The Road to Death

9

Although Esprë had never killed anyone before intentionally, she’d seen death before, and not just in the strange dreams her dragonmark thrust upon her. When she was little more than a toddler, her mother had brought her to Khorvaire to look for a new life away from the stultifying elf society of Aerenal. They had made the ocean voyage on a large passenger ship that docked at Pylas Maradal, the largest of the port cities in Valenar, the elf colony-nation on the southern coast.

Soon after Esprë and her mother arrived, brigands had accosted them, determined to rob them and leave them for dead. Esprina had been traveling incognito, and the thieves hadn’t realized the power the sorcerer wielded. Within moments, three of them lay dead in the road and the others had fled.

“Don’t look, darling,” Esprina had said. She’d wanted to protect her daughter from the horrors of violent death, something that few elves worried about.

In the Aerenal culture, most elves looked forward to death rather than fearing it. In Khorvaire, though, Esprë had learned to fear death. She had few memories of her homeland, and most of them featured her mother arguing with her grandparents about things she didn’t really understand. There, in Aerenal, death had seemed a distant dream someone else was having.

It was almost like adulthood. Esprë knew that she’d grow up someday, and she could see what it was like, but in her gut she never expected it to happen. It was too far off.

Here, in Khorvaire—especially right now—death lurked around every corner. The Priests of Transition were an ocean away, and all a fallen elf had to look forward to was an eternity of oblivion.

All these thoughts and feelings coalesced into a sick feeling in Esprë’s gut as she strolled nonchalantly—perhaps too much so, she feared—toward where Te’oma stood on the bridge. The changeling looked relaxed, hopeful even, her hands held loosely on the airship’s wheel as she coaxed the ship toward the northeast again. Her blank eyes stayed fixed on the horizon as they sped toward it, never once flicking toward Esprë as she approached.

“I can’t wait to put the Mournland behind us,” Te’oma said breezily, as if they’d met on the street and were talking about the weather.

Esprë nodded, trying to appear happy about the change. “I hope to never see it again.”

The two fell silent then, as they had for the past day. They had little to say to each other. Every now and then, Te’oma would comment on something, and Esprë would usually just nod in agreement.

As they reached the edge of the Mournland, though, the unspoken tension between the two had grown. To Esprë, at least, it had almost become unbearable, although Te’oma showed few signs she was aware of it. If the young elf had learned one thing in her time in the changeling’s company, though, it was that she could not read Te’oma’s emotions at all.

“You can see the Talenta Plains,” the changeling said, pointing a thin, pale finger off to the east. There, past the miles of roiling mists that still rolled out before them, she could see a strip of golden green that stretched all the way to where the land met the sky.

“Nomadic halflings, right?” Esprë said, pretending to be interested.

The changeling favored her with a smile, still not turning to look at her. “That’s right. You know much for a child.”

“I’ll bet I’m older than you.” The young elf could not keep the edge from her voice.

This time, Te’oma did look at her with her blank eyes. “I suppose that’s true,” she said. “It must have been strange having a human for a stepfather, born before him and sure to outlive him.”

Esprë frowned. “I never thought about it much.”

She felt the dragonmark on her back start to itch and then burn, as if it had a life of its own. Did it want her to use it? Did it suffer from a thirst that only lives could quench? Or was that how she really felt instead?

The dragonmark burned not hot, but cold, like an icicle lancing through her skin. The chill crept along her shoulders and down her arms until it reached the fingers of her hands. There it pulsated, throbbed, waiting to be set loose.

“So,” Te’oma said, staring out at the horizon once again, “you’ve finally come to kill me.”

Esprë’s breath caught in her throat. The look on her face must have betrayed her. How had Te’oma known?

The changeling narrowed her eyes at the young elf. “I don’t have to be a telepath to know what’s on your mind. Here we are at the edge of the Mournland, and I’m taking you off to Vol knows where. It’s time for you to make your move.”

Esprë flexed her hands in and out of fists to ease the throbbing cold in them. “I thought you weren’t a part of that cult.”

“I’m not,” Te’oma said. With that, she threw herself away from Esprë and over the railing that separated the bridge from the lower deck.

Esprë lunged at the changeling, but she was too late. Te’oma fell away, inches from the young elf’s outstretched hand, and then she was gone, the railing standing like a fence between them.

The ship pitched forward madly and careened toward the world below. Esprë reached out and grabbed the wheel as she fell against it. She could feel the airship’s elemental striving against her, doing its best to resist her control, but she steeled her mind against it and bent its will to her own. Soon the ship leveled off and flew straight again.

Esprë leaned out over the wheel and cursed at the changeling. The words, she knew, were more for herself than her captor. If she’d only been smarter or faster or … better.

“Would your mother want to hear you speak like that?” Te’oma said. “I think that justicar has been a poor influence on you.”

Esprë let loose a raging stream of obscenities now, finishing up with, “… and the bitch cursed to bear you.” The changeling’s face pinked at the words, which pleased the young elf to no end.

“If Kandler had spent more time teaching you to fight and less filling your head with filthy words, you’d have killed me by now.”

“He also taught me patience,” Esprë said, squinting at the changeling. Her voice shook with the anger she’d let take control of her for a moment. “It’s a small ship,” she said. “You can’t avoid me forever.”

Something foreign stabbed into Esprë’s brain like a knife through her left temple. The right side of her body started to go numb, but she held onto the wheel and glared down at the changeling who stared at her with murderous intent.

“Get out of my head!” Esprë screamed. “I fought you off once. I can do it again.”

Pain lanced through her right temple this time, and the young elf felt her knees give way. She collapsed onto the wheel, struggling to force her limbs to obey.

“You can’t do this!” Esprë screeched herself hoarse as she wept hot, bitter tears that washed away the dragonmark’s chilly hunger. “I’ll kill you!”

The world spun around her as if she was suddenly the center of the universe. She fought it with all her might, but it was like trying to swim out of a whirlpool that was sucking her down. Just as everything swirled to black, she heard Te’oma say one thing to her.

“Sweet dreams.”