“Well, I don’t need you to accompany me,” she said finally. “There’s no need for it. I’ll be safe enough.”
“Will you?”
She looked over at him to see if he was joking. He didn’t appear to be. “In the presence of the members of the High Council and my grandfather? Who would dare to harm me?” she demanded, suddenly angry.
He shrugged. “The same people who would dare to try to kill you in your own house?”
She stopped short. “How did you know …?”
“Your sister told me. Did you think I would be doing this if I didn’t believe the threat was real? She had to tell me why you needed a protector or what was the point of asking for one? You should be a little more forthcoming with me. I’m your friend. You should act like you trust me.”
She immediately bristled. “I trust you! I just don’t think you need to be a part of everything I do!”
“Or perhaps part of anything. If you want me to be of any use, you have to think of me as your shadow. I have to be there all the time, not just when you think it is convenient.” He paused speculatively. “Or would you like me to go?”
She almost told him she would like exactly that. But then she would be back to looking for another bodyguard if she were to keep her promise to the Ard Rhys. So she bit back the first words that came to mind and simply shook her head.
“I apologize. I admit I am not comfortable with this. I am used to looking after myself. It feels awkward having someone do it for me.”
He looked off for a minute. “We both went through the same training when we were schooling to be Trackers, and I remember how much better you were than I was at almost everything. You probably think you still are.” He looked back again. “But you’re not. You have the use of Druid magic, which I don’t. But when it comes to hand-to-hand combat, I am more experienced. I want you to trust me on this and let me do my very best to keep you safe. Will you agree to that and let me do my job?”
They faced each other wordlessly for a minute, and then Aphenglow nodded. “Do what you think is necessary. I won’t argue with you anymore unless I find what you are doing personally invasive.”
He stared at her. “I’m not sure what that means, but I think I can accept it as a condition. May I accompany you to your audience with the King?”
She gave him a small nod. “You may.”
They continued on, not saying anything now, just walking together. Aphenglow wasn’t sure she had resolved how she felt about having Cymrian as her shadow, but was satisfied that she had backed him off sufficiently that he would be careful about how far he encroached on her personal life. She would have a talk with Arlingfant later on about the quality of her choice.
They reached the Council Hall and were met by Home Guards at the entry doors. They identified themselves, and to Aphenglow’s surprise they were both admitted. She had been certain the guards would turn Cymrian away, but they hadn’t even tried. Inside, standing in the hallway that encircled the chamber, he turned to her again.
“I won’t go any farther than this,” he told her. “I know you want privacy in this matter, and I can do my job from out here. I just wanted to be close enough to reach you if you should need me. I will be waiting right outside the chamber doors.”
She left him there, moving over to where the Captain of the Home Guard, a man she didn’t know personally but could identify from his insignia, was waiting.
“Will you tell the King I am here?”
“Sian Aresh,” he introduced himself, bowing slightly. “The King already knows. Come with me.”
He turned around, knocked once loudly, released the heavy latches, and pushed the doors open. When he stepped through, she took a deep, steadying breath and followed him in.
It had been a long time since she had been in the chambers of the Elven High Council. Years. She had been a little girl then, trotting after her grandfather as he led her to this sanctuary where no one could enter uninvited. He had made it a special treat, a journey into a room where all the major decisions governing the Elven people were made, where laws were debated and passed, where honor was bestowed on those who had earned it and punishment visited on those who had transgressed. There had been such a mystery to it, and at the time it had seemed a huge, forbidding place. There had been no one but the two of them, and her grandfather, still fit and spry at eighty, had played leapfrog with her before the King’s throne.
She had been so happy that day. It had been such fun.
It didn’t feel as if anything of that time remained as she stood just inside the doors and looked down the Council table past the stern faces of the members of the High Council to the careworn face of her aged grandfather. Emperowen Elessedil had been King a long time. He had come to the throne in his twenties, well before the time he was expected to rule, made King by fate when his parents had died in an accident. He had been King now for the better part of eighty years, and his age was catching up with him. He no longer played games with granddaughters and grandsons, no longer even smiled. In the twilight years when peace and contentment were expected, he was struggling with illness and the pressing demands of a transfer of power in which he no longer had faith.
His heir apparent sat next to him. Phaedon Elessedil, his only son and Afrengill Elessedil’s older brother, was a moody, passionate man whose character and disposition were ill suited to what was expected of a ruler of the Elven people. He was not well liked and certainly not loved, and those who supported him did so out of fear or ambition. He was a poor choice to lead his people, but by chance of birth and rule of law the issue was settled. The best his father could do at this point in his life was to prolong the inevitable, although he probably continued to have hope things would somehow work out.
Aphenglow knew most of this from talks with her sister and the few visits she had paid to her grandfather in the time she had served with the Druid order. Because of her diminished status, she could say little about her grandfather’s decision to allow Phaedon to succeed him on the throne. But she knew it was a mistake the Elves would live to regret, even though the mistake was not of their doing.
Phaedon looked bored and indifferent. He was studying something off to his right, but unless it was one of the members of the High Council there was nothing there to study. She shifted her gaze to the King’s left and the more welcoming countenance of Ellich Elessedil, who gave her a small nod and a smile.
The other members of the Council offered a variety of looks, but none of them seemed particularly encouraging.
She felt very out of place and very much the intruder in the black Druid robes of her order. She should have worn something less confrontational, she chided herself, and immediately regretted it. She was the representative of her order and should not appear otherwise.
“Welcome, Aphenglow,” her grandfather greeted her, his voice civil but very weak. “Do you wish to speak to this Council?”
She took a step forward. “I do, High Lord. I have come to make a request, one that you might initially be inclined to reject out of hand, but if you hear me out I believe you will be persuaded to support it. I am here on behalf of the Druid order and its Ard Rhys, but it is our people who will be affected most directly by your response to what I am seeking.”
“Our people,” Phaedon repeated, not bothering to look up from the handful of papers he was shuffling. “By which you mean the Elves, I gather?”
His rudeness surprised her. “I do,” she replied.
“Yet you wear Druid robes?”
“Phaedon, let her speak, please,” the King said quietly.
“I only seek clarity,” his son replied, again without looking up.
There was a long silence, as if everyone was waiting on a further exchange.