The Road to Death

8

Esprë had long since dried her eyes. Now she was just burning mad and aching to do something about it. Over the years of her life—as yet short in the eyes of an elf—she had lost her father, her mother, and now her stepfather as well. She was as alone in this world as she had ever been, and she needed to do something to change that now.

The delicate, blue-eyed waif of an elf strode to the bridge of the ship, her long, blond tresses snapping in the wind behind her like a war banner. Te’oma stood before her at the wheel, gazing out into the distance. Now that they were above the mists of the Mournland, the changeling spent much of her time searching for any sign of an end to the miles of rolling dead-gray clouds that sprawled off beneath them in every direction.

Esprë had no idea how high up they were. There was literally nothing around by which she could judge. It was cold, though, chilly enough that she spent much of her time close to the ring of fire that propelled the battered airship through the sky.

She was amazed that the ship was still together. The thought that the whole thing might fall to pieces beneath her kept her up at night.

This was no idle wandering of her imagination. On the few times that Esprë had taken the ship’s wheel since she’d awoken here in Te’oma’s care, she could feel the harnessed elemental creature of fire that was bound up in the ring gloating to itself. Even it believed it was only a matter of time before it was freed in a spectacular explosion that might consume everything—and everyone—on the ship long before its remains hit the ground.

Now, though, that was the last thing on her mind. She wanted something more than just her feet on solid ground. She wanted answers.

“Where are we going?”

The changeling turned slowly at the young elf’s words, almost as if she’d been expecting them. Esprë supposed that was possible. Te’oma was a telepath, after all, gifted by fate with strange powers of the mind that let her peer into a subject’s soul and do gods knew what else. Esprë had felt Te’oma rummaging around through her brain before, though, and she didn’t detect the changeling’s presence in there now. She wondered, though, if she would always know it if she did.

A strange smile splayed across the changeling’s thin, pale lips, somehow caught between sadness and mirth. Te’oma hadn’t bothered with taking a better-formed aspect since they had left Construct far behind. Esprë suspected the changeling felt more comfortable in her natural state

“Where would you like to go?” Te’oma said slowly, carefully.

“Home,” Esprë said flatly. She was ready for an argument with the changeling, who had kidnapped her in the first place.

“Where is that?” The changeling’s eyebrows—so thin and pale they were more of a suggestion—rose as she spoke.

Esprë stopped for a moment. She hadn’t thought this through entirely. All she knew for sure was that she didn’t trust the changeling and wasn’t willing to go with her anywhere. She didn’t know how she would get away from her, but she knew she had to try.

“Mardakine?” Te’oma asked. “There’s not much of it left now, is there? How do you suppose the people there will react when they learn it was you who killed all their friends and family in the middle of the night?”

Esprë recoiled in horror. “How do you—?” She cut herself off before finishing the question. The answer was too obvious.

“I couldn’t control it,” Esprë said, her voice little more than a whisper that barely carried over the crackling of the airship’s ring of fire. “I didn’t mean … It’s not my fault.”

“Oh, I know,” Te’oma said, putting a comforting hand on the young elf’s shoulder. “There wasn’t a thing you could have done to stop it, but do you think the people of Mardakine will see it that way?”

Esprë hung her head low. She couldn’t face going back to Mardakine. The thought of facing her friend Norra, knowing that she’d killed her mother, stopped her breath. Besides, with Kandler gone, there was little else for her there now. She was just a young elf wandering alone in the world. Perhaps any one place would be as good as another.

“There’s Aerenal,” Esprë said as the thought struck her.

“The elf homeland?” Te’oma frowned. “Do you think they’d welcome you back there? How old were you when you left?”

“Too young to remember it, but I have grandparents there, probably some other family too. They would take me in. They wouldn’t abandon me.”

Te’oma shook her head sagely. “Have you forgotten about your dragonmark? The Mark of Death?”

The changeling bent her neck to peer into Esprë’s downcast eyes. “The last time someone bore the Mark of Death, the dragons and elves put an end to their centuries-long war to eradicate her and everyone else in the House of Vol.”

Esprë’s eyes widened. “They killed the whole of an extended family? Why?”

“The bearer was a mixed breed of elf and dragon blood. Her parents thought that their love, given life in the form of their daughter, would show the elves and dragons how to put an end to their perennial conflict. In a sense, it did that, but only because it provided both sides with a common foe.

“Both the dragons and elves saw the very existence of this lady of Vol as an abomination, and they determined to put an end to her and anyone who sympathized with her at once.”

Te’oma pulled back the collar of Esprë’s shirt, exposing the pattern of her raw-edged dragonmark beneath. “The blood of House Vol must run through your veins. Just think what they’d do to you.”

Esprë shrugged free from the changeling’s grasp. “Those people who helped you kidnap me,” she said. “They were members of the Blood of Vol, a cult that bears that lost house’s name.”

Te’oma nodded. “The legend of House Vol lives on in the cult and its fascination with blood. It’s no coincidence that it has vampires in its ranks.”

Esprë raised her eyes to look into the changeling’s pearly, blank orbs. “You talk as if you are not a member.”

Te’oma grinned softly. “Smart girl,” she said. “I believe in no gods, only in myself. It’s cost me dearly, but it’s who I am.”

“Do you think yourself to be a god?”

“If I was, this trip would have been a great deal easier.”

Esprë narrowed her eyes at the changeling. “Where are we going?” she asked again.

Te’oma measured the girl carefully before answering. “To find some people who desperately want to meet you.”

“What if I don’t want to go?” Esprë pouted at the changeling defiantly, trying her best not to look like a little girl. She was probably older than Te’oma—much older—but her long youth betrayed her still.

Te’oma reached out and caressed Esprë’s soft cheek with one of her pale, barely formed hands. “That doesn’t really matter.”

With that, Te’oma stared past Esprë and off into the distance. As the young elf strolled toward the ship’s prow, she did the same. On the horizon, she thought she saw a dark line, an end to the rolling mists they’d scudded over for so long. They would leave the Mournland soon. From there, it might only be a short while before Te’oma turned her over to her compatriots. If Esprë wished to act to save herself, it would have to be soon.

Only one answer came to her mind as she peered out from the prow. She would have to kill Te’oma and take control of the ship. She could figure out what to do from there.

Esprë knew she had the power in her to murder the changeling. She’d felt it growing in her for the past few months. So far, the dragonmark’s power had only randomly taken innocents. As horrible as that had been—even before Esprë realized she had been unwittingly behind it—she had no memories of it beyond a few fragments of dreams.

This would be the first time Esprë would use her dragonmark consciously, purposefully, to take a life.

The young elf stared down at her hands and began to weep.