Chris Evans - A Darkness Forged in Fire

"…be stopped before it's too late-"

"What, or who, must be stopped?" Konowa asked, stepping into the small room.

The Prince and Visyna stood up from the table they had been seated at, the surprise on their faces evidence enough that they had been talking about him. The Prince recovered first.

"You forget yourself, Major."

Konowa threw a quick salute, unable to hide his own surprise. "I'm sorry, sir, I didn't expect you here." His sense of the surreal continued to expand. Visyna and the Prince were the two people least likely to be having a close conversation, of any kind.

"Where else would I be, but where I am? In any event," the Prince said, growing more authoritative as he spoke. "I have been having a most interesting chat with Miss Tekoy. We share a love of nature, did you know? The birds, the bees, even the forest at large."

"Is that so?" Konowa said, finding the notion implausible at best. "Have you ever tried living in one, sir? Not quite as posh as a palace."

"It's all in one's attitude, Major. I think I would get along splendidly if put to it."

"Perhaps you'll find out-the elfkynan are here."

The Prince clapped his hands. "Excellent news, Major, excellent news. We should have them on the run in no time, and then be able to devote our attention to finding the Star and be on our way."

"Your Highness!" Visyna said, her eyes blazing as she looked at him. "We were talking about the importance of the Star to my people."

"The Star is important to many people, my dear Miss Tekoy. In fact, I grow more convinced that it is imperative all such power be placed somewhere it can be studied, learned from, and most important, protected, especially from misuse. I do, after all," he said condescendingly, "share your concern that such power not fall into less civilized, cultured hands," he said, looking directly at Konowa. "Now, Major, was there something that you wanted?"

Konowa nodded. "Rallie has asked if you might see her sometime in the next while. I believe she wanted some more detail on your theories of warfare."

The Prince adjusted his shako and rolled his neck inside the loose-fitting collar of his jacket. "Then she shall have them. I am done here. Miss Tekoy, Major."

Konowa saluted as the Prince left, staring at Visyna the whole time. When the sound of the Prince's boots faded he tipped his shako to her. "Slumming it, are you?"

Visyna huffed, then sighed and sat back down on an overturned crate. "Events move with increasing speed, and I feel I have less and less control over anything."

Konowa walked over and sat down on the other crate, angling his scabbard to the side as he did so. He placed his hands on the small table, crossing one over the other. "For once, we are in complete agreement."

She brushed a hair from her face and her expression softened. He was treated to the smile that had dazzled him back in the forest.

"We always have been, I think. We both want what's right, I know that," she said, looking the way the Prince had gone.

"Did you think you could sweet-talk him into letting the Star stay in Elfkyna?"

Visyna shrugged. "I don't know. But I thought if I could reason with him, he would understand. He understands all right-he understands power, but not the terrible price that goes with it."

Konowa thought he detected a subtle jab in her words. "I'm not like him."

Visyna smiled at him. "No, you're not. In some ways you're worse. He wants the Star the way a child wants a sweet from the market. You, on the other hand, don't seem to want it at all, and that worries me."

"Worries you? I thought you would be pleased," he said. "I have nothing against your people. In fact, I've come to care a lot about one of them in particular." Saying it out loud felt good. He did care about her, and if it wasn't for their current situation, he'd be showing her right now…if she let him, that is.

"And I care about more than just my people, too," she said, dipping her head as if suddenly shy. Konowa found himself even more attracted to her. "But look where we are. Her foul trees ring this place in a noose, defiling the land as they dig their roots deep in search of the Star. Yet you still call on that same power with utter disregard for what you will bring down on us all. The earth is changing and the air grows cold with malice. You must-" She caught herself. "Konowa, please, give up Her power and break the oath while there is still time."

He shook his head. "Someone has to look after this regiment. Should I leave that to His Highness? You see what he's like. That is our future King." Even saying the words gave him a chill.

Visyna reached across the table, then seemed to think better of it, pulling her hands back. "But he is not King yet. It's a dangerous world out here in the wilds; much could happen."

Konowa waited for her to smile. She didn't.

"Why, Miss Tekoy, the bengar shows its teeth," he said, only partially surprised.

Visyna looked embarrassed. "I'm not saying you should actually…I, just…things are not going as they should."

Konowa knew the feeling all too well. "They never do."

A musket fired in the distance. He stood up-it was time.

She stood as well, moving closer to him until her face was only inches away from his. "Give up this power and embrace the natural order. Help me, and your reward will be greater than you can imagine. You won't just be saving my people, you'll be saving your men, and I can save you, if you'll let me."

Her hand came up to gently brush back his hair at the side of his head, revealing the ruined ear. She gasped and drew back her fingers. Frost sparkled at the tips.

"It's too late," he said, turning and walking out of the room.

The pain was overwhelming, and for the first hour the Viceroy actually cried for his mother, a sharp-tongued shrew who had substituted a wicker cane for love in the belief that it was the only way for a child to grow strong. Had she lived to see her son as he was now, she would no doubt have despaired that she hadn't hit him often enough.

Though the pain remained, he forced himself up onto his knees, his scarred arms clutching the edge of the table.

It should have been charred, but his sacrifice had spared it-at a cost.

He staggered to his feet with excruciating effort, cringing at the sound of crisped skin stretching and tearing as he unbent his legs to stand. He looked down on the table, which gleamed as if no flame had touched it, and brushed away the ash from its surface that he knew to be his own flesh.

He saw who had done this, and who would pay. First, however, he needed strength.

He ran his blistered hands across the surface, seeking its depths, seeking Her.

"Help me," he said, his voice a thin rasp, his breathing ragged and uneven. "Help me do your bidding."

A tinge of frost sparkled beneath his hands. Red, swollen flesh froze, then turned black and gray, the surface rough and striated. He held a hand up to this face and flexed the fingers. They curled slowly, creaking like autumn twigs. He carefully moved the rest of his body and found that his movements were slowed by the new, barklike skin, but that the pain was subsiding.

He bent over the table again and focused all his thought on Luuguth Jor.

They would all die.

He placed his hands on the table and called to it, but he was too weak. He could see the Iron Elves, but he couldn't direct Her power through it.

"Then I shall go there and kill them myself," he said, not the least bit surprised by the sound of his new voice.

A re we there yet?"

The humid night air got a little thicker. Yimt stomped on a six-inch-long centipede crawling across the path, grinding his boot into the dirt with more force than necessary. It was a feeling all the surviving members of the patrol shared. They had been marching for hours through air so wet it felt like breathing through a sopping cotton mask. The elvish tree sap did slake their thirst, refreshing them long after they should have collapsed from exhaustion, but it did nothing to cool the heat, or silence Scolly.