The Road to Death

19

Esprë gasped to find herself lying in a bed lined with fresh sheets when she awoke. She hadn’t known such luxuries since she’d been taken from Mardakine, and she had begun to despair that she would ever find a place again in which she could sleep undisturbed and awaken refreshed.

For a moment, she thought she was back home in Mardakine, in her bedroom in Kandler’s house, warm and cozy. When it struck her, though, that she didn’t recognize the ceiling, that hope shattered.

She glanced around and saw that she lay in a modest feather-stuffed bed in a high-ceilinged room with rough-hewn wooden walls. Late afternoon light streamed in through a pair of shutterless windows, catching dust motes dancing in the air. Somewhere outside, birds chirped at the encroaching dusk.

Three other beds stretched along the walls of the modest room. Two stood empty, but someone lay snoring softly in the third, farthest away from Esprë.

The young elf half sat up and stretched her neck to spy a pale-skinned figure nestled among the ivory sheets on the opposite bed: Te’oma. Dark circles dragged under the changeling’s eyes, and a long gash on her forehead bore a neat line of black stitches.

As Esprë sat up straight in her bed, she heard someone shuffling about in an adjoining room. “Hello,” she called. “Is someone there? Can you tell me where I am?”

Fear and gratitude warred in the young elf’s head. Kandler had drilled into her head that anything too good to be true almost always was, especially when it came from strangers, and she didn’t know anyone so far from home, she was sure.

A polished white skeleton in an ivory tunic stepped through a curtain that hung across the room’s only door, a silver cup clutched in its bare, skinless fingers, the sun glinting on its hollow skull, reaching into the shadowy emptiness inside.

Esprë scrambled backward until she smacked into the wall behind her and let loose a piercing scream that started in her toes and rang out through her head.

The skeleton ignored the noise, and Esprë wondered if—how—the thing could hear without any ears. She pressed herself into the corner near the head of her bed as hard as she could as its feet clacked across the wooden floor. It placed the cup down on a table near the bed, then looked up at her.

Esprë saw right through the vacant eye sockets to the rear of the creature’s skull, and she froze in fear. It cocked its head at her for a moment, an all-too-human gesture she somehow found comforting. Then it turned and left the way it came.

Esprë glanced over at Te’oma and saw that her outburst hadn’t caused the changeling to stir a muscle. She sat there, still splayed out against the wall behind her, panting in panic, trying to catch her breath.

Just as the young elf felt her heart start beating again, footsteps—the heavy footfalls of boots rather than bare bones—sounded in the space beyond the curtained doorway. A meaty hand reached through and shoved the curtain aside, and a lady dwarf dressed in blackened chainmail, a double-bladed battle-axe hanging from her belt, stormed into the room.

“You’re awake,” the dwarf said. She had a good, honest face, broad and plain, with a button of a nose, something unusual in a dwarf, as was her white-blond hair she kept pulled back into a long, flowing ponytail. “You were unconscious for days. I thought you might have taken in too much smoke.”

“Where am I?” Esprë said.

“That’s gratitude for you.” The dwarf allowed herself a brief smile. “Welcome to Fort Bones, young elf. I hope your stay with us will be short and pleasant.”

Esprë stared at the dwarf, her eyes as wide as moons. “What am I doing here?”

“Healing,” the dwarf said with a quick glance at Te’oma. “One of my patrols rescued you and your friend over there from a crashed airship. I daresay they saved your lives.”

Esprë stabbed a shaking finger at the changeling’s oblivious form. “She is not my friend. She kidnapped me, stole me from my home.”

Concern creased the dwarf’s wide brow as she rubbed her cleft chin with a thick-fingered hand. “The mystery of our visitors deepens. I wondered where a pair like you might come from. Your ship bears no Karrnathi markings.”

“We’re in Karrnath?”

