Traitor (17 page)

I took a panicked breath and flexed against my restraints. I wanted to know if it was really true. But before I could get a word out, the guards watching me noticed I was perking up. They immediately kicked out my legs, forcing me to my knees before the king.

“He has tried to make himself look like us.” The king curled his lip in disgust as he glared down at me. “And yet he wears their mark and fights with those demons.”

A few people in the crowd began spitting and cursing at me again.

The king grabbed a fistful of my hair. I’d always worn it long because of my mother. She’d insisted on it, saying that it was a matter of pride to gray elf people that they never cut their hair.

The king took a long, curled knife from inside his robes. I thought this was the end. Maybe he would slit my throat. Maybe he would ram it into the side of my head. Either way, I was going to die.

I felt the cold of the metal touch the back of my neck, then a violent jerking, tearing sensation. The king tossed my severed, ash-gray ponytail down before me. The crowd cheered.

“You are not one of us,” he growled as he gave a motion to the guards still holding my arms.

They began dragging me up to my feet.

Once I was able to look him in the eye again, I studied the king’s face. I searched for any similarity between him and my mother—any tiny detail or feature that might mark them as siblings. But I couldn’t find anything.

So I asked him, “Are you really my uncle?”

He didn’t answer. His expression cracked for a moment, breaking into something stricken and tragic. Then he turned away as though he couldn’t bear to look at me for another second.

“Take him to the pit and be done with it,” the king ordered. “Then do the same with the demon pig. Their bodies will be offerings to Paligno.”

Araxie began cursing loudly in elven. The drums began thrumming. As the guards took me down the temple steps and out into the courtyard, the crowd parted for us. They yelled curses and profanities I’d never heard before.

Then I saw it.

Before me was something I had already seen over and over, without ever understanding what it was. A huge open pit delved down deep into the darkness of the earth. A staircase overgrown with roots went around and around until it disappeared down into the cold gloom. My heart lurched, remembering the dreams I’d had of this place—a place I’d never seen in person until now.

The guards brought me to the edge and forced me to my knees again. Looking down, I could imagine if I fell in, I might find myself falling forever. But that wasn’t what scared me. No, it was the cold steel of a sword’s blade on the back of my neck again.

I knew what was coming next. I shut my eyes tightly. I heard the nearly musical humming of a blade being swung through the air. I waited to feel pain, or release, or anything at all.

But there was nothing.

In fact, there was no sound at all. The drums stopped. The crowd was completely quiet. Even the wind and the birds seemed to have gone silent. I could only hear my own heart pounding in my ears, reminding me that I was still alive.

I opened my eyes. At the same time, the hold the guards had on my arms began to slacken. The one brandishing the sword suddenly dropped it. Then they both began backing away from me.

I dared to look up, to try and see what was happening. Her eyes, shining with cold light like two stars, met mine. I sucked in a sharp breath.

She looked just like my mother. But it couldn’t be her. My mother was dead. And this being, whatever it was, was hovering over the expanse of the bottomless pit before me. With her body draped in billowing robes of purest white, her bare feet stood on nothing but air and the outline of her body rippled like a reflection on water.

“M-mom,” I managed to rasp.

She smiled and reached an alabaster hand out toward me. “
It’s time, dulcu
.” Her voice echoed through every corner of my brain, but I never saw her lips move.

I was about to ask what she was talking about. Then a commotion behind me made me glance back. All the gray elves gathered at the temple were kneeling. One by one, they all dropped to the ground and prostrated themselves. Even Araxie and the king bowed in reverence, hiding their faces in shame.

“
Only the blood of the traitor and the hands of the speaker can restore the balance
,” another voice spoke to me firmly, sending chills over my body. “
You must return it.
”

I immediately looked back and found my mother was gone. In her place was something else—a being I had no name for. And yet it felt as though I knew it, or had known it, for a very long time.

