When the girl didn’t answer fast enough, Shadea struck her again, twice, the open–handed blows delivered first to one side of her face and then to the other. The girl’s head snapped back and forth with the blows, and she gasped audibly with each one. Shadea gripped her clothing with her free hand so that she couldn’t fall, kept her standing upright, sagging slightly from the attack.
« Your name, girl,” she repeated. «You are an Elessedil or you are a thief because only one or the other would possess the Elfstones. Which is it?»
« Khyber Elessedil,” the girl whispered. Her face was already beginning to redden and swell.
Shadea glanced at her companions, both of whom shook their heads. Neither recognized anything beyond the Ekssedil part of the name.
« What are you to Kellen Elessedil?» Shadea snapped.
« He is my brother.»
« Was,” Shadea corrected. «He’s dead. Killed on the Prekkendorran almost a week ago.»
She watched the girl’s gaze lift to meet hers and saw more tears fill her eyes. Good. She was already beginning to come apart. This wouldn’t be so hard.
« You are all alone, Khyber Elessedil,” she whispered, her voice flat and emotionless. «No one even knows you are here, save those you left stranded in the ruins of Stridegate and the boy you helped escape. I wouldn’t expect any help from them, if I were you. Nor from any other source. You no longer possess the Elfstones, I have them safely tucked away. You have no real Druid magic to help you escape, you are a neophyte. Your fate is sealed. If you want to live, you will tell me exactly what I want to know. Are you listening to me?»
The girl nodded, but there was a hint of defiance still in her dark eyes. Shadea smiled. Foolish bravado.
She reached inside the girl’s clothing, found a place where the flesh was soft and vulnerable, fastened her fingers like a vise, and twisted. The girl screamed with pain, her body jerking in an effort to get free. Shadea held her fast and twisted harder.
« Are you listening carefully?» she hissed.
The girl nodded, her eyes shut against the pain. «Then be quick to answer when I ask you a question.» She withdrew her hand. «I can cause you a great deal more pain than a few slaps across the face and a little twisting of your tender parts. I can hurt you in places you haven’t even begun to think about. I can make you beg for me to kill you. I learned how while I served with the Federation army on the Prekkendorran. I learned that and a good deal more that you don’t want to know anything about!»
She paused. «Let’s try it again. I ask a question, you give me an answer. Where did Penderrin Ohmsford go?»
The girl exhaled sharply, her head sagging. «Into the Forbidding. After the Ard Rhys.»
Shadea glanced disdainfully at Traunt Rowan and Pyson Wence.Hear that? Her eyes challenged them to say otherwise. «How did he get into the Forbidding? No one can go there without magic. Was it the staff he carried out of Stridegate that let him do so?»
The girl nodded again and swallowed thickly.
« How did he find this staff?» She was furious at the idea of it, enraged that such a talisman even existed. «How did he know what it would do?» She reached down and yanked the girl’s chin off her chest, pinching her jaws. «Speak to me, you little fool!»
The dark eyes opened, filled with hate. «The King of the Silver River told him.»
Shadea stared at her wordlessly, then let her head drop down again. A Faerie creature was aiding the boy. No wonder he had found a way. She refused to look at her Druid allies, afraid of what she would see in their eyes after hearing that.
She snatched a handful of the girl’s close–cropped hair and pulled her head back up again. «Why this boy?» she demanded. «Why him? Why not his father? His father is Bek Ohmsford, brother to Grianne. He is the one with real magic. What does this boy have that brought the King of the Silver River to him?»
The girl shook her head slowly. «1 don’t know. Something different. Something …»
« If he succeeds, if he finds Grianne Ohmsford, what happens then? How does he get back?»
« The staff.»
« The staff? The staff what? What does it do?» She shook the girl until she could hear her bones crack. «What does the staff do, little Elven girl? How does it work?»
The girl shuddered. «Brings … them back … together. To the place … they went in.»
She sagged heavily, and Shadea realized she had fainted. Too much pain, apparently. She wasn’t as strong as she had tried to make herself appear. She looked frail, and she was. A poor ally to the boy. But then they were all poor allies, those who had sought to help him, the living and the dead. He had wasted himself relying on them. Whatever chance he had, it did not lie with the likes of this girl and Tagwen and Kermadec and his Rock Trolls.
She flung the girl to the floor and let her lie. Her mind raced. It didn’t matter if the boy had crossed over into the Forbidding. It didn’t matter if he had found a temporary ally in a spirit creature. What mattered was that his chances of surviving inside the Forbidding were much less than those of Grianne Ohmsford, and hers were poor. What mattered was that if he somehow gotout of the Forbidding, she must reduce those chances to zero.
She exhaled sharply, her focus on what was needed sharp and clear. She understood the situation perfectly. If Grianne Ohmsford and the boy must return the same way they went in, then they must come back through the very chamber in which she now stood. That gave her a distinct advantage, and she intended to make use of it.
She turned toward her allies. If either had been startled by what they had heard, they had managed to recover their composure.
Pyson Wence wore his sly, cautious look. Traunt Rowan was steady–eyed and stone–faced against whatever she had to offer.
She surprised them. «What’s done is done,” she said quietly. «It was as much my fault as it was yours. I am the one who leads, I am the one who must bear responsibility for any failure. I should have taken better precautions before going south to Arishaig. I regret that, but there is nothing to be gained by dwelling on it. Let us consider instead what we must do to compensate.»
She moved over to the window and beckoned for them to join her. They did so with a certain degree of hesitation. Neither was convinced that she had undergone a real change of heart.
« The boy is inside the Forbidding searching for his aunt. He might find her, if both can manage to stay alive long enough. He might even manage to bring her back again, through the wall of the Forbidding, using whatever magic it is that this staff gives him. I don’t think it is likely or even possible, but I don’t want to chance being wrong.»
She spoke in a whisper, so that they were forced to bend close. She spoke as if she were in fear of being overheard. In truth, she simply wanted them to think she was taking them into her confidence. Which, in a way, she was. She just wasn’t doing so for the reasons they thought.
« We know that the staff’s magic will bring them to these chambers. We must be waiting for them if that happens. More to the point, we must find a way to make certain that they will be rendered helpless. Even if we are not here, personally, to intercept them, we must make certain that it doesn’t matter, that they are caged and stripped of their power and made prisoners. They must be given no chance to use their magic—especially Grianne Ohmsford. They must be disarmed.»
« You make this sound so easy, Shadea,” Pyson Wence sneered. «As if disarming a Druid of Grianne Ohmsford’s power were easily within our means. But it isn’t, is it? Catching her off guard and vulnerable was our best chance. She won’t be caught napping a second time. She will come back through that doorway like a whirlwind and we will all be swept away!»