Lost mark 3 The Queen of Death: (16 page)

"I—I don’t know,” Ledenstrae said, frustration marring his ageless face. "I had thought it would be obvious just from looking at it. After all, the Mark of Death is the stuff of legend.” He turned to Majeeda. "Can you tell?”

Majeeda pushed her fragile frame up out of her chair and leaned over Espre’s bared back. Her bones creaked as she moved, and Espre shuddered at her touch when the deathless wizard pulled her collar even lower.

Majeeda cleared her throat as if to speak, and the action coughed a fistful of dust up from her bone-dry lungs. As she waved it away, she said, "I cannot be sure. It resembles the drawings I’ve seen of Vol’s mark, but those were printed by hand on parchment that was already ancient when I saw it. This dragonmark could be the Mark of Death.”

"Or?” Ledenstrae asked.

"Or it could just be an aberrant mark, a magical mistake.”

"How can we tell for sure?”

"We could bring her to Vol, of course, to compare it with the skin she no longer wears. I understand she keeps it stretched out in a glass case in Illmarrow Castle.”

"That would entail entanglements in which I would rather we not become ensnared.”

Kandler tried to nod in agreement and readjust the grip on his sword, but his head and hand refused to comply. Panic rising in his heart, he realized he could not move at all.

Majeeda turned to smile at him and Burch, showing a mouth full of teeth attached to their gums by only the tiniest bits of pale, dry flesh. "You don’t really think I’d let you kill us, do you?” she asked.

Sallah screamed at Duro to stop, but she couldn’t reach him before he plunged over the airship’s edge. Determined not to let his sacrifice be in vain, she set to the gunwale fast and hard with her silver-burning sword. As she worked, she heard something thud into the deck behind her, but she was too engrossed with her work to even turn her head to look at it.

Within a handful of strokes, the battered railing creaked and then snapped. The airship zoomed backward, and Sallah tumbled toward the broken railing. She might have fallen through it had Xalt not managed to grab the back of her tunic and haul her back.

"Go back for Duro!” Sallah shouted as she scrambled to her feet and clambered on to the bridge. "We can’t just leave him there.”

Monja screwed up her face as she brought the airship about in a tight curve and pointed the
Phoenix
toward the fortress. Below, Sallah could see Duro swinging his axe back and forth, cutting a swathe through the elf guards foolish enough to get close to him. As she watched, another patrol of archers streamed onto the docks and leveled their bows at the battling dwarf.

Sallah watched in horror as the airship’s prow eclipsed the scene below. "What are you doing?” she said, grabbing Monja by her shoulder.

"What Duro would have wanted,” she said as she pulled the Pfioem'jrhard to port. "If we go back for him now, his effort will be wasted. We have to let him go.”

A flaming ball of pitch spun past the starboard gunwale and arced out into the distance beyond. Then something slammed into the bottom of the ship and shook her hard. Sallah fell to her knees.

"Ballista bolt," Monja said as she leaped down from the spars on the wheel. "Here, take over—and fly for Espre’s father’s tower. You know where it is, right?”

Sallah leaped forward and grabbed the wheel before the elemental trapped in the airship’s ring of fire could take control and destroy the ship. "I think so,” she said.

"You’d better know so,” the halfling said as she left the bridge. "Soon we’ll have a whole fort full of soldiers out after us.”

"Wait!” Sallah said. "Where are you going?”

Monja pointed toward Te’oma’s collapsed form, still smoldering in the middle of the ship’s main deck. Xalt knelt over the changeling, beating out the flames on her wings with his bare hands.

Sallah reached out with her mind and urged the elemental to swing back to the starboard. As she did, the top of Ledenstrae’s tower appeared straight in front of her, and she prodded the
Phoenix
forward at full speed.

Chapter

25

Kandler?” Espre said. "What’s wrong?”

When her stepfather didn’t answer, the young elf pulled her shirt’s collar back up and turned on the wizard and her father. Kandler and Burch stood behind them, but neither of them said a word as she gazed at them. They didn’t move an inch. They didn’t even blink.

"What have you done to them?” Espre asked Majeeda.

The deathless wizard gave Espre a smug look and fanned her fingers, which crackled with the movement. "I’ve excused them from our little talk,” she said. "This is a conversation between elves."

Ledenstrae nodded his approval. "We need to make our decisions about this based on what is best for our race. Peoples like humans and shifters cannot have the perspective our years bring. They cannot comprehend as we do the long-term effects of the choices we must make here today.”

Espre steeled herself as her father reached out to caress her cheek. She had longed for such affection from him for years, but now it only made her want to run screaming into the streets. She’d not known much about him, except from what her mother had told her, and she’d discounted some of Esprina’s comments as naturally biased against the husband she’d abandoned back in Aerenal.

Espre realized now how she’d become infatuated with the idea of her father rather than the real person. It had been easy enough—perhaps too easy, as she hadn’t had any new information about him to deal with since shortly after her birth. Once her mother died, her daydreams about her father had grown stronger, helping assuage her terrible loss. With one parent gone for good, she clung to the idea that she and her father would one day be reunited.

Kandler had been much more of a father to her than Ledenstrae, but she’d allowed her fantasies to come between them. When Esprina had been alive, Espre had known that both she and her mother would outlive Kandler by several of his lifetimes. If they’d somehow had a child, as sometimes happened between humans and elves, she’d live longer that that younger sibling too.

It had been easier to keep Kandler at a distance, but then Esprina died, and Kandler had been all she had in the world.

"Why don’t you send me back to my father?” she’d asked the justicar once over a meal. He’d just come back from a mission with Burch and a couple friends, scouting the land that would soon after become the town of Mardakine.