Dread filled Esprë’s heart. Her mother and Kandler had both fought against Karrnath in the Last War, and their tales of the undead-infested place had always terrified her. To the elves of Aerenal, the land in which she’d been born, undeath represented the worst of the fates that could befall a mortal soul, and any nation that relied on the services of the undead could only be evil at its core.

“It’s not so bad,” the dwarf said, compassion warming her voice. She started toward Esprë but stopped when the young elf tried to press her body through the wall behind her. “My name is Berre Stonefist, the Captain of Bones.” She held her open hand up before her. “You have my word that no harm will come to you while you are here.”

“I don’t know you,” Esprë said. “How can I trust you?”

Berre glanced over at the sleeping changeling. “My poor girl,” she said, “do you have much of a choice?”

Esprë considered these words for a moment, then shook her head, a pout on her lips.

“Where are you—? Pardon me. With so few of the living under my command these days, I sometimes forget my manners. How are you called?”

“My name is Esprë.”

“That’s Elvish for ‘hope,’ isn’t it?”

Esprë nodded.

“Your parents must have high hopes for you.”

“They’re dead.”

Berre frowned and glanced at Te’oma.

“No,” Esprë said. “They died years ago. I never knew my father. My mother died on the Day of Mourning.”

“Ah,” Berre said, understanding dawning on her face. “You’re Cyran?”

Esprë nodded again.

“You don’t live in the Mournland.”

“Mardakine. It’s right on the western edge.”

“You crossed the Mournland in your airship?”

“Mostly.” Esprë’s face brightened into half a smile. “It’s complicated.”

“I look forward to hearing the tale.”

Esprë steeled herself. There was a question she had to ask, although she dreaded the answer. “What will happen to me?”

Berre looked around the walls of the room. “This is no place for a child—for anyone who doesn’t have to be here, really. Once you’re well enough to travel, I’ll arrange for transport to the court of King Kaius III in Korth. His majesty will be interested in your tale, too, no doubt. Your fate will be up to him, although I see no reason why he wouldn’t arrange for an escort to return you to your home.”

Esprë’s face fell at those words.

“Do you have a home anymore?”

“I … I don’t know.”

“Kaius is a good and wise king. He will help you find your way.”

Esprë liked how sincere the dwarf seemed. She wanted to believe her, but it still seemed too wonderful to wrap her heart around it. She glanced at Te’oma and shivered.

“Don’t worry about your un-friend there,” Berre said. “We shouldn’t move her until she awakens, but I’ll post a guard in here with you around the clock. Ibrido!” the captain called at the curtained doorway.

A moment later, the most handsome man Esprë had ever seen slunk into the room. Tall and lean, he had the refined features of an elf, but rounded ears and wide, dark eyes marked him as human. His black, wavy hair fell to his shoulders, framing a strong face anchored by a sharp jaw.

“Yes, captain?” Ibrido said, his eyes fixed unblinking on Esprë as if they could see straight through her and the wall behind her too. His voice was deep and resonant, although it carried no trace of warmth.

“It seems the changeling is a kidnapper and our elfling here was her latest victim. Post a guard between them and report to me the moment the changeling awakes.”

“Yes, captain.” Ibrido’s gaze never wavered from Esprë.

“Her name is Te’oma,” Esprë said.

Ibrido’s eyes flickered to the changeling for a moment before returning to Esprë, but his expression never changed. “Te’oma shall not harm you,” he said to her. “On that you may rely.”

“Very good,” Berre said, turning to leave. As she reached the doorway, she looked back and said, “Get some rest, young Esprë. You’ve had a long journey, but there is hope for you yet.” With that, she left.

Esprë looked up at Ibrido, who stood staring at her like a statue. She couldn’t even tell if he was breathing. With a repressed shiver, she lowered herself into the bed and pulled the covers up to her chin, then closed her eyes and tried to go back to sleep.

After a while, she opened her eyes again, and he stood there still as ever. She turned over on her side, putting her back to him, somehow sure that Ibrido’s gaze never wavered.