Witch Wraith

Thirty-four

It was difficult even for those close to him to guess how Redden Ohmsford would have reacted if he had known the missing Elfstones were lost once again. He had suffered terribly during his time trapped within the Forbidding. He had watched his companions die one after another, become a prisoner of the Straken Lord and imprisoned at Kraal Reach, and been hauled back into the Four Lands as Tael Riverine’s pet. That he had gone once more into the Forbidding and thereby found the object of their initial search was a stunning triumph, and it had released him from a darkness of the mind that had threatened to undo him completely. It seemed as if he might be on the road to recovery, free of the past and of the madness that had been steadily overtaking him.

But all that was rendered moot by what the combined magic of the Elfstones and wishsong had done to him during his battle with the witch wraith. He did not emerge from his catatonia, but remained locked away in a place that no one, not even his brother, could reach. Three days after the conclusion of the terrible struggle against the Jarka Ruus and in spite of the efforts of Elven Healers and the long, quiet pleadings of Railing and Mirai, he remained unchanged. He sat or stood as placed and did not move. He stared into the distance. He never spoke. He neither ate nor slept. He had to be cared for as the smallest baby would, unable to fend for himself. This was the price he had paid for saving them all in those final moments before Arling Elessedil transformed into the Ellcrys, restoring the Forbidding and returning its inhabitants to their prison.

He would have felt badly about Tesla Dart’s fate, Oriantha said more than once to Railing. Worse about that, she suspected, than about the loss of the Elfstones. He would have hated that he had broken his promise to the Ulk Bog, to keep her with them in the Four Lands, even though there had been no chance of doing so once the Forbidding was restored. But it was impossible to know for sure what his response would have been. It was just what she believed.

Railing knew how he felt about the loss of the metal box and its Elfstones, however. He was glad they were gone. He was devastated by what had happened to his brother, and while he could not escape his own guilt around those events, he found reason to transfer a substantial portion of it to the talismans. After all, it was the search for the Stones that had triggered everything that followed. It was their magic that had brought about Redden’s current condition. They were the source of the power that had damaged him so badly, he might never recover.

He knew this decisively, convinced himself it was so, and then reluctantly admitted he was lying. The truth was so much worse. He was the one who was responsible for what had happened to his brother. If he hadn’t been so set on bringing back Grianne Ohmsford, if he hadn’t been so convinced she was the answer to their problems, if his courage had been stronger, he would have undertaken Redden’s rescue by himself.

Then, perhaps, things would have worked out differently.

Or at least they wouldn’t have worked out as they had.

He told all this to Mirai, but she brushed his concerns aside. Regret was useless, she declared. There was no way of knowing what would have happened if he had gone after Redden himself. Besides, the past never changed, and dwelling on it was pointless.

He knew she was right. He told her so, and he promised to let it alone, but he couldn’t. No one was as close to Redden as he was. Everything that happened to one always had a direct impact on the other, and the more so because they were twins. They were inseparable parts of a whole, united in a way other siblings could never be. Having Redden locked down as he was, gone somewhere inside his head, was like becoming lost himself.

They waited three days before setting out for Patch Run, and during that time Railing kept close watch on his brother, hoping against hope that he might show some sign of improvement. But nothing changed, and in the end he resolved to take Redden home as he was and confront his mother with the truth.

Some of the others from the expedition had already left. Challa Nand had departed almost immediately, the first to head out.

“Enough of this madness,” he had announced to the boy. “I don’t belong with you. Give me the wilderness and the mountains and no more searches for dead people who ought to stay dead. You did what you could, but some of it was ill advised.”

He’d paused then, perhaps deciding he had gone too far, and added, “Take good care of your brother. Don’t give up hope.”

Skint was a little kinder. “You couldn’t have known she would come back as she did. If your plans had fallen into place as you wanted them to, she would have returned as the Ard Rhys and done what you wished. Don’t waste time blaming yourself for something that was never your fault in the first place. You showed real courage more than once, Railing Ohmsford. I’m proud to have known you.”

Crace Coram and Woostra stayed on, ostensibly for different reasons, but neither had much to say to Railing or Mirai. Even Aphenglow stayed away, but they understood why she might, given the loss of her sister and the destruction of the Druid order, and they didn’t blame her for being otherwise occupied.