Kandler had put down his fork and knife, then swallowed his half-chewed food. "Do you know your father?” he’d asked.

She’d shaken her head.

"Neither do I,” he’d said. "All I have to go on is your mother’s word, and from what she tells me he’s not a nice man.”

"He’s not a man at all. He’s an elf.”

"You know what I mean.”

"Wouldn’t I be better off with him?”

Kandler had stared at her hard. He’d come back the day before, covered in ash and singed by what he’d described as living fireball spells. His skin had looked like he’d stayed out in the sun far too long, and most of his eyebrows had fallen off after he’d bathed.

"I swore to your mother I’d take care of you if anything ever happened to you.”

"She made you do that?”

"She—she didn’t
make
me do anything. I made that vow to her, and she accepted it.”

"Why would you do something like that?”

Kandler had stuffed another bite of food in his mouth, and he’d finished it before he responded.

"I wanted to. We both lived dangerous lives. I knew something might happen to her.”

"Did she vow to take care of me if you died?”

Kandler had grinned at the joke. "I think she thought she already had that covered.”

They’d returned to their meal then. After a while longer, Espre had pushed back her plate and spoke.

"I relieve you of your vow.”

"I didn’t make the vow to you.”

"You made it to my mother about me. I am her heir, and all her assets pass down to me, including the obligations of others. I absolve you of your vow.”

"Very well.”

Espre had almost fallen out of her chair, but she’d recovered from her shock before Kandler had noticed—or so she’d hoped.

"I can leave then?”

Kandler had pushed back his own plate then. "You can leave any time you want. I’ll even go with you if you like, escort you back to Aerenal. I bet we could even convince Burch to come with us.”

"But?”

"But my vow still stands. I made it not just to your mother, but to myself. If you’ll allow me the honor, I’ll make it now to you.”

Espre had pursed her lips at that. "Give me a moment to think about it.”

"Take as long as you like.”

After dinner, Kandler had taken Espre for a walk outside the camp to look up at the moons and stars. When they’d reached the top of a hillock, they’d lain down on the grass to take it all in.

"Do you really want to go to Aerenal?” Kandler had asked after a quiet moment.

"No. I—I just wanted to make sure you wanted me around.”

Kandler had sat up. "Have I given you any reason to think I didn’t?”

Guilt had welled up in her for even giving voice to these thoughts, but she had pressed on. "You married my mother, not me.”

"You were always part of the package. I never thought otherwise.”

"Did you always want the whole package?”

Kandler had hesitated then, and she had waited for the lies to start. To her relief, though, he had spoken as honestly with her as ever.

"No,” he had said. "When I found out your mother had a child, it bothered me at first. The kind of work I do, it’s not easy to have a child around, even an elf-child, but . . .” "But? ”

"I don’t know when it happened really. I couldn't pinpoint the exact spot, but I came to think of you as my child too.” He had torn his eyes from the sky and gazed back at Espre where she lay on the ground. She had smiled up at him.

"I’m not going to start calling you 'Father.’ ”

He had beamed down at her. "I can live with that.”

"Then I accept your vow.”

What Kandler hadn’t known then—and still didn’t know now—was that Espre had made a similar vow to herself that night. She’d sworn to take care of him too, no matter what.

"Let them go,” Espre said.

As she spoke, she felt the dragonmark on her back start to itch. She wondered if Ledenstrae or Majeeda would have been able to see the mark change if she hadn’t already covered it back up.

"Once Majeeda and I are done talking,” Ledenstrae said. "This is important. In fact, you could say your life depends on it.”

Espre felt the black energy from her dragonmark start to spread across her shoulders and feed down her arms.

"This isn’t your decision to make,” she said. "It’s mine.” She narrowed her eyes at her father. "You’d really kill your own daughter?”

The elf arched an eyebrow at Espre. "If she wasn’t mature enough to make such a decision herself.” He leaned forward. "If I found myself in your shoes, and the entire fate of my race depended on my death, I’d toss myself into the nearest volcano just to make sure there was no trace of me left to resurrect.”

Majeeda eyelids rustled like dry leaves as she batted them at the girl. "Young lady, you are fortunate that we are bothering to having this conversation at all. Many of our ancestors would have simply killed you on the spot rather than risk even a hint of the Mark of Death be found in their blood.”

"Maybe I have spent too much time among humans then,” said Espre. "I don’t feel that lucky at all.”

The black power reached her hands then, and they began to glow. Her fingers felt like she had dipped them in ice, and they hungered for something warm in which they could bathe to relieve the sensation.

"Let them go,” she said again.

Majeeda gave Espre a condescending smile at the threat in her voice. "Or else what?” Then she glanced down at the young elf’s glowing hands and burst into a dry, hacking laughter.

"My dear,” she said. "Do you think your dragonmark holds any power over me? I am long since dead. Do you mean to threaten to kill me if I do not release your two friends?” She giggled again, and it sounded like rain falling on a mound of brown leaves.

"No,” Espre said. "Not you.”

Her hands shot out and grabbed her father's arm. He yelped in pain and surprise and crumpled into his chair like a smacked child. Despite this, he seemed unable to pull himself free, as if all his muscles had knotted up at once, paralyzing him in his contorted state.

"Let them go, or my father dies.”

Chapter

26

A
s Ledenstrae s tower loomed larger, Sallah pulled back on the airship’s speed. They would be there in a matter of seconds, but then what?

"How is Te’oma?” she shouted out over the rushing winds and the crackling of the
Phoenix’s
ring of elemental fire.

"She will be fine,” Xalt called back. "I put out the fire in her wings, and Monja should have her healed up soon.”