Lisa Smedman - Heirs of Prophecy

The elves set out again a few moments later, bidding with curt gestures for Larajin to follow. They didn’t seem to want her with them and did little enough to aid her but kept her in sight even so, as if worried she would become lost. They were probably just following Doriantha’s orders, since none seemed inclined toward friendship. They spoke no Common and glared at Larajin with fierce looks when she tried to speak to them in the language of the wild elves. Even Doriantha said little, preferring to save her breath for the tromp through the woods.

Doriantha, however, did seem to care how Larajin was faring. From time to time she doubled back to point out the best path through a thicket or to lend a steadying hand as Larajin tried to cross a stream on a narrow log. When Larajin lagged behind, Doriantha appeared at her side, giving her a drink from her waterskin. Even so, the pace was so rapid that Larajin’s strength began to flag once more as the afternoon wore on. With every step, she prayed it would be the last one necessary to take her to the Tangled Trees.

The elves seemed to be in a hurry to get there. Larajin could guess why. They feared retribution, once the humans discovered what they had done.

When they’d crossed Rauthauvyr’s Road, Larajin had caught a glimpse of the aftermath of their attack on the caravan. It hadn’t been a pretty sight. The elves had smashed the cargo and left the bodies strewn on the road for the crows to pick at. Larajin had nearly tripped over one sellsword whose body was so pincushioned with arrows that Larajin suspected the elves had used him for target practice as he lay dying. After that, she’d averted her eyes, not wanting to see any more bodies. She’d been glad once they were across the road and into the woods once more.

She’d felt no pity for the sellswords, only revulsion at the brutality of the elves’ attack. The only one whose fate she cared about was Dray-the poor dupe. Not only had he fallen for Enik’s ruse, he’d also had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She hadn’t seen his corpse as the elves hurried her across the road, but there was little hope that he had survived the attack.

She whispered a prayer for his soul, hoping whatever god he’d worshiped had taken pity on him. Dray was only a merchant; he hadn’t deserved to be slaughtered with the rest of them. Once the Foxmantles learned of this atrocity their wrath would know no bounds. Not even the deepest shadows of the Tangled Trees would provide a hiding place for Doriantha and her band.

In contrast to their callous indifference toward the humans they had killed, the elves had shown a reverence for their own kind. Despite their rush to get away from the road, they had tarried long enough to gather up the bones and weapons from the tomb that Klarsh had unearthed. They packed these gruesome relics along with them still-probably carrying them home for reburial, Larajin guessed.

Struggling through the forest behind Doriantha, Larajin wondered if she was doing the right thing in following the elves. Doriantha’s band had done Larajin a favor by saving her from Enik and his men, but that aid was only coincidental. What sort of reception would Larajin face once she reached the Tangled Trees? Judging by the attitudes of these elves, it wouldn’t be the homecoming Larajin had naively imagined, back in the comfort of Stormweather Towers.

As darkness descended on the forest for the second time since their journey began, the elves at last stopped to make camp. They gathered clumps of pale green moss that hung from tree branches, long and lacy as an old man’s beard, and formed it into nestlike pillows. They splashed their sweaty faces in a nearby stream, stretched their muscles, and ate a cold supper of leathery slabs of dried mushroom and a cold paste made by adding water to a powder of dried fish. Then they sank cross-legged onto the moss, weapons within hand’s reach on the forest floor beside them, and sank into the meditative state unique to elves, known as the Reverie.

As Doriantha settled down beside her, Larajin fought to keep her eyes open just a little longer. A question burned inside her, one she’d been wanting the answer for ever since they’d set out but had no time to ask.

“Doriantha,” she said, “you said I looked nothing like my brother. Did Mast-” She paused, and amended what she had been about to say. In the woods, she was a servant no longer, answerable only to herself. It didn’t feel right using the title “master,” anymore. “Did Thamalon the Younger or Talbot ever visit the Tangled Trees?”

Larajin could see little of Doriantha’s face, save for the dark line of the tattoo across her nose and cheeks, and the glint of her eyes. It was impossible to tell what her expression was.

“The names you mention,” Doriantha said quietly, “are these the children of Thamalon Uskevren?”

“Yes. He has two sons and a daughter.”

“Full-blood human?”

“Yes, all three.” Larajin yawned, blinking sleep-heavy eyes.

“They are only half-sister and half-brothers to you, then.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “No, I was speaking of your twin.”

Exhausted as she was, it took Larajin a moment to fully appreciate what Doriantha had just said. When she did, she sat up, all thoughts of sleep having fled.

“I have a twin brother?” she exclaimed.

Rustling noises told her that she had disturbed some of the other elves with her outburst. She could see Doriantha shaking her head and gesturing for silence, but she didn’t care. The news was amazing, almost impossible to believe. She wondered what her twin brother looked like. Was he, like her, struggling with the question of whether he was elf, or human, or something in-between? Or had he known of his mixed heritage all along?

A stray thought stopped her cold.

“Doriantha,” she whispered. “Is my brother still alive?”

Doriantha glanced around. “Please-you must keep your voice low. Some of the others might understand what you say.”

Larajin nodded, and Doriantha went on. “As far as I know, your twin is still alive. He was hale and hearty, when I last saw him several days ago.”

“Where is he now?”

“As to that…” Doriantha paused, and in the starlit darkness, Larajin saw her shrug. “I only know that the druids sent him to do their bidding, far to the south.”

“South? To the Dales-or do you mean Sembia? How long ago?”

Dread coursed through Larajin as she remembered the wild elves who had defended her eighteen months ago in the Hunting Garden. Had her twin brother also run afoul of Drakkar and been charred to a gruesome corpse by the wizard’s dark magic?

Doriantha tilted her head back to peer up at the sky through the thick tangle of branches overhead.

“He left within the moon,” she answered at last.

“Less than a month ago, you mean?”

Doriantha nodded, then added, “He didn’t tell me his destination. The druids forbade him to speak of it. You can, perhaps, think of a reason why.”

After a moment’s thought, Larajin guessed the answer: the impending war. Her twin brother had gone south to Sembia then, probably as a spy, since, like her, he could no doubt pass as fully human. She prayed that he hadn’t ventured into Ordulin and been sniffed out and beaten by the mob.

She shook her head at the irony. All the while she had been heading north, to the Tangled Trees, her twin had been traveling in the other direction. For all she knew, they might have passed each other as strangers on Rauthauvyr’s Road.

“Tell me more about my brother,” she said. “What’s his name? What does he look like?”

“His name is Leifander, and as I said before, he looks nothing like you. His hair is a similar color, but his eyes are a different shade of hazel. He’s broad-shouldered, and tall, and looks … much more like the people of the forest.”