“I’ve seen this coming for days,” Monja said with a sigh.
“Where?” Kandler said louder. He squeezed the changeling’s neck harder for emphasis. She began to turn pale, and he wondered if it was from a lack of blood or because she meant to change shape again.
“Don’t know,” Te’oma said. She tried to shrug, but Kandler, wary of a trick, shook her like a rag doll.
“She’s telling the truth,” Sallah said.
He glanced at her and saw the pain in her eyes, along with the ugly image of his angry visage reflected there. Disgusted, he shoved Te’oma away. She fell to her knees and coughed and hacked fresh air into her lungs.
“The rest of you stay here,” Kandler said, not caring how nasty his snarls might sound. “I’m going after my daughter.”
19
“I can’t believe that Kandler would keep me from my father,” Esprë said as she and Burch entered the basket that would take them to the top of the tower. The shifter shot her a look, and she blushed. “You’re right. I can.”
She leaned over and panted as the basket began to ascend. They’d run hard to make sure they would get here before Kandler, and she wanted to catch her breath before she met her father.
What would this Ledenstrae look like, she wondered? She had no memory of him at all. Her mother had taken her from Aerenal while Esprë was still an infant, and she’d not been in her father’s presence since. Had she ever? Had he held her even once?
She ran a hand through her hair, worried now that she might not measure up to his expectations. The time on the road from Mardakine to here had not been kind to her. She’d not had a bath since shortly after she’d awakened in Fort Bones—unless she counted getting dunked in the frigid underground lake in which the dragon Nithkorrh had lived.
She knew she didn’t look much like a princess. Her mother—always practical—had never treated her that way. That was part of the land she’d left behind, and she and Esprë had to carve out their own way in this strange new place.
Kandler had even fewer illusions about proper society and culture, of which there had been none in Mardakine anyhow. He’d been trained as a soldier, an agent, but never as a father. Despite that, she knew he’d done his best.
At first, after her mother had died, Esprë had feared that Kandler would send her away, perhaps back to Aerenal, to live with people she didn’t know. Then, after he’d made it clear he would do his best to raise her, she wondered if he’d only offered to do so out of some sort of sense of duty to her mother.
Over the years, though, she’d come to know that Kandler loved her for herself, not just for whose daughter she might be. She admitted to herself that she’d come to love him too.
I
That’s why it hurt so much that he’d decided to keep her from her father this way. Did he think that she would just jump into this stranger’s arms and let him steal her away? Did Kandler really think so little of her? Was his faith in her so small?
Burch moved in the basket next to her, and she looked at him. The shifter seemed to be standing on his toes, ready to leap from the confined space as soon as he could. She reached out and grabbed his arm, both to steady him and to gain his attention.
“Isn’t he going to kill you?” Esprë asked.
Burch stopped squirming around and stared at the girl with his yellow eyes. “Probably. We’ve known each other a long while, but it’s never good to get between a papa and his cub.” He shrugged. “Kill’s probably too strong a word.”
“I meant figuratively.” She shuddered. “He wouldn’t really kill you. Would he?” Her voice sounded far less sure than she wanted it to.
Burch shrugged.
“Why did you tell me when he wouldn’t?” she asked.
The basket reached the end of its journey, and Burch escorted her out into the room beyond without a word. She tugged at his shirt. “Burch,” she said.
He didn’t look at her. “Did I mention Majeeda’s here too?”
“What?” Esprë said, her guts filled with ice.
“Hello!” a strange elf said in Elven as he strode into the room from the balcony beyond. His white hair shone in the late-day sunlight, complementing his pale skin and contrasting with his robes of black linen. His golden eyes sparkled with joy.
The elf dashed forward and put his arms on Esprë’s shoulders. “How good it is to see you again,” he said, marveling, his accent featuring the regal tones of Aerenal. “I would know you anywhere. You are your mother’s daughter, to be sure.”
Esprë stared up at the elf. He stood much shorter than Kandler, perhaps about Burch’s height instead. He seemed thin and frail, like he might not be able to heft a proper sword, but he still radiated a powerful confidence that Esprë found comforting.
“Hello,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. She cleared her throat. “Hello, Ledenstrae.”
The elf reached out and took her chin in his hand. Holding it, he peered into her eyes and smiled. “You may call me Father, young one.”
“As you wish,” Esprë said, “Father.” The word felt strange on her tongue. She’d not had a father for so long that the concept seemed like an invader from a strange but familiar land.
Majeeda strolled into the room behind Ledenstrae, her bones creaking with every move. Esprë couldn’t tell if the soft, fragile sounds she heard came from the rustling of the deathless elf’s robes or her tissue-thin skin.
“Oh, my little darling,” Majeeda said, opening her arms for an embrace. “It’s such a relief to see you safe and sound. When you disappeared from my home—”
As Esprë flinched at the old elf’s approach, Burch stepped between them with a wicked grin. He spread his arms wide, ready to accept the wizard’s affections, but she recoiled, not bothering to hide her disgust.
Ledenstrae had stepped back to permit Majeeda to greet Esprë. Now he reached out and brought Esprë to him, holding an arm around her. She couldn’t tell if he meant to protect her from Majeeda or Burch, or if he just wanted to establish his parentage by showing some sort of concern.
The fact that he hadn’t shown any such concern over the past decades of her life wasn’t lost on Esprë. She would never forget that he’d not been around for her since, well, ever. She wondered, though, if their blood-bond would be enough, something they could build a relationship on now. Perhaps their chance to know each other had been delayed but not destroyed.
“I am glad that Kandler saw the wisdom of returning you to me,” Ledenstrae said.
“You didn’t give him much of a choice,” said Burch. He blew a kiss at Majeeda and grinned as the bony creature shuddered with revulsion.
“He didn’t return me to you,” Esprë said, finding her voice. “I came of my own accord.”
Ledenstrae squeezed her shoulder. “I knew you had my blood in you,” he said. “I could see it the moment you walked into the room.”
Esprë heard something less than joy in the elf’s tone.
Wistfulness? It was hard to say. She didn’t know Ledenstrae at all, but she’d spent little time in the company of elves other than her mother. Once she learned their ways, perhaps her father’s demeanor wouldn’t seem so strange.
“It is as I told you,” Majeeda said. She ran her hands down the front of her robes, trying to smooth out the wrinkles there and regain her composure. “My knowledge of such things knows no peer.”
Ledenstrae grimaced at this, then gestured toward the balcony beyond the room in which they stood. “Come,” he said. “Let us sit in the sun and speak. I would like to get to know my daughter better.”
Esprë looked up at the elf and took his hand in hers. “I think I’d like that,” she said.