Terry Brooks: Wards of Faerie

And what was the truth about the Darkling boy? Had he taken the Elfstones solely as a means of forcing her to come in search of him? Was he motivated entirely by his love for her, as she so desperately wanted to believe? Or had he intended all along to steal the Elfstones or whatever other magic he could lay his hands on? Was he the dark creature she feared he might be, his seduction of her purposeful and lacking in any real feeling or passion? Had he been pretending the whole time? There were arguments both ways. She had a feeling this was something no one would ever know.

Which was perhaps for the best. It would be sad to discover that Aleia had been deceived, that she had given herself to a liar and a thief.

Aphen leaned back in her chair and stared out the window. There were so many questions—and so many needing answers when answers were in short supply. Tomorrow she would look into the records of the Kings and Queens of Faerie, at the carefully recorded lineages of royal parents and children. Most were still intact. Aleia and her parents would be listed somewhere. There would be little information beyond the names, but it was a start to the search she now knew she had to undertake.

Her hand strayed to her pack where it rested by her side, her fingers finding the flat surface of the diary where it nestled inside.

“Coming to bed anytime soon?”

Arlingfant stepped into the room, small and delicate and wreathed in silk. She came over to her sister and knelt in front of her as if in supplication. Her perfect face—oval in shape, and dominated by her dark eyes and pronounced Elven features—canted upward, a smile appearing like a crescent moon come out from behind a cloud’s shadow.

“I heard you come in. My senses are every bit as good as yours, Aph.”

“Everything about you is as good. Were you sleeping or just lying awake waiting for me?”

“Lying awake. I was thinking.” She brushed away loose strands of her dark hair absently. “The tree is so mysterious to me, even after almost eight months of caring for her. She almost never communicates, even in the smallest of ways. She relies on us to do what is needed, and we are expected to anticipate what those needs might be. It seems impossible that anyone could do this. Even though there are twelve of us serving her, we might miss something. We might interpret what we see the wrong way. We might do any number of things to cause her harm. Yet somehow we don’t. But that doesn’t mean we don’t spend every waking minute worrying about it.”

She looked away. “Today, while I was cleaning her bark, working at the things that might sicken or mar its surfaces, I had the oddest feeling. I thought I heard the tree say something. The voice just came out of nowhere, like a whisper in my ear. I knew it wasn’t one of the other Chosen because I know their voices and this wasn’t one I knew. I looked around, but I didn’t see anyone near and didn’t hear the voice again. But later, I mentioned to Freershan that I thought one of the tree branches had touched me. The tip of a branch, reaching down to touch my shoulder. But when I turned to look, there wasn’t anything there.”

Aphenglow reached out and touched her sister’s face. “The tree is magic, Arling. It doesn’t seem too odd that magical things might happen in its presence. Even ones of the sort you describe. Is the tree all right?”

Arlingfant nodded. “She seems fine. No one mentioned anything at the end of the day. It was just these … things.”

Aphenglow stood up. “Do you want a glass of milk?”

Her sister nodded, and Aphenglow walked into the kitchen, opened the cold box, took out the milk pitcher, and poured a little of its contents into two glasses. She put the milk away again and carried the glasses back into the living room.

“It will help you sleep,” she said, handing Arlingfant the glass.

They drank the milk in silence, sitting in the darkness, the quarter moon’s soft light spilling down through the trees and filtering in through the cottage windows. Her mind drifted back to the diary, and for a moment she toyed with the idea of telling her sister what she had found. It would be good to have another opinion, to share her thoughts with someone who might bring a fresh perspective. But she resisted the impulse. She didn’t want to put her sister in the position of having to cover for her if someone found out. Shared thoughts and fresh opinions could wait until she knew something more.

“Find anything interesting today?” Arlingfant asked suddenly, as if reading her mind.

“Nothing,” Aphen lied. Lying was getting easier. It was starting to feel natural. “I’m getting to the end of my search, though. Not too many more boxes of letters and notes to go. I finished the last of the history appendices a week ago. It’s exhausting work.”

“Translating must be hard. So much of it is archaic. Ancient Elfish. Different dialects. It’s good that you’re trained to read those.”

Aphenglow nodded. She had studied ancient Elven languages starting at the age of ten. She had a knack for it, a real sense of meanings and purposes in the use of words, and when she’d returned a year ago to undertake this task, she had come prepared with more than fifteen years of experience in deciphering what Elves thousands of years gone had written down.

“I might have to return to Paranor for a bit,” she said suddenly. “For a week or so, perhaps.”

The idea had just occurred to her, although in truth she must have known from the moment she had read the first few entries in the diary. She needed to consult the other Druids. A decision had to be made about what to do with this information, and where to take the search from here. She had promised her grandfather she would not take anything away, but the promise had been falsely given. She had always intended to take whatever she found. She was an Elf and loyal to her people, but not at the expense of the other Races. In that regard, she was a Druid first. Magic was meant to be shared, and it was safest in the hands of the Druids, who would make sure that happened.

“Aphen.” Her sister moved close to her, placing her hands on Aphen’s shoulders. “Take me away. I want to leave here. I want to go with you.”

Aphenglow shook her head. “You know I can’t do that.”

“I know you’ve said you can’t. But there’s nothing you can’t do, if you want to. A Druid has immense power, and you are the best of them all. If you tell them you want me there, they will have to let me stay.”

They had covered this before, many times. Arlingfant had it in her head that she was meant to be not a Chosen, but a Druid like her sister. She didn’t care about the inevitable repercussions. She was prepared to give up everything if Aphen would just take her to Paranor.

“You can’t leave your friends to tend the Ellcrys without you,” Aphenglow said pointedly. “They need you. If I am the best of the Druids, you are ten times the best of the Chosen. You are the one who always knows what to do. How many times have you ferreted out sickness or blight that no one else even noticed? You can’t walk away from that. Later, maybe, when your year of service is finished. But not now.”

“I know, I know. You’ve said this often enough. But I want to study magic with you!”

“Which leads to something else you keep ignoring. I don’t make the choice of who becomes a Druid by myself. All in service must agree, and the Ard Rhys must be awake when that happens. At present, she rests in the Druid Sleep and is not to be woken for another two years unless an emergency requires it. Taking in another Druid—even you, Arling—does not qualify as an emergency.”

“Besides,” she added, “there is a reluctance to accept members of the same family into the order. You know this. There are genuine concerns about how blood ties would affect their performance as Druids.”