Yet on the day of their departure, she came to them and took Railing aside. “We’ve both lost someone we loved,” she said, “but that doesn’t have to be the end of it. We are luckier than most. We still have them close. Don’t be so sure your brother doesn’t hear you or realize you are there when you speak to him. Your brother might be in hiding, but he might also be trying to find his way back. Help him do that. Be there for him when he returns.”

Railing nodded, almost in tears.

“I wish I could have done more to speed him on his journey back to you, but for now at least it appears he is beyond anywhere my healing skills can reach. But I will come to you and try again soon, if you will let me.”

“I would like that very much,” he said.

“Then we have an agreement.”

He smiled, hesitated. “I forgot to give you this until now, but I think you should have it. Oriantha gave it to me. Redden found it in the case where the Elfstones were hidden. He tucked it away in his pocket, and she remembered it was there when she helped bring him in from the battlefield.”

He reached into his own pocket and brought out a folded slip of paper. “I tried reading it, but it is written in a language I don’t understand. Oriantha says you might be able to translate it.” He handed it to her. “If you can do so, will you remember to tell me what it says?”

“Of course,” she replied. “When I come to see Redden, I will bring the note with me.”

“I’m sorry about Arling,” he said suddenly, looking down at his feet.

Aphenglow glanced down at the note and slipped it into her pocket. “Thank you for saying so.” Then she stepped forward and hugged him. “You’ve been very brave, Railing. You and Redden both. What Allanon’s shade said to Khyber Elessedil proved to be true. We couldn’t have succeeded without your help.”

She said that even though she wasn’t much older than he was, and her involvement hadn’t been any less crucial. He shook his head. “It doesn’t feel that way.”

She smiled. “Give it time.”

Aphenglow sat with Seersha in her bedroom in the healing center—something she had been doing every day since her return to Arborlon. The Dwarf had drifted in and out of consciousness for the better part of a week, and there were times when it appeared she might not recover. But Seersha was strong of heart and body, and even the grievous wounds that Edinja Orle’s creature had inflicted on her were not enough to end her life.

By now, a week had passed since the Ohmsford twins and Mirai had departed for home. Ellich Elessedil had been crowned King, and a much-needed stability had been restored to the Elven people. Phaedon was under care in a healing center, and it had become increasingly clear he might remain there for the rest of his days. His breakdown during the struggle between Seersha and the changeling seemed to have permanently unhinged him. Nothing the Elven Healers had done had helped him improve. The High Council had not needed to debate the question of succession once it was determined that Phaedon was not capable of ruling. Ellich, now absolved of any guilt concerning his brother’s death, was named King by rule of law and right of succession.

“I’ve made a decision,” Aphen declared. “I’m not coming back to Paranor. I’m staying here.”

“So you can be close to Arling,” Seersha said.

Aphen nodded. “She gave up everything for me—for all of us. Now I have to give something back.”

“In spite of what you know the Chosen will do for her?”

“They can’t talk with her the way I can. Besides, I have to find a way to reconcile with Mother.”

“Have you spoken with her since Arling’s transformation?”

Aphen nodded. “Several times.”

“Does she respond to you?”

“Not yet. But she will, eventually. It will help if I stay close.”

“Because that is what she has always wanted you to do. I see.”

Aphen nodded. “I’m sorry.”

Seersha studied her friend out of her one good eye. Her face was crisscrossed with slash wounds and bandages, but her gaze was steady. “I will miss you. It will be lonely being the only Druid left in the order.”

“Oriantha will come, if you will have her. She’s already asked if we would take her. Her mother intended that for her, and if she wants it, why not? She would be a good companion for you, and a good addition to the order. Besides, others will come to join, as well. It won’t always be you.”

Seersha pursed her lips. “I think you are making a mistake. You don’t belong here. You belong in Paranor. Can I tell you why?”

“You can tell me anything.”

“You are the best of us, Aphen. You were always meant to be the Ard Rhys after Khyber. She wanted it that way. I know. I’m not the right choice. I lack the necessary balance. I don’t have the necessary skills. Mostly, I’m a fighter, a weapons master. I’m not a diplomat. I don’t have the patience. I would match my use of magic against anyone or anything in combat, but it takes more than that to be the Ard Rhys.”

