The Elf King (22 page)

“
Kandish?” he
whispered.

She opened her eyes slowly.
“Do not hate me,” she whispered, then closed her eyes. Qenn wrapped
her in his arms, still feeling her chest rise and fall faintly. He
began whispering to her that everything was all right. That
whatever she did worked. And that he didn’t think he could ever
hate her.

He looked around, watching
Kamen’s men move in, Prevost wiping off ash from his body with a
smile. Kamen was up too, cursing the demons for what they were. He
began cheering, yelling aloud that he had saved the Seer as he had
promised. His smile was broad; his eyes twinkled as though he were
a little boy again. Kamen screamed his thanks to Kandish, and then
looked down the street to see the Seer. He rushed to her, to get
her up so they could get out of Skadar Port once and for
all.

Prevost bent down next to
Qenn, rubbing Kandish’s head. “She’s special. She saved us
all.”

Qenn nodded. “When she
comes to, I’ll tell her just that.”

Kamen reached the Seer,
lying face down with a blanket of warm ash covering her. “I told
you I would save you! You need to have more faith in me. Not
everything you see has to come true, woman.” Kamen reached down and
held her in his strong arms, rolling her over. He stopped
breathing.

The Seer’s eyes were
distant, lifeless. Her body was cold.

“
Mother!”

Kamen squeezed her body
close to his and screamed into the night.

Chapter 13

W
ilt Oan had left Kloe Datris with the promise that he would
flee the castle immediately. And he was well prepared to do so. But
as he had stolen through the darkened corridors of secret rooms and
hidden passages, he had stumbled upon a large storage room. He
would not have given it a thought, however, the stench emitting
from the room was enough to gag him, so he thought it best to
investigate. What he found in the otherwise empty room brought him
to his knees.

Bodies. All of them broken
and rotting.

The horrid smell of the
carcasses made him sick, forcing him to leave the room. He ran out
and rested against the cool brick wall, sliding down to sit on his
feet, eyes wide with fear, body trembling.

His eyes began searching
the darkness of the halls, scared that whatever did this would be
back to find him waiting. He rose to his feet quickly. Every
instinct he had was yelling at him to run away, but he couldn’t.
Slowly he began to walk back into the room, careful to be quiet
this time. He stood at the pile of bodies, most of which were
several days old, and studied their faces. It wasn’t something he
planned on doing, it just happened. He couldn’t tear himself away
from the raw fear frozen within them. Their eyes cast such a
gruesome display of terror that Oan’s skin rippled.

He began moving the bodies,
looking for wounds, searching for a cause of death. There was no
blood to be found, no cuts or even bruises. And then he saw
something that sent him stumbling backwards. His mouth opened wide
in shock, his heart pounded hard and rapid. He sat for a few
seconds in total disbelief. Queen Sienna’s body lay within the pile
of the dead. Her face stricken with horror, pale and
lifeless.

Wilt Oan swallowed hard.
There was no question as to whom it was. There was no mistaking the
body for someone else. He had been in the presence of the Queen for
countless years. This was her. The old man’s blood ran cold then as
he wondered how and when she had died.

Then a door
shut.

Wilt Oan jumped to his feet
in panic. He could hear the soft scrape of something drawing closer
from the passage. Frantically he ran to exit, but he could hear
labored breathing moving quickly towards him. He had to hide. His
eyes searched the room quickly. There were two wooden tables and
one narrow cabinet. Nothing worthy of concealment. The sounds from
the corridor were nearing. Oan panicked. He ran the length and
width of the room, searching the walls for a hidden exit, something
to trigger a secret door for escape. Nothing.

A shadow passed into the
doorway and Wilt Oan dropped to the floor. He tried his best to
slow his breathing, to appear just as motionless as the bodies next
to him. He could hear the groaning movements of something in the
room with him now, the heavy breathing, deep and raspy. Oan’s heart
pounded against the floor. He thought at any second he would be
caught. The panic nearly made him bolt from the floor. But he
remained silent, waiting.

Instead, he cracked one
eyelid open to look at what was going on. In the sliver of sight, a
dark figure was noticed. Oan thought it was facing the other
direction, so he quickly opened his eyes. What he thought he saw
was an elf struggling to remove something, a shirt perhaps,
possibly a necklace. But then Oan witnessed something he could not
explain. The elf’s body slumped to the floor, yet a shadow remained
standing. Oan blinked, hoping to clear his vision, thinking he
didn’t see something right. And while he was doing so, the shadowy
figure dove into the body pile. Seconds later, something rose from
the floor. It was the Queen. Oan shut his eyes tight. There was no
mistaking what he saw. He realized then what was
happening.

