“We do not know, my lord. But Lord Theremen’s people were certain that Ilsevele survived, if nothing else.”
Seiveril looked down at the silver sapling in Thilesin’s hands. There lies our hope, he mused. In Myth Drannor lies my destiny. But not yet, it seems.
“Call for the captains,” he said wearily. “We march on Tasseldale before the sun rises.”
CHAPTER TEN
10 Eleasias, the Year of Lightning Storms
Fflar opened his eyes in a small stone room, illuminated only by a single slitlike window. He hurt all over, and there was a febrile tremor in his arms and legs that left him feeling as weak as a kitten. Where am I? he wondered. What happened?
For a time he couldn’t put anything together, and simply stared up at the brilliant daylight pouring through the window. Then his brow furrowed in recollection. There was a fight, he remembered. A lonely manor house on a hill, arrows in the dark… the banquet! The dark elf assassins!
“Ilsevele!” he gasped.
“Peace, Starbrow. I am right here.”
Fflar turned his head and found Ilsevele sitting on a wooden chair by the head of the bed on which he lay. A rough abrasion scored one of her cheekbones, and she’d cut away some of her beautiful copper-red locks-most likely because they’d been singed beyond repair, he supposed. But she regarded him with a soft, shy smile and set one cool hand on his forehead. “I think the poison has run its course. We feared the worst, but Lord Selkirk sent a cleric of Tyr to tend to our wounded, and he spoke powerful healing prayers over you while you lay senseless. For that, at least, I am grateful.”
He looked past her shoulder, and saw several of their comrades waiting nearby-Aloiene, Deryth, and three others. But Seirye, Hasterien, and Jerien were not present. I saw Seirye die, he reminded himself. Did Hasterien and Jerien fall as well? He remembered other elves falling in the fury of the battle spells and swordplay.
“By the Seldarine, what a disaster,” he breathed. “Where are we now?”
“The Sharburg. We’re being held in one of the towers. The Sembians say it’s for our own protection.” Ilsevele grimaced. “I pointed out to Lord Selkirk that I would be quite well protected in the camp of my father’s army, but he hasn’t seen fit to allow us to leave yet. There are a number of guards just on the other side of that door.”
“We’ll leave any time you like,” Fflar promised her.
He started to throw off his blanket and rise, only to realize two things at the same time-first, he was still quite weak, and second, he was not wearing a stitch of clothing. While elves did not concern themselves quite as much as humans about that sort of thing, he suddenly found that he was not so willing to abandon his modesty with Ilsevele watching him.
He fell back into his covers, and he remembered everything. She knelt over me and wept when I was hurt. And she kissed me, and I kissed her too. All of the sudden, his heart was hammering in his chest, and he could feel his face flushing with embarrassment. He looked up suddenly in alarm. “Ilsevele, I think I-did we?”
She smiled down at him, and her eyes sparkled with delight. “Yes, we kissed,” she said, and she leaned close to kiss him softly again. “I knew what I was doing, and I meant what I said,” she whispered to him.
“I don’t know what to say,” he answered. In fact, he did, even if he did not want to admit it. Even as his heart danced with the words she breathed into his ear, a dark and ugly knot of guilt grew under his ribs. Seiveril had trusted him to guard Ilsevele, not to steal her heart. And he had dealt with Araevin in an even worse way, hadn’t he? Even if Ilsevele and her betrothed had quarreled lately, he hadn’t waited a day before stepping into his friend’s place. How could he ever look Araevin in the eye again?
“What is it?” Ilsevele asked.
He couldn’t bear to say what came next, but he had to. “Ilsevele… what about Araevin?”
“Do you think it is any easier for me?” A shadow flickered behind her eyes. “I wept for hours, Starbrow. But I came to realize that I have been growing apart from Araevin for years now. And lately he has been growing apart from me, much more so in the last few months. He has left me behind him, and I do not understand him anymore.”
“He is my friend.”
“I know. And I hope that somehow he still will be. But this is my choice, Starbrow, and it is my responsibility as well as yours. Who can tell their heart what to feel?”
“I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
Ilsevele laughed and said, “Perhaps that is exactly why it did.” Fflar started to respond, but she simply laid her fingers across his lips and drew back. “No more for now. You still need rest, and we have all the time in the world to make sense of this. I am not going anywhere, and neither are you.”
Fflar started to protest, but Ilsevele pushed him back into bed with one hand, and he resigned himself to resting a little longer. Sleep-full, unconscious sleep, in the helpless manner of humankind-claimed him for a time.
When he woke again, the sunlight streaming into the room was dim and golden with the approaching dusk. He felt much stronger, and Ilsevele allowed him to rise and dress himself. He found that the elves’ arms and magic devices were in the keeping of their captors. He was just starting to examine whether the narrow window in their chamber could be widened with some judicious removal of stonework when a sharp knock came at the door.
Miklos Selkirk and several of his Silver Ravens entered the room. “Good evening, Lady Miritar,” the Sembian lord said smoothly. “I think it is time that we had a word.”
“It appears that I am at your disposal, Lord Selkirk,” Ilsevele answered, with just the subtlest inflection of bitterness in her voice.
Selkirk grimaced, but he pulled a plain wooden chair out from under a table by the door and seated himself. His guards took up places just behind him.
“Your father’s army is marching,” the Sembian began. “My scouts are not entirely sure, but it seems that Seiveril Miritar is marching east, along the south bank of the Semberflow. If he meant to attack Myth Drannor, he’d be on the other side of the Semberflow and he would be heading north. I can only assume that he means to attack Sembia.”
Ilsevele sank down onto a couch with a stricken look on her face. “He must have heard of the attempt on my life.”
“I had nothing to do with that.”
“I believe you,” Fflar told him. “But you are holding us here like prisoners. What else do you think Seiveril Miritar would do?”
“I will have no choice but battle if he continues. And if I must fight, I see no reason to allow you to return to your people with knowledge of what you’ve seen here.” Selkirk raised a hand to forestall Ilsevele’s protest. “You will be treated honorably, of course. I am not a savage, and I will not allow you to come to harm under my protection.”
“If you continue to hold us, you will only confirm my father’s fears,” Ilsevele said sharply. “If you have any hope of avoiding a battle, you must let go. My father is coming here for my sake, and my sake only. When I am no longer in danger, he will turn aside. He does not want to fight you, Lord Selkirk.”
The Sembian lord nodded. “I think that is true, too. In fact, I am willing to risk allowing you to report on my strength and dispositions, because I hope to avoid the fight altogether. But before I consider setting you free, I need to know something. What happened last night? What exactly was your Captain Starbrow doing before he made his dramatic entrance? What game are you and your people playing at?”
Ilsevele glanced at Fflar. He met her gaze steadily. He was done with fencing with words. The truth was a better answer than anything else he might think up, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if Selkirk had some way of ferreting out a lie anyway. He straightened up and faced the human lord.