It hovered over the expanse of the pit, exactly where my mother’s image had been. It was about the size of a small horse. Its lean, graceful body was covered in a mottled mixture of shimmering white fur and pearlescent white scales. At first glance, I would have mistaken it for a stag if only for its size, shape, and the large pair of sweeping white horns that grew from its head. But it wasn’t a deer, even if it did have cloven hooves. Its muzzle was tapered and much shorter, and a pair of long fangs dripped below its jaw line. A flowing mane of pure white hair grew from its head all the way to the end of its lion-like tail.

The creature began walking toward me on nothing but thin air. Two piercing, glowing green eyes blazed with ancient power as they gazed at me steadily. At that same moment, I felt the bonds on my wrists vanish. My hands were free, so I started to get up.

Everyone else was trembling with fear. Some of them were even praying and wailing in sorrow. But I didn’t feel afraid or intimidated by this creature. I actually felt calm, peaceful, like someone had wrapped me in a warm blanket.

The animal walked until it was hovering just in front of me. Then it lowered its head. I reached out my hand, and the strange beast rested its nose against my palm. I could feel the strength of its breath like a storm front’s mighty gust. My heartbeat thrilled at the contact. All the pain in my body seemed to melt away. I felt stronger. My mind was sharper. My senses were honed. Heat and power rolled through my body, and yet I didn’t feel like I was losing control.

“
You are my chosen servant
,” the creature spoke in my mind again like a harmony of voices, male and female. “
You will carry the banner of my will unto the world
.”

All the whispers from my dreams, the subtle words spoken to me through the years that I thought had foreshadowed my inevitable destiny, seemed to bubble up from my subconscious. It all came down to this one moment, this single touch, and a choice. To accept this fate, or to continue to struggle against it like I had for so long in my ignorance.

I didn’t have to speak out loud for the creature to understand me. Just like with Mavrik, our thoughts and desires were melded. We were one in our innermost minds. So when I accepted, the creature simply began to fade. It dissolved into the air, becoming a fine glittering mist that was carried away into the jungle without another sound.

When I opened my eyes again, I knew something was different. There was a peace in my soul that had never existed there before. I had been sleeping, but there were no more nightmares. There was no more fear. I didn’t feel stretched thin or strained, like I was trying to cram myself into a mold that didn’t fit. I wasn’t soaked with sweat or filled with panic. I could take deep, calm breaths and enjoy the fact that my mind was relaxed and quiet.

Lying on a soft pallet made of animal furs, I could tell that I was inside a hut of some kind. Sunlight winked through the thatched roof and the smell of freshly cut wood and burning incense floated in the air. As I sat up, I realized I was wearing new clothes—gray elf clothes. There was a long, bell-sleeved tunic of dark blue draped over my shoulders and a dark green pair of baggy pants tied around my waist. I had to admit, they were pretty comfortable compared to the heavy wool clothes I usually wore. Most importantly, my mother’s necklace was hanging around my neck again. I immediately wrapped my hand around it, giving it a grateful squeeze.

“How are you feeling?” I recognized Araxie’s voice right away—even when she was speaking the human language. She was sitting in the corner of the small room, watching me with a guarded expression, like she wasn’t quite sure what to make of me yet.

“Good.” I had to laugh because it had been so long since I had actually felt
good
when I woke up. “What happened? Where am I?”

“Not far from the temple grounds.” I could see Araxie’s color-changing eyes sparkling as she watched me. “You passed out after Paligno gave you his blessing.”

“Paligno?” I had a feeling I knew what she was talking about. I just wanted to be sure.

“The god who first seeded this earth,” she said. “Do you really not know the ancient stories? Alowin never told you?”

I bowed my head slightly. “We didn’t have a lot of time to discuss things like that before she died.”

Araxie’s expression was sympathetic. “What is your name?”

“Jaevid,” I answered. “But you can call me Jae, if you like.” I ran a hand through my now chin-length hair. It surprised me a little. I’d almost forgotten the king had cut it so short.

The silence between us was awkward and tense. I could tell just by the way she was chewing on the inside of her cheek that there must have been a lot she wanted to say.

“Thank you,” I offered at last.

That must have jarred her. She frowned and sat up straighter. “Why would you thank me?”

“You tried to save me. It didn’t work, but you did try.” I smiled at her. “I’m grateful.”

Her eyes narrowed a bit