The young elf wondered when the tears would come. Perhaps the shock of using her dragonmark willfully for the first time had killed her emotions, or maybe she really was a cold-hearted killer who felt nothing for those she murdered.
Esprë rested her hands on the airship’s wheel and felt the mind of the craft’s elemental there, anxious and ready to strike out in a new direction, but where?
Esprë considered going back to Mardakine, but there was nothing for her there. Perhaps she would try Sharn instead, which lay even farther on the other side of the Mournland. She wondered if the airship could take her back to Aerenal, the eternal homeland of the elves. She hadn’t been there since shortly after her birth. She wondered if her grandparents would recognize her, much less take her in.
The young elf had no home. With Kandler gone, she was alone in the world.
The tears started then.
Esprë still wept when something that felt like a jagged, razor-tipped knife stabbed into her brain. She screeched in terror as she fought to shove back against the telepathic attack, but its sharp point sliced through her mental shields. If not for her savage grip on the airship’s wheel, she would have fallen into a pile of bones on the bridge.
The young elf summoned every bit of her determination to haul herself up by her arms. As she did, she glared down and saw Te’oma struggling to her knees. “There’s your first lesson as a killer,” the changeling rasped, her pale skin faded to skeletal white. “Always make sure your victim is dead.”
Esprë didn’t waste any effort on words. She knew that this was the end. Either she or the changeling would die here. She wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Hold very still,” Te’oma said, in the tone of a mother scolding an errant child. “I’m going to bind you hand and foot this time. That’s the penalty for breaking your word.”
Esprë ignored the telepath’s patter. Instead, she cleared her mind and reached out to the elemental trapped in the ring of fire that wreathed the airship like a golden ring around a tattered scroll.
The ship lunged forward and down, and Te’oma flipped straight over the bridge’s console, then slid along the main deck toward the bow, screaming the entire way. Only the railing at the ship’s prow kept her from sailing right over the edge and into the open sky below.
Then the ship leaned forward farther, and Te’oma tumbled right over the railing and disappeared.
Esprë reached out for the leather strap hanging from the ship’s console and bound herself to the wheel. She knew the changeling wouldn’t be gone for long. She grabbed the wheel and coaxed the elemental into charging toward the ground with every bit of speed it could muster.
“No!” Te’oma screamed as she swung in behind the ship’s stern on the leathery, batlike wings of her magic cloak.
The changeling dove down at the young elf, her arms spread wide, her brain lashing out at Esprë’s tender mind. “I won’t let you do this,” she said. “You can’t!”
The pain in Esprë’s head blinded her for a moment, and she thought she might pass out. She slumped over the wheel, feeling the wind blasting through her hair as the ship plummeted to the ground like a blazing stone.
“Stop it!” Te’oma screamed as she wrapped her arms around Esprë, trying to grab for the wheel, to wrest control from the young elf and pull the airship up before it was too late. “I said stop it!”
A melancholy grin appeared on Esprë’s face as she looked over her shoulder at the changeling who was trying to save her life. “I’m not trying to kill myself,” she shouted over the roaring wind, or maybe the ring of fire that seemed to be cackling with glee. She reached back with a hand and slapped the changeling across the cheek.
“I’m trying to kill you!”
Esprë’s head exploded in an excruciating show of pain and light. As darkness swept over her in an undeniable black wave, she saw Te’oma’s eyes roll back into her head.
The last thing she knew was her own bitter smile.
16
“What do you mean ‘thunder lizards’?” Kandler said to Burch.
The shifter pointed down at the large pile of fresh dung in front of him. “Step in it once, you never forget it.”
Kandler, Burch, Sallah, Brendis, and Xalt had been walking northeast for the better part of the day. “Better to get away from the Cyre,” Burch had said, “and Ikar’s bandits.”
The plan was to march until their path crossed that of the north-south lightning rail line that ran through the nation of the Talenta Plains, from the capital of Gatherhold in the south up toward the Karrnathi capital Korth.
“Unless the changeling can navigate by the stars, she’s probably just guessing which way to fly that ship,” Burch had said. “With luck, she’ll follow the rail line north until she spots something she recognizes.”
“Do we have any prayer of catching her?” Brendis had asked.
“Prayer’s your solution.” The shifter twitched his nose at the knight as he picked up his pace, forcing Brendis to trot after him to keep up. “Not mine.”
Burch had smelled the dung long before Kandler saw it. The waving grasses stood high in the plains, past the justicar’s waist, which made spotting something lying on the ground difficult. The shifter had signaled for Kandler and Sallah to stop but let Brendis step right into the smelly mess.
While the young knight tried to scrape his boots clean, Sallah asked Burch the question burning in Kandler’s mind. “What size of thunder lizards are you talking about?”
Burch screwed up his face. “Spoor’s not too big.”
“It covered my foot to the ankle!” Brendis said, dragging his foot through the long grass in a wide circle around the others.
“Small, for a thunder lizard,” Burch said. “Probably a clawfoot, about as big as a lupallo. Good fighters too. Got a toe claw you could use to harvest wheat. Halflings around here ride them to war.”
Sallah blew out a deep breath. “I’ve heard of such things, but they seemed mere fodder for stories, tales told to scare children.”
Burch smirked. “They’re real enough. Just ask Brendis.”
“How many?” Kandler asked.
A few yards to the north, Brendis slipped in something soft and disappeared in the grass. “The Flame take this whole place!” he cursed as he scrambled to his feet, dragging his leg behind him, trying to wipe it clean.
“At least two,” Burch said, laughing softly at the young knight, his mouth drawn wide and baring his rows of sharp, pointed teeth. “Keep hopping around,” he called to Brendis. “You’ll find them all.”
“Is this trouble?” Kandler asked.
Burch shrugged. “Wild clawfeet hunt in packs. They can devour a bull in a matter of minutes. If they’re tame, well, it depends on who’s riding them, don’t it?”
“The halflings of the plains are peaceable folk,” Brendis said as he gave up on getting himself any cleaner. As he walked back to the others, Kandler wondered if the horrible stench that followed the knight would draw the clawfeet to them or drive them away.
“Ever met any?” Burch asked.
Brendis shook his head.
“The Plains aren’t a nation like you’d think of it—more a collection of tribes. If Cyre and Karrnath hadn’t kept bugging them during the Last War, they’d have stayed that way. Only a common threat like that brought them all together.”
“So they stand united,” said Brendis, “civilized by their interactions with the other nations.”
“If you can call defending yourselves ‘interaction,’ then sure, but the war’s over. They’re sure to revert to their old ways.”
“Which were?”