I should conjure a fireball and wipe that smile off his face, she thought.
“I’m going,” she said instead. She knew that somewhere nearby, Ethir Ayers and Mardrik Melannin, Carskel’s loyal enforcers, held the rest of her loved ones. Should she turn against her brother, should she hurt him in any way, Mother, Kindren, Noni, Aaromar, and all the rest of those who had traveled with her would be in danger.
We should have never left Ang, the child in her complained. Bardiya would never have allowed this to happen.
Grow up, her new resolve answered.
Elves cheered as she circled around the skywalk, passing small home after small home nestled into the branches of the old, sturdy trees. Her people hung out of windows and from the railings of the planks above, tossing handfuls of shredded leaves down on her in celebration. The scene was eerily similar to when she’d been ushered through the courtyard of Palace Thyne on the announcement day of her betrothal to Kindren. Aully thought she should feel sadness at the memory, or even regret; instead, all she felt was anger.
The Dezren city within the trees took up a relatively small section of forest-only a two-hundred-yard area at most, consisting of a ring of forty-seven trees. What the city lacked in width, it made up for in height, with each of the thick trees containing multiple homes circling around its trunk. Although Briar Hall was one of only two structures resting atop the highest and most distant of the trees, those closer to the center of the ring were much more densely populated, with the lowest of the thirteen houses still twenty feet off ground and accessible only by rope ladders. Within the city’s boundaries, there was no need to let one’s feet touch the earth at all. Each tree was connected by even more ladders, along with those spiraling stairs and hanging skywalks. Back before she’d become a prisoner, the skywalks had been Aully’s favorite places to be. She would stand there for hours, smelling the sweet scents of roast rabbit, blackroot stews, and cooling raspberry and boysenberry pies, in between singing with her friends and listening to wizened old elves tell stories of days long ago. She blended into the crowd then, a nondescript member of a loving and joyous community, for though her parents were the Lord and Lady of Stonewood, it had long been practiced that one elf was of no more import than another.
The odor of food was still present, but she was no longer faceless. Every set of eyes that looked at her now did so expectantly, with reverence, as if welcoming a goddess back into the fold. The attention made Aully feel dirty, but not nearly as dirty as what she was about to do.
Carskel gently nudged her onto the swaying causeway that crossed through the city’s central clearing. He kept his hand firmly gripped around her forearm, squeezing once they reached the center platform. Very slowly he spun her around, and Aully gazed in wonder at the multitude of people that waved and whistled from the various walks. She caught sight of Hadrik, Mella, and Lolly standing with their respective families, the only three faces Aully could see that weren’t smiling. They seemed sad. The three of them had been Aully’s friends since the cradle, and it had been those three who’d found her and her ragged group as they wandered home through the forest. But they’d only been there to put them at ease before Ethir and his henchmen rounded them up.
They aren’t sad, Aully thought. They’re ashamed.
“Wave to our people,” Carskel muttered out the side of his mouth. Aully looked up at him, her lips drawn tight in defiance. Her brother squeezed her arm even tighter, making her yelp, a sound that was swallowed by the raucous cheering. Aully caved, lifting her hand and fanning her fingers as she and Carskel circled in place. The cheering picked up a notch. “We love you, Aullienna!” someone shouted. “Our princess has returned!” said someone else. The platform she stood on rocked back and forth. Aully felt her insides clench.
Carskel then knelt beside her, put his arm around her shoulder, himself waving and smiling at the crowd. “Look down, to your right,” he whispered into her ear. “But don’t you dare react.” Aully followed the jut of his chin, squinting as she gazed at the darkened area beneath the lowest walkway. At first she couldn’t make out what was there, but then Kindren stumbled forward, falling to his knees at the edge of the clearing. Kindren raised his head, staring up at her with pleading eyes. His face was marked with bruises, and his left shoulder was in a sling. For a moment Aully thought about leaping over the platform’s hempen rail. More than anything she wanted to call out to him, but she didn’t dare. Her eyes closed.
“There is more,” Carskel said in his sweetly menacing voice.
She peered through half-closed eyelids as her mother and more than two dozen other elves were shoved into the light. Aully looked on helplessly as Lady Audrianna pulled Kindren to his feet, wrapping her would-be son-in-law in a protective embrace. Kindren shuddered in her grasp, the Lady of Stonewood holding him tightly, as if squeezing the sobs from him. The rest of her troupe then gathered around, consoling him like they would their own child, until Ethir and his cohorts began to roughly separate them. Aully looked all around her, wondering why everyone was still cheering when thirty of their brethren were being mistreated in plain sight. Then she peered behind her, saw that the lower walkways on the opposite side of the clearing had been kept empty. From the vantage point of those on the upper skywalks, only the overhanging edge of the lowest domiciles would be visible.
Aully took a deep breath, stilling her nerves.
“You won’t hurt them,” she said.
“So long as you keep your end of the bargain, no,” her brother replied, again in that sickeningly pleasant tone. “Make sure it remains that way. Your uncle is with us. It is time.”
Carskel gave her shoulder a light squeeze and stood up. He was two heads taller than Aully and carried himself with an air that oozed royalty, but she knew it was nothing but a ruse. This was an elf who had brutally assaulted his own sister, violating her in the most depraved of ways. He was a monster.
The platform began to shimmy, and Aully glanced down the walk to see her Uncle Detrick striding toward them. He looked dignified in his white robe, but she could see the anger hidden behind his easy smiles. His left hand was wrapped in beige cloth, hiding the empty socket where his index finger had once been, cut off when he dared raise his voice against his nephew. Detrick was an elf beaten, resigned to the role Carskel had given him.
Detrick stopped halfway down the walk and raised his hands. The frenetically cheering crowd hushed.
“Citizens of Stonewood Forest,” Detrick began. “My brothers and sisters, we have been rudderless for quite some time, but on this day we gather to welcome our royal family back into the fold. You all know Aullienna, my niece, your princess. Thirty days ago she returned to us, limping through the forest, desperate for home. This young girl has experienced horrors we can only dream of, losses that would send the best of us howling into our beds. Her father, our Lord Cleotis, is dead. Her mother, our dear Lady Audrianna, is seriously hurt, and her recovery is not certain.” Aully gulped at the words and glanced down at where her mother stood, but she could not make out the expression on Lady Audrianna’s face. Detrick went on: “However, she did not go through her ordeal alone. With her the entire time was one brave elf, a lost soul who has returned our princess to us, a brave warrior who saved the lives of many. He will help guide us through the trying times ahead. Are we ready to greet him?”