In the clearing, Arcuballis reared up on its hinds legs and spread its wings in greeting. The beast had returned from hunting to find everyone gone. Kith-Kanan paid it no heed as he rushed toward Anaya’s home—their home.
The prince ran to the hollow tree and laid Anaya on a silver wolf pelt that Mackeli had dragged outside. Her eyes were closed and her skin was ice cold. Kith-Kanan felt for a pulse. There was none.
“Do something!” he screamed at Mackeli. The boy stared at Anaya, his mouth open. Kith-Kanan grabbed the front of his tunic. “Do something, I said!”
“I don’t know anything!”
“You know about roots and herbs!” he begged.
“Ny is dead, Kith. I cannot call her back to life. I wish I could, but I can’t!”
When the prince saw the tears in Mackeli’s eyes, he knew that the boy spoke the truth. Kith-Kanan let go of Mackeli’s tunic and rocked back on his heels, staring down at the still form of Anaya. Anaya.
Rage and anguish boiled up inside the prince. His sword lay on the ground by the tree, where Voltorno had found and discarded it. Kith-Kanan picked up the blade and stared at it. The half-human had murdered his wife, and he had done nothing. He’d let Voltorno murder his wife and child-to-be.
Kith-Kanan screamed—a horrible, deep, wrenching cry—then slammed the flat of the blade against the oak tree. The cold iron snapped five inches above the hilt. In anger he threw the sword hilt as far as he could.
Night. Mackeli and Kith-Kanan sat inside the tree, not moving, not talking. They had covered Anaya with her favorite blanket, one made from the pelts of a dozen rabbits. Now they sat in darkness. The broken blade of his sword lay across Kith-Kanan’s lap.
He was cursed. He felt it in his heart. Love always eluded him. First Hermathya had been taken away. So be it. He had found a better life and a better wife than Hermathya would ever have been. His life had just begun again. And now it had ended. Anaya was dead. Their unborn child was dead. He was cursed.
A gust of wind blew in the open door, sweeping leaves and dust in tiny whirlwinds around Mackeli’s ankles. He sat with his head on his knees, staring blankly at the floor. The shriveled brown oak leaves were lifted from the ground and spun around. He followed their dancing path toward the doorway, and his eyes widened.
The green glow that filled the open entrance to the hollow tree transfixed Mackeli. It washed his face and silver hair.
“Kith,” he murmured. “Look.”
“What is it?” the prince asked tiredly. He looked toward the doorway, and a frown creased his forehead. Then, throwing the mantle off his shoulders, he got up. With a hand on the door edge, Kith-Kanan looked outside. The soft mound that was Anaya beneath her blanket was the source of the strange green light. The Silvanesti prince stepped outside. Mackeli followed.
The light was cool as Kith-Kanan knelt by Anaya’s body and slowly pulled the rabbit-fur blanket back. It was Anaya herself that was glowing.
Her emerald eyes sprang open.
With a strangled cry, Kith-Kanan fell back. Anaya sat up. The strong light diminished, leaving only a mild verdant aura surrounding the elf woman. She was green from hair to toes.
“Y-You’re alive!” he stuttered.
“No,” Anaya said sadly. She stood, and he did likewise. “This is part of the change. This was meant to happen. All the animal life has left me, and now, Kith, I am becoming one with the forest.”
“I don’t understand.” To speak with his wife when he’d all but resigned himself to never seeing her again brought Kith-Kanan great joy. But her manner, the tone of her words, frightened him more than her death. He couldn’t comprehend what was happening.
The green Anaya put a hand to his cheek. It was cool and gentle. She smiled at him, and a lump grew in his throat. “This happened to the other keepers. When their time was done, they became one with the forest, too. I am dead, dear Kith, but I will be here for thousands of years. I am joining the wildwood.”
Kith-Kanan took her in his arms. “What about us? Is this what you want?” he asked, and fear made his voice harsh.
“I love you, Kith” Anaya said passionately, “but I am content now. This is my destiny. I am glad I was able to explain it to you.” She pulled free of his embrace and walked off a few yards.
“I have always liked this spot in the clearing. It is a good place”, she said with satisfaction.
“Good-bye, Ny!” Mackeli called tearfully. “You were a good sister!”
“Good-bye, Keli. Live well.”
Kith-Kanan rushed to her. He couldn’t accept this. It was all too strange. It was happening too quickly! He tried to take Anaya in his arms once more, but her feet were fixed to the ground.
Her eyes rebuked him gently as she said consolingly, “Don’t fight it, Kith.” Her voice becoming faint, the keeper added, “It is right.”
“What of our child?” he asked desperately.
Anaya placed a hand on her belly. “He is there still. He was not part of the plan. A long, long time from now he will be born…” The light slowly dwindled in her eyes. “Farewell, my love.”
Kith-Kanan held Anaya’s face between his hands and kissed her. For a moment only, her lips had the yielding quality of flesh. Then a firmness crept in. The elf prince pulled back and, even as he touched her face for the last time, Anaya’s features slowly vanished. What had been skin roughened into bark. By the time Kith-Kanan spoke her name once more, Anaya had found her destiny. At the clearing’s edge, the prince of the Silvanesti was embracing a fine young oak tree.
21 — Silvanost, Year of the Ram
For a month the ambassadors met with the Speaker of the Stars, yet nothing was accomplished. Nothing, except that Speaker Sithel fell ill. His health had been deteriorating over the preceding weeks, and the strain of the conference had sapped his strength to the point that by the morning of the twenty-ninth day, he could not even rise from his bed. Sickness was so rare for the speaker that a mild panic gripped the palace. Servants dashed about, conversing in whispers. Nirakina summoned Sithas and Hermathya to the speaker’s bedside. So grave was her tone, Sithas half-expected to find his father on the verge of death.
Standing now at the foot of his father’s bed, the prince could see that Sithel was wan and dispirited. Nirakina sat beside her ailing husband, holding a damp cloth to his head. Hermathya hovered in the background, obviously uncomfortable in the presence of illness.
“Let me call a healer,” Nirakina insisted.
“It’s not necessary,” Sithel said testily. “I just need some rest.”
“You have a fever!”
“I do not! Well, if I do, do you think I want it known that the Speaker of the Stars is so feeble he needs a healer to get well? What sort of message do you suppose that sends to our people? Or to the foreign emissaries?” This short speech left him winded, and he breathed heavily, his face pale against the cream-colored pillows.
“Regarding the ambassadors, what shall I tell them?” Sithas asked. “If you cannot attend the conference today…”
“Tell them to soak their heads,” Sithel muttered. “That devious dwarf and that contentious human female.” His words subsided.
“Now, husband, that’s no way to talk,” Nirakina said agreeably. “There’s no stigma to being ill, you know. You’d get well a lot sooner if a healer treated you.”
“I’ll heal myself, thank you.”
“You may lie here for weeks, fevered, ill-tempered…”
“I am not ill-tempered!” Sithel shouted.
Nirakina rose from the bed purposefully. To Sithas she directed her questions. “Who can we get? Who is the best healer in Silvanost?”
From the far wall, Hermathya uttered one word: “Miritelisina.”
“Impossible,” the prince said quickly, looking at his wife with reproach. “She is in prison, as you well know, Lady.”