Lisa Smedman - Heirs of Prophecy

Then Larajin spoke, in a tone he had not heard her use before. She sang out a single word in a voice as sweet as song, vibrant and pure. “Calm . Be calm, everyone!”

Amazingly, it worked. All around them, the crowd jerked to a sudden halt, and slowly limbs and faces relaxed. Leifander felt his own body relax as a feeling of peace settled upon him like the sweet languor found at the bottom of a bottle of wine. At the same time, a wonderful fragrance filled the air. After a moment, he recognized it as the scent that accompanied the winter-blossoming Hanali’s Heart. He noticed the heart-shaped locket hanging from a red cord around Larajin’s wrist. It was glowing a dusky amber color.

Maybe she really did draw her magic from an elf goddess.

Tal seemed unaffected by the spell-or perhaps he was merely quick witted. He stepped forward and laid a hand on Leifander’s shoulder. With only the slightest of winks, he turned to the crowd.

“This man is a spy,” he told them. “He serves Sembia.” He thumped a hand against the House Uskevren emblem on his surcoat. “He’s half human and part of my company. Anyone who wants to challenge him will have to take it up with my commander, Master Ferrick.”

The name seemed to carry some weight. More than one sword slid back into its scabbard, but one man, a portly noble in a maroon doublet and hose, wasn’t satisfied.

“What about the woman?” he asked. “She’s awfully slender. Is she a halfie, too?”

Fear caused Larajin’s eyes to widen, but otherwise she kept her composure. “I’m as human as you are,” she told the noble, then she yanked the scarf from her head, shaking her hair back from her ears. “Look here-do you see any points?”

Grudgingly the noble shook his head. His was the last challenge. The crowd seemed to believe Tal’s bluff. People were already starting to disperse.

The glow surrounding Larajin’s locket faded, and the scent of flowers vanished from the air.

“Come on,” Tal muttered. “Let’s get out of here.”

Leifander, seeing the wisdom in this suggestion, scooped up his turban and pulled it back on, making ready to follow. Once he was away from the crowd, on a quiet street, he could try again to summon a crow.

Larajin, however, was slower to react. She stood in place, eyes glistening, whispering what sounded like a prayer.

“Hanali Celanil, forgive me,” she said. “I did not mean to deny my heritage.”

With a heavy sigh, she turned to follow them.

So that’s it, then,” Larajin said. “You’re leaving. You’re not even going to try to help.”

Leifander squatted on the second-story balcony of Kremlar’s perfume shop, stroking the glossy black feathers of a crow. The bird had come to his whispered prayer as faithfully as a hound to a horn, then it had plucked a downy feather from its breast and offered it to Leifander.

“There’s nothing we can do,” he answered as he took the feather from the crow.

“Not separately, no,” Larajin conceded, “but Rylith said that together-”

“You are a Sembian,” Leifander said, “and I belong to the Tangled Trees.”

That seemed to be all that he was going to say. Leifander dismissed the crow, which took off into the dusk with a loud caw. He undid a strand of the braid that hung down his back, and lashed the feather securely to it with a length of fine embroidery thread Kremlar had given him.

Larajin turned to Tal, but he only shrugged. “I don’t see how the pair of you could stop the war,” he said. “It’s inevitable. The armies are mobilizing; the militia from Ordulin is already on the march to-”

He stopped abruptly, remembering there was an elf present. Deliberately turning his back on Leifander, he strode to the far end of the balcony and stared up at the evening sky. Sunset painted the western sky a dusky yellow-red; the clouds looked as though they contained a smoldering fire.

Inside, Kremlar fussed with an oil lamp, trimming its wick. The dwarf had invited them up to his personal quarters above the shop and had listened with rapt attention as Larajin told Tal and Leifander about her journey north to the Tangled Trees, repeating what the druid had told her about the twins’ destiny. Now he seemed embarrassed to be listening, like a host who finds his guests in the middle of a quarrel. When the wick was at last trimmed he stood nervously, fiddling with the rings that adorned each of his fingers.

On the balcony, Leifander spread his arms. A flutter ran through his tattooed fingers. He turned to Larajin, and gave her a long look.

“Good-bye, sister. May your goddesses protect you. I pray we never have to face each other as enemies.”

A shudder coursed through him, long black feathers sprouted at his fingertips, and his body hunched in upon itself and shrank. In no more than a few heartbeats, he had transformed into a crow. He sprang into the air and flew up the street.

Larajin ran to the balcony and watched Leifander go. He headed northwest, toward the city walls and the River Arkhen. From there, she assumed, he would wing his way north toward the ancient woods, leaving her back where she’d started, in Selgaunt.

On the street below, she heard one of the city guard call out the All’s Well. Hurriedly, she drew back from the balcony and retreated into Kremlar’s rooms.

After a glance down at the guard in the street, Tal followed her inside.

“What will you do now?” he asked. “I’d advise that you not go home. The streets around Stormweather Towers have been thick with the guard, and Drakkar has come calling twice. He’s still looking for you.”

Kremlar walked nervously to the balcony doors and shut them, turning the key in the deadbolt. Lifting the tip of his neatly braided beard to his lips, he absently chewed on it-a habit that surfaced only when he was extremely nervous.

“You could … stay here with me,” Kremlar said hesitantly.

Larajin was touched by the offer. Kremlar was desperately afraid of wizards. Years before, one had turned him to stone, after an exotic herb Kremlar had provided him proved stale. He’d stood in the wizard’s garden for three long, desperate years, sentient but unable to move, before friends found him and prevailed upon a cleric to reverse the spell.

“Thank you, Kremlar,” she said, then attempted a joke, “but your guest bed is far too small. My feet would hang out the end.”

Kremlar merely nodded.

“Wherever Leifander’s gone,” Larajin continued, “I have to try to follow him. It’s a matter of life or death.”

She stared intently at a painting on the wall without really seeing it, not wanting to even glance in Tal ’s direction. If she did, the prickling in her eyes would almost certainly turn into a flood of tears.

“Master Ferrick says our company will be riding tomorrow,” Tal said. “That’s why I was in your room when you … reappeared. I was hoping to carry some token of yours with me into battle.”

“You’re leaving tomorrow?” Larajin rounded on him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You were concerned with rescuing your twin brother,” he said in a voice bordering on annoyance. “I didn’t want to … distract you from what seemed to be your primary concern.”

Larajin bit back her reply: that Tal was her primary concern. And tomorrow he would be riding to war. On fast horses, his company could reach the edge of the elven wood in as little as a tenday. Having witnessed the swift and silent attack by the elves on the Foxmantle caravan, Larajin knew what kind of reception awaited Master Ferrick’s troops, once they reached the forest. Even if the rest of the company survived the attack, Tal would not.