“Very well!” Drakkar cried.
He made a quick hand gesture and spoke a word in the drow tongue. With a faint hissing sound, the magical coils vanished. Tal groaned and rolled over onto his back, staring at the sky. Dark singe lines crisscrossed his flesh, but at least he was alive.
“And Leifander?” Larajin asked.
Drakkar beckoned for Leifander to approach him. Leifander blinked in confusion a moment, then at last grasped what the wizard wanted. He walked to Drakkar, obedient and docile, and gave the wizard an innocent, trusting look as Drakkar’s questing fingers moved across his scalp.
“Ah!” Drakkar grunted after a moment or two. “There.”
He plucked something out of Leifander’s scalp, and held it up for Larajin to see. It was another thorn. Drakkar flicked it away into the forest.
Leifander’s eyes cleared instantly. With a harsh caw, he leaped for the wizard’s throat. Larajin, however, had anticipated this, and shouted a single command: “Stop!”
Once again, the fragrance of Hanali’s Heart filled the air as the locket at Larajin’s wrist pulsed red. Suddenly rigid, Leifander strained against Larajin’s spell a moment or two, then, finding himself unable to attack Drakkar, he whirled on her.
“Why?” he asked in a strangled voice.
“I made a promise to Drakkar,” Larajin said, “that if he restored your mind, I wouldn’t let you harm him.”
“My … mind?” Leifander rubbed a temple and looked around like a sleeper who had suddenly awakened. He saw Tal groaning on the ground, and added, “What happened here?”
Drakkar continued to eye Leifander warily. His fingers hovered over on his staff, ready to pluck a thorn at the first sign of trouble.
“I’m having a talk with Drakkar,” Larajin answered. “Just like Doriantha is talking to Maalthiir.”
Understanding bloomed instantly in Leifander’s eyes.
“I see.” He glanced at Drakkar, then feigned disgust. “Fine. Talk to him, then.” Deliberately, he turned his back on her.
Larajin turned her attention back to Drakkar, whose posture was still tense and ready. Infatuated with her he might be, but he was still cautious.
“Drakkar, like you, I’m half human and half elf,” Larajin continued. “I’ve faced a lack of acceptance because of it, but I’m not a traitor to my people.”
“Nor am I!” Drakkar wheezed. “My people-”
“You’ve turned your back on your human side,” Larajin said, “and that saddens me.” She let the words hang in the air a moment, then added, “Do you know what would make me very happy?”
Drakkar’s face brightened. “What?”
“If this war had never begun.”
Drakkar shook his head. “But it has. It can’t be stopped.”
Larajin looked him square in the eye. “Yes it can. You can stop it by returning to Selgaunt and using your influence with the Hulorn to persuade him to petition against the war.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Larajin could see Leifander begin to smile.
“It would also please me if you would speak to Lord Maalthiir and try to make him realize that the forest elves are too strong and that his plans to carve a road through the forest will never succeed.”
“But they will!” Drakkar said. “We’ll use the wands I created-using the mist, we can clear a road in a tenday.” He was obviously trying to impress her.
Larajin shook her head slowly. “Causing further destruction to the forest would make me very sad. And very unhappy with you, Drakkar.”
The wizard’s face fell.
“Finally, you could speak to the drow and convince them that they’re better off in their lairs below ground-that the forest is no place for them.”
“I would do anything for you, Larajin, but I cannot accomplish the impossible,” Drakkar said. “The drow aren’t likely to-”
“Very well,” Larajin interrupted, “but my first two requests-you will speak to the Hulorn, and to Maalthiir, won’t you?”
For a moment, defiance flickered in Drakkar’s eyes, and Larajin thought she had lost him. He gave a great sigh, like a lovesick youth.
“For you, Larajin … I’ll do it.”
Beside Larajin, Leifander had to pretend to cough, to cover his wide grin. Tal had risen feebly to a sitting position and was gaping at what he heard.
Larajin ignored him.
“There is one thing more you could do for me, if you would,” she told Drakkar.
Drakkar’s eyebrows lifted. “What is it, my dear?”
She lifted her foot slightly. “This thorn hurts,” she said simply. “Could you please remove it?”
“Of course!” Kneeling at her side like a Sembian gallant, Drakkar removed her boot and plucked the thorn from the sole of her foot.
“And this one, too?” Larajin asked, pointing at her tongue.
“Yes. Immediately.”
Somehow she kept her face neutral while Drakkar’s fingers probed inside her mouth. When the thorn was gone, relief washed through her.
“Thank you,” she said, then she let a touch of haughtiness creep into her voice. Deliberately she adopted the same tone Thazienne used to such good effect on her hordes of lovesick suitors. “Well, Drakkar, what are you waiting for? The Hulorn is going to be the toughest to convince. You’d better start back for Selgaunt at once.”
“I…” Once again resistance flickered in Drakkar’s eyes-then was gone, as a rush of floral scent filled the air. “At once, my dear,” he said, bowing. “At once.”
He disappeared with a soft pop.
Leifander turned to Larajin, no longer trying to hide his grin, and asked, “Do you think he’ll do it?”
Larajin nodded. “I’ve never felt the power of the goddesses so keenly as when I cast that spell upon him. He’ll do it.” She shrugged. “As to whether it’s enough to put an end to this war, well, we’ll see.”
She groaned, at last acknowledging the pain of her injured arm. During the exhilaration of working her magic upon Drakkar, she’d been able to ignore it, but the pain was washing over her in waves, making her feel faint and queasy.
“Now,” she told him, “I have to mend this arm of mine.”
EPILOGUE
Two figures stood in the forest, watching through a gap in the trees as soldiers with red plumes on their helms trooped past along the road. Riding beside them in an open carriage were four men. Three were officers-one with a vertical scar across his face, another burly and bald, the third a wiry, thin man with fair hair. They stared at the soldiers under their command and shook their heads, as if mightily displeased. The fourth man-who had close-cropped red hair and eyebrows that met in a V-kept turning to look south, back the way they had come, a lovesick look on his face.
The two figures surreptitiously watching the soldiers from the woods-a wild elf with tattooed cheeks and hands and glossy black feathers in his braid; and a woman wearing a red scarf in her hair and a heart-shaped locket at her wrist-turned to each other and grinned, as if sharing a great secret, then they glanced at the woman next to them.
This woman was older than the other two, with gray hair and a face creased with wrinkles and tattooed in a tree-branch pattern. She crouched near the base of an enormous standing stone whose glossy gray surface was carved with Elvish script. She ran a hand across the surface of the stone, then peered closely at it, and smiled.
“It is done,” she told the other two. “The prophesy is fulfilled. The rift is healed, and the crack has vanished.”
She lifted her wrinkled face to catch the sun, and savored a moment of birdsong that echoed through the wood.
“The gods themselves are singing,” she added, standing. “What will you do now?”
The man’s eyes ranged over the trees, and the new vegetation that was growing in a blighted patch of wood. As he considered his answer, a wren burst out of a clump of undergrowth, winging its way toward him. It landed on the man’s shoulder, tail flicking, as a winged cat padded out of the bush. The tressym glanced around the clearing and spotted the bird on the man’s shoulder. It crouched, tail lashing, about to spring-but then a sharp word from the woman in red brought it to heel. Obediently it padded over to her and wove itself in and out through her ankles, then settled at her feet-only occasionally glancing slyly up at the bird.