A wave of nausea washed
over him then. The reality of what had taken place was making him
sick. His head dizzied and never slowed. He had to leave. He had to
tell Kloe Datris. The thought of a demon living inside the Queen
spun circles in his mind. He had to warn them. He had to tell
someone. But before any of that could be done, Wilt Oan laid his
head against the floor as his eyes washed in a spinning
blackness.

I
t
was an hour before dawn when Ankar
Rie made out the lights from the city of Cillitran. Exhausted and
thirsty, the young sorcerer kept pace through the Shyl Plains as
the lights at the horizon became less of a blur and more of
distinct fires. Still several miles away, he could make out the
army’s encampment along the outer wall of the great city. Standing
atop a small foothill, Ankar had the sunken feeling that he was too
late.

Sunlight lit the sky in a
morning glow behind the mountain range by the time Ankar reached
the outskirts of the encampment. Foot-soldiers and bowmen crowded
around dying fires in the early morning, crowds of tents held still
slumbering men in long rows reaching several hundreds of yards from
the city gate. Some men looked up from their hot drinks to greet
him or just to study him, others didn’t give him concern at all as
he headed for the massive stone wall and the towering iron gates.
Guards were posted at either side, but the gate remained opened as
he approached. The Guards studied him, asked him to remove his
hood, then let him pass through, muttering something to him about
making sure he wasn’t an elf.

Once into the city, the
palace grounds were visible several hundred yards away, the palace
itself was a juggernaut against the small shops and ale houses
lining the streets. Ankar Rie quickly took notice of the
expressions on the people he saw, none of which looked happy. He
overheard a group of men talking about killing a few elves the
night before. Ankar didn’t look in their direction, but he could
feel them staring him down. The city had an awful feel to it
already, he thought. The people seemed bitter and
blood-thirsty.

He came along another group
of people of all ages gathered around a man in the street.
Curiously, he let himself wander close enough to see what was
taking place. The man was standing next to a section of the street
that was stained red, retelling his encounter with an elf, how he
bludgeoned him to death at the very spot, speaking as though he was
a hero, boasting as if he was worthy of praise. Many in the streets
cheered.

“
Death to the Elves!” the
man chanted. A roar went up in the crowd and the chant
began.

Ankar Rie turned to an
older woman next to him. “What crime did the elf do to this man
that merited death?”

The woman merely shook her
head. “It was the will of the Queen. The new law. Elves are not
welcomed. None can enter. None can live to exit. The Queen is
giving rewards for their heads, to reimburse the King’s
death.”

Ankar Rie drew his hood
closer to his face and sadly walked away. The old woman’s words
were true. He heard a group of angry men cursing that their night’s
work was in vain, as their attempt to catch some elves went awry
and they lost one of their own instead. The word was everywhere.
Everyone was looking for an elf to bring to the Queen. It seems the
war had already started.

Ankar Rie set his eyes to
watch his footfalls, deciding that he didn’t want to see or hear
any more. He walked to the palace with the thought that changing
the Queen’s mind was going to be a fight he had no chance of
winning.

K
loe Datris had left Wilt Oan
to
escape a death sentence then departed outside to the burial
ceremony for Turyn Andelline. A select group of people were present
to witness the King’s body entombed underground in the royal burial
vault. The Head of the Red Knights thought it odd that Queen Sienna
was not there mourning. When he quietly asked of her whereabouts,
he learned that she declined the event, staying only to her
room.

When the business was
finished, Kloe Datris went to the Queen’s room in the tower and
questioned the two Red Knights stationed there. He was told that
she had not left the room all night. He thought that under all the
stress, Queen Sienna probably just needed some rest and alone time.
He told the Red Knights that he was going to bed and that if
something were to happen to let him know right away.

Kloe Datris didn’t sleep
much. The bad dreams and the constant thought of someone entering
to kill him kept him too alert for sleep to completely drift him
away. Tired and weary, he spent much of his night wondering if Oan
made it out alive. He also wondered when the sorcerer would arrive
to help them. With so much going on in his head, he thought himself
foolish for even considering sleep.

Daylight flooded through
his window now, bright and full of hope. What little sleep he
could’ve had was gone. He decided Oan had enough time to escape,
and now he must tell the Queen that the old man had done just that.
She wouldn’t take it well, he knew. He would argue to her that the
search for him would not stop, though he had no intentions of
fulfilling his promise. A small lie, he thought. But nothing
compared to the ones that were floating about now.