She paused. “If you stay here, good intentions notwithstanding, you will be wasting your life. You will try to find a way to make your mother love you again, but that’s a small victory even if it happens. And while talking with Arling will make you feel better about yourself, it isn’t what she wanted for you. If she were still your sister and not the Ellcrys, you wouldn’t think twice about coming back to Paranor. And you would bring her with you the moment she finished her term as a Chosen. You’ve already told me this is what she wanted. It was what you wanted, too. It can’t happen for her, but that doesn’t mean you should abandon your place in the order. It doesn’t excuse you from carrying out your obligation to see it continue. Arling would want that, and you know it. She would tell you to go back. Come to Arborlon to see her when you can, but don’t make that your legacy.”

The words were blunt and hurtful, though Aphen couldn’t say exactly why. But she was used to Seersha speaking her mind, and she knew that what her friend was saying wasn’t meant as a reprimand.

“I’ve thought about all that,” she replied, though in fact she hadn’t thought about it in those exact terms. “I just think staying here is the best choice.”

Seersha gave a small smile. “Will you think about it some more?” she asked. “Can we talk about it another time?”

Aphenglow smiled back. “I don’t see why not.”

They visited for a while longer, and then Seersha grew tired and fell asleep. Aphen watched over her for several long minutes, thinking of what she had said. Sound advice from a good friend, but not the advice she wanted. She rose and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

Outside the healing center she stood blinking in the bright afternoon sunlight, deciding what to do next. She chose to go to Ellich, hoping he might find time to speak with her. She was troubled by what Seersha had said, suddenly uncertain about her decision to stay in Arborlon. She thought she knew what her uncle would tell her, but she wanted to hear him say it. If he reaffirmed what he had been telling her for months about coming home, she might find it easier to dismiss Seersha’s arguments.

She found Ellich ready and willing to speak with her, which was something of a relief. Although he was elbows-deep in his newly minted role as King—a role she still believed should have gone to him in the first place—he put everything aside immediately and walked out into the palace gardens to speak privately with her.

“I’m still coming to terms with things,” he told her. “Very much the same as I suspect you are. Discovering the truth about Jera was heartbreaking. I won’t ever know for certain how long that creature was playing at being my wife. I won’t ever know how long she had been dead. It’s very difficul t to believe, any of it.”

“We were all deceived, Ellich. It was cruel and evil; it took someone like Edinja to conceive of such a plan.”

“It cost us both people we loved. It cost me the ability to trust my own senses.”

She looked at him carefully, noting how worn and haggard he looked and the haunted glint in his eyes. He would never be the same, she knew. He would rule the Elves wisely, but he would not again be as strong a man in himself.

She pushed back against her sadness. “I need to ask you something about my own life, if you will consider listening. I have a difficult choice to make.”

What he advised was pretty much what she had expected. She belonged in Arborlon with the Elves. She needed to be close to her mother and to her people. Her time with the Druids was over. The order was decimated in any case, all of its members dead save for Seersha and herself, and there was no firm guarantee that Seersha would recover. It was a grim thing to say, but he believed Aphenglow should be realistic about how matters stood.

When he had finished, he told her again how sorry he was about both Arling and Cymrian. She knew what he was feeling. With Jera and his brother gone, he was left with Aphen and her mother as his only family, and quite naturally he wanted to keep both with him. He was uncertain, at this point, how he would do as King, and it would help to have Aphen, in particular, there to advise him.

In fact, he confided, he had been thinking of asking her to consider becoming a member of the High Council.

She left him more convinced than ever that staying in Arborlon was the right thing to do. But when she returned to her cottage—the one that once had seemed so welcoming and safe, filled with Arling’s presence and the warmth and closeness the sisters had shared during the year she had been researching the Elven histories—she encountered an oppressive emptiness and silence, and wondered how she would ever manage to fill it again.

She was just about to fix herself something to eat when there was a knock on the door. When she opened it, Woostra was standing there.

“Seersha told me you don’t intend to come back to Paranor,” the scribe announced without preamble. He was nervous and fidgety, and his white hair was a wild tangle. “I wanted to hear it from you.”

“Come in,” she said, stepping back. “We can discuss it.”

They sat at the little table where she and Arling had discussed things so often in the past. It was the first time she had spoken to Woostra alone since her return, and it felt immediately uncomfortable.

Perhaps he sensed it, too. “I want you to know I am sorry about Arling. Even if it had to happen, even if there was no choice, it is still a terrible tragedy. I wish it hadn’t happened.”

“Thank you for saying that.”

He nodded curtly. “That said, if you are thinking of leaving Paranor and the Druid order, you are making a terrible mistake.” His face was stern. “Have you thought this through?”

“I think so.”

“Then you must realize you are betraying every vow and breaking every promise you made when you joined the order. You were never meant to take those promises and vows lightly, and I don’t think you did when you took them. Now you seem to have decided otherwise, in spite of the fact that your sister did for your people exactly the same as she would expect you to do. She sacrificed herself for the greater good. Is it possible you don’t understand that this is what’s being asked of you?”

“I don’t know that anything is being asked of me. I’m doing what I believe to be the right thing.”

His mouth tightened into a knot. “Right for you, perhaps, but not for everyone else. It is certainly not the path Arlingfant would have followed. It is not the path Khyber Elessedil would have taken. It is the path of least resistance, and a nod to the self-pity you are feeling and the effort you are making to avoid having to deal with a much harder reality than you’ve had to face up to before.”

“Which is?” she said.

“That, without you, the order will fail and the Druids will vanish. Perhaps not forever, but long enough that everything that’s been accomplished since the time of Walker Boh will be lost. You think I exaggerate. You think I am an old fool, rambling on about the good old days. But I’m talking about the future, Aphenglow. The future the Druids can either help to shape or leave to its own miserable fate. Khyber chose the former; she gave her life to that effort. She would have expected you to do the same—even though your sister is gone, even though your life is in upheaval, and even though it may prove to be difficult and perhaps even costly beyond any price you’ve paid up until now.”

“You make it sound so inviting,” she snapped, suddenly irritated.

“I’m making it sound like the truth. It isn’t up to me to persuade you that Druids in the future will have an easy time of it or that things will improve now that the Forbidding is restored and those creatures are locked away again. None of that is up to me. You should be making these arguments yourself. But you’re not, so I have to say what I think.”

He rose. “Now I’ve done so, and I’ll leave. If it’s to be Seersha and myself, then that will have to do. Maybe the shape-shifter daughter of Pleysia will come along. She seems to know what I’m talking about.”

He walked to the door, opened it, and stopped, looking back at her. “But it won’t be the same without you. Nothing will. You think on it. You remember what the others gave up for the order. Do the right thing.”

Then he was gone.

Afterward, she made her dinner and ate it alone in the privacy of the cottage she had once shared with Arling. Although her sister was gone, her ghost remained, a silent watchful presence that inhabited every room and every memory. Aphen almost couldn’t bear it, but then told herself she must learn to, that it would never change, never get better. Nor did she think she wanted it to. Arling belonged here more than she did. Missing her sister was a fact of life. She must learn to get used to it. Even a ghost could offer a small bit of company.

When she was finished with her meal and had cleaned up after herself, Aphen sat down to translate the note Railing Ohmsford had given her several days earlier. She had not felt pressured to do so before now, but Woostra’s visit and the ghostly presence of her sister had generated a need to do something more than sit staring out at the darkness.

She began slowly, but the language was familiar, a rather crude variation on the same ancient Elfish used by Aleia Omarosian in her diary, and soon she was working her way through it quickly. The note was written by Aleia’s Darkling boy, and Aphen had no doubt that she had taught him the language he had used to compose the note while they trysted all those centuries ago.

She wrote out the words carefully, read them through once swiftly to affirm she had them right, and then read them a second time more slowly.

She was crying within seconds.

Aphenglow Elessedil put down the note and wiped away her tears.

“See what love brings you, Arling?” she whispered.

But at least now she knew the entirety of the story of Aleia Omarosian and her Darkling boy, Charis.

She wondered with whom she would share it.