She focused on the flames that flickered in the delicate silver candelabrum and illuminated the one hundred and seventeen perfect rubies that were as shiny as fresh blood. Soon she was dozing peaceably, dreaming of the inevitable death of her despised foe.
5
Dhamon often caught Feril staring at him, eyes wide and unable to wholly conceal her disbelief. Though she acknowledged that he was a dragon, he knew she was having a difficult time accepting it, and he knew that as much as she loved all creatures and might have once loved him, a part of her was horrified. Dhamon understood; he knew that he was repellent, even to Ragh, his only friend. All dragons had a particular odor—he remembered Malys the Red smelling of brimstone and ashes; Sable of decaying plant life and fetid water; Brine of the foul sea. His own smell was poisonous; his breath reeked of metal and blood.
Still, the Kagonesti had stayed close. Dhamon intently watched Feril, noting the Kagonesti’s slightly upturned nose, her high cheekbones and rounded chin, those gently pointed ears that he once caressed—back when he was human.
When the sunlight hit her eyes, which were blue flecked with green and saffron, they sparkled dark green like emeralds. Perhaps they were whatever color she wanted them to be, he thought, recalling that late at night under the stars they seemed to shift between deep blue and gold. There was a magic about her after all, and perhaps her eyes changed color with her mood or her setting.
Feril’s hair reminded him of the rich shade of leaves just beginning to turn in the early fall, and though he at first thought he missed her long mass of curls, he decided that he actually liked this new hairstyle better. Her hair was so short that nothing competed with her face. Her skin was lightly tanned like the bark of a young hickory tree, her complexion smooth and flawless. The only exception was a tiny scar on her forehead where a tattoo once had been. He would ask her later what happened to the tattoos and where she had lived these past few years.
He closed his eyes, in his mind still seeing her vividly, and he offered a prayer to whatever god would listen to a dragon, that he could always see her just like this. He wanted to be able to perfectly recall her image after she left him again forever. He wanted to remember what she smelled like—newly opened wildflowers and sage grass, her hair carrying a suggestion of honey and ginger.
She would leave him eventually—this time permanently, he was convinced, but how soon? Wild elves were solitary figures, and Dhamon thought before that it had been a struggle for Feril to stay as long as she did with Palin and the others when they were all Goldmoon’s champions and fought against the overlords.
He just hoped she would stay this time long enough to be of use to him.
Though there had been many women in Dhamon’s life—back when he was human—Feril was the only one he truly had loved. He’d come close to settling down once with a half-elf thief named Riki, who bore his child. He had genuine affection for Riki, but he couldn’t bring himself to commit to her, not considering his reckless nature, and not considering that Feril was too often in his thoughts.
Feril had changed, other than cutting her hair and removing her tattoos. Dhamon noticed that she seemed more confident, that her arms and legs were muscular, yet somehow she moved even more gracefully than in the old days.
She has changed for the better and I so very much for the worse. How long before she leaves? he thought one last time. Then he pushed his musings aside.
It had been just past dawn when Feril led Dhamon and Ragh down a wide path and into this grove of unusual trees. There were lofty black wattles and spreading rusty laurels, and stretching above them were silky oaks and silver basswoods. Feril pointed to tamarinds thick with bellbird vines, and to clumps of pink ash growing amid red muttonwoods. She slowed her pace when they passed an exotic acacia with huge silver-blue feathery leaves and orange flowers in foot-long spikes. The bark had a scent similar to raspberries, and it cut the sulfur odor of the sivak and the smells of the swamp that still clung heavily to Dhamon.
Feril noticed Dhamon admiring some of the trees, in particular a dome-like giant with heart-shaped leaves and copious clusters of vivid scarlet blooms.
“That one and some of these other trees shouldn’t be here,” she said.
“Like I shouldn’t be here,” Dhamon whispered. His soft voice was nonetheless loud enough to be felt by all as it resonated through the ground.
Feril tilted her head back and stretched an arm up so her fingers could tease the soft flowers of the exotic acacia.
“Dhamon, what I mean is that these trees were meant for warmer lands. I know it is hot now this summer, but come winter the snow could lay thick in these woods. They weren’t meant to stand such cold, these beautiful trees.”
Feril explained that when Beryl ruled this forest, the dragon must have done something to the earth or perhaps to the trees themselves so they could thrive here, but would the dragon’s magic eventually fade without her around to nurture it? Did the Kagonesti even want to be in these woods come winter to find out?
Dhamon had offered to fly Feril and Ragh to the Nalis Aren, and at first the sivak had championed the idea.
“What is it about Nalis Aren that might help you become human again?” Feril asked.
It wasn’t the lake itself, but what was in the lake, Dhamon explained. Feril wanted to know more, but he dismissed her questions with a shake of his massive head.
“Later, Feril. When we reach the lake.”
“Why do you need my help so badly?”
“Later, Feril.”
Feril refused to fly with him to Nalis Aren. Dhamon suspected she was just being stubborn; she would insist on taking her time traveling to Nalis Aren, just as he insisted on taking his time revealing everything that had to be done.
“It is not terribly far from here, the Lake of Death.” Feril shook her head vehemently when he noted that they could avoid all these trees and fly there directly. “We can walk. It’ll take three days at the most if we keep up this pace. We’ll follow the river. I want to see if there are any more bandits or knights along the way, and I want to see if there are more burnt places, things we might not be able to see from the sky.”
They all knew the land had been scorched by fire and magic, and that here and there were mass graves of Qualinesti elves. Indeed, they ran across a small group of marauders that they dealt with summarily. They had come upon the raggedy men skulking near a long, deep rut that ran parallel to the river. Perhaps the rut had been dug for a reason, but Feril couldn’t fathom why. Perhaps it was made by a dragon, Dhamon speculated as he smoothed it over with his claws—after burying the bodies of the bandits they had killed deep in the trench.
They continued on without sleep and so reached Nalis Aren after two days. It was afternoon and the sun, though high and intense, was not enough to burn off the thin mist that hung above the massive crater-lake. It was roughly shaped like a triangle and filled the entire valley. The south end touched the foothills of the Kharolis Mountains, and the center of it was more than two miles across.
“Lovely,” Feril said.
It was more than lovely, she thought, it was also unnatural—the color of the water was murky, yet the surface lay as smooth as polished glass despite the White Rage River surging into it. Where the brown foamy river met the lake’s edge was where the water changed color and grew still. The sand around the shore was the shade of eggshells and sparkled in places from what Feril guessed were grains of quartz. No trees grew within a hundred yards of the sand and the nearest were old oaks that reached eighty or more feet into the sky.
They stood just inside the treeline staring straight ahead at the strange lake.
There were traces of old roads leading to the water from all directions, though they were now overgrown with milkweed and fennel and a scattering of seedlings. Feril noticed bootprints on the path they’d traveled to get here, and she suspected the tracks were made by either Knights of Neraka or bandits, but in no significant number and not within recent days. There were odd prints, too, goblins most likely, though it looked like they had tried to cover up their tracks. Feril could study the tracks more closely to make sure what creatures left them, or she could ask Dhamon, who was an expert woodsman. These prints, too, were weeks old.