, and Vol had played her for the fool. The Lich Queen had told Te’oma of the destruction of her daughter’s body in a fit of pique. There was no way of knowing if that was true either. Vol could easily try to contact her again soon and offer her another chance at saving her little girl.

Perhaps she’d even been trying. In her grief, Te’oma had severed her telepathic link with the Lich Queen, determined that she would never have use for it again. If Vol had only meant to scare her by lying about the fate of the girl’s body, then her plans had backfired on her—at least as far as Te’oma was concerned.

With that act, Vol had murdered the changeling’s daughter, as surely had the angry mob that had stoned the girl to death. This time, though, she’d killed off Te’oma’s last hope for the girl as well. There would be no bringing that back.

If Te’oma couldn’t do anything to save her own daughter, at least she could help save someone else’s. Despite herself, the changeling had come to care about Esprë. She was aware that the young elf hated her, and she didn’t blame her for it. She only knew that she had to do whatever she could to make right all the wrong she’d done to the girl, even if that meant following her into the jaws of certain death.

If that meant following Esprë and her friends to the ends of Eberron, then so be it.

Te’oma couldn’t stomach the idea of returning to Khorvaire anyhow. If she flew off now, where would she go? What would she do?

She desperately needed some kind of purpose to fill the void her daughter’s death had left in her. This one seemed as good as any.

With that thought burning in her brain, Te’oma folded her wings against her body and let gravity pull her into an accelerating dive toward one of the soarwings sliding through the air below her.

The soarwing appeared off to the port again, closer this time. Esprë could see the green-scaled rider now, his long, thin tongue slipping out of his mouth and flapping in the wind. He pulled back his lips to bare his rows of sharp, white teeth as he glared at her with his baleful, yellow eyes.

Esprë froze. The rider’s reptilian form reminded her so much of the half-dragon Ibrido that she feared that the villain had somehow come back to life and chased them across the desert, the mountains, and the plains to finally finish them off here, before they could even leave Khorvaire behind in their quest to confront his distant masters. She watched as he brought back his arm to hurl a feathered spear at her, and she had no doubt that it was destined to pierce her heart.

Then the lizardman squealed in surprise as the soarwing under him swerved toward the airship. A crossbow bolt sailed through the air, just missing the creature and causing it to duck in the direction of the Phoenix.

The movement shocked Esprë into action. She roared at the fire elemental in her mind, and the ship lurched toward the soarwing.

The ring of fire caught one of the thunder lizard’s wings and crisped it in an instant. The beast screeched in mortal pain as it tried to flap away from the airship on its single remaining wing.

Thrown from his mount, the lizardman spun off into the sky and disappeared beyond the port rail. The soarwing, though, flopped toward the deck and landed hard on its wooden surface to the sound of breaking bones. It did not move again.

“Where’s the other one?” Esprë yelled. “Where is it?”

Xalt scanned the sky but saw just as little as Esprë. Then he flung his head over the bow. A moment later, he sprang back up. “Down there!” he said. “Down and to port!”

Grateful to have some direction to head in—any direction at all—Esprë pushed the airship in that direction. As she did, Monja let loose of her leather strap and flung herself to the bridge’s rear gunwale.

“He’s going after the wagon,” Monja said, straining to be heard over the roar of the ring of fire. “He looks like he’s going to— Spirits! He killed one of their horses. I think they’re going to crash!”

Esprë’s heart sank, but she pushed out with her mind harder, striving to shove the performance of the airship’s elemental to new heights. Just as the wagon hove into view beneath the twisting and turning Phoenix, something dropped past the airship’s deck at top speed, heading right for the wagon below.

Then Esprë realized that the falling object wasn’t something but someone. “Te’oma!” she shouted, fearful of what the treacherous changeling might do. “Te’oma!”