Lisa Smedman: Heirs of Prophecy

“Maalthiir isn’t planning to ask the council’s permission for anything,” she said grimly. “He won’t have to. Not once the drow control the forest.”

Leifander and Doriantha both gave her startled looks. Rylith’s eyes merely widened.

“The drow?” Leifander blurted. “What do they have to do with any of this?”

Quickly, Larajin related the story of what she’d seen and heard at the tower.

“Gods curse Maalthiir-and his wizard Drakkar!” Doriantha exclaimed. “That’s why they’re insisting all of the elf forces march toward Essembra. They hope we’ll leave the rest of the forest unguarded.”

Leifander’s eyes had a thoughtful look. “Drakkar,” he said slowly. “Maalthiir mentioned him.”

“What did he say?” Rylith prompted.

“Something about the mist that caused the blight. He said Drakkar could dispel it.”

“All of it?” Doriantha asked. “Impossible. It’s spread throughout the forest, over an area of many miles.”

Leifander shrugged. “Maalthiir made it sound as though Drakkar could dispel all of it at once with a wave of his hand.”

It was Rylith who made the connection. “The poisonous mist,” she said slowly. “It must be Drakkar’s doing.”

Leifander shook his head. “It’s no mere spell,” he said. “The mist came from wands-like the one I captured.”

“Wands that must have been made by Drakkar,” Rylith said, “and imbued with a spell that made their effects permanent.” As she said the latter, she glanced at Larajin’s foot, then away again.

“Drakkar is at the root of this war,” Larajin said grimly. “He wormed his way into the Hulorn’s confidence, and got him to persuade Sembia’s Merchant Council to use the wands. He knew it would provoke the elves.”

“I suspected as much,” Rylith said, “but there’s more. The choke creeper ‘infestation’ that prompted the use of the wands-it too was deliberate.”

“You mean, someone planted the stuff?” Larajin asked.

She shuddered, remembering how the creeper had nearly strangled her.

As Rylith nodded, Leifander’s eyes widened.

“The Sembians!” he exclaimed. “It must have been them. When I carried the druids’ message to Thamalon Uskevren, in Selgaunt, I saw choke creeper sprouting in his garden. I thought it was a weed he’d foolishly overlooked, but now I see the truth. He must be involved in all of this.” His lips curved in a sneer. “It makes me feel dirty, to have this man’s blood in my veins.”

Larajin’s cheeks flushed with anger as Leifander talked about Thamalon Uskevren-her father-like a common criminal, but it was Rylith who reprimanded him.

“Leifander! I will not have you speak this way. You are not thinking. The Sembians have nothing to gain from this war. It has cut off their trade with the cities of the north. You are wrong about your father. Thamalon Uskevren is a friend to the elves. The choke creeper was in his garden because he was trying to help us-he was trying to find a way to exterminate it without using the wands.”

Leifander’s mouth opened. “You knew this all along? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wanted you to draw your own conclusions about your father,” Rylith answered.

In the uncomfortable silence that followed, Leifander’s face colored. He stared into the distance, then slowly nodded.

“You’re right,” he said at last. “I wasn’t thinking. There is only one person who has anything to gain in all of this.”

“Maalthiir,” Doriantha spat. “All of the strands of the web lead back to him.”

A brief silence followed, broken only by the sound of Gold-heart’s wings rustling as she worried a frayed feather with her teeth. Doriantha held up her dagger. Her eyes glittered as brightly as its polished steel.

“I say we kill the spider,” she said. “Maalthiir must die.”

She started to rise, but Leifander caught her arm.

“Don’t!” he exclaimed. “You’ll only be playing into his hands. Make an attempt on his life, and he’ll have an excuse to turn on us.” He gestured in the direction of the Red Plumes’s camp. “Maalthiir has already tricked us into permitting hundreds of his soldiers to march into the heart of Cormanthor. He’s hoping for a falling out-maybe not so soon as this, but eventually. If an incident doesn’t occur on its own, he’s planning to cause one.”

Grudgingly, Doriantha sank back down again.

“Something has to be done,” Rylith added, “but Leifander is right, Doriantha. Even if you succeed in killing Maalthiir, it will not stop this war. It will only throw tinder on the flames and force us to fight on three fronts: the Sembians, the drow, and the Red Plumes. We will be defeated-and the great forest will be lost.”

Though the discussion was animated, Larajin was only half listening. Instead she pondered Somnilthra’s prophecy. Somnilthra had said that, together Leifander and Larajin could heal the rift between human and elf and end the war. She’d told them to make use of a heart and to use love rather than hate.

A heart in love …

Larajin realized the answer. Love, she reflected, could make people do things they would not ordinarily do-foolish things, things contrary to their nature. Larajin herself had played love’s fool less than a year before. Smitten with love for Diurgo-a noble who barely acknowledged her existence-she’d tried to follow him on his pilgrimage to Lake Sember. She hadn’t cared about the consequences. The furor caused by her leaving Stormweather Towers without telling anyone where she was going, the anxious moments she’d caused her family, the possible dangers she’d face. It hadn’t even mattered that Diurgo felt nothing for her. She’d ignored all of this and run after him, driven on by the beating of a love-smitten heart.

Her eyes fell on Doriantha. At first she saw only the tattoos, rough clothing, and feathered braid, then she looked deeper and saw a woman whose keen intelligence and fiery spirit would cause any man to fall in love with her, even a city-bred human.

Perhaps, if the goddesses were willing, even a human with a pathological hatred of elves. If Maalthiir were in love with an elf, Larajin realized, he might abandon his plans to backstab her people, but could it be done? Could the two goddesses work together through Larajin to fill his heart with a love that went beyond the foolish, into the realm of the foolhardy?

If they could-if Maalthiir’s love was strong and foolish enough-he might even be persuaded to work at brokering a peace between his elf allies and Sembia-or even to use his army against the drow…

Then Larajin realized the flaw in her plan. Thanks to Leifander spying on Maalthiir, the Red Plumes were as stirred up as a nest of hornets. There was no way she was going to get close enough to cast a spell on him, even in tressym form. Yet the attempt would have to be made that night-before Drakkar found her.

Larajin’s gaze fell on Leifander, and in that moment she remembered that the prophesy was not hers alone to fulfill. Her brother had a role in all of this, too. That was what the goddesses had been trying to tell them, all along. The twins must combine their magic. Together, they could do anything.

The thought filled Larajin with a sudden rush of hope, leaving her giddy. Breathless, she interrupted the discussion.

“I know how we can do stop this war,” she cried, “how we can mend the rift between human and elf. It was just as Somnilthra said, we have to use love to conquer war.”

She turned to Doriantha, and saw open skepticism in the elf’s eyes. The hardest part would be persuading Doriantha to play along with what would sound like a ridiculous plan, but if the spell Larajin cast on Maalthiir was strong enough, Doriantha could even slap him across the face without dampening his feelings for her. She needn’t even pretend to care for Maalthiir. She just might relish the thought of tricking him into using his Red Plumes to rid the forest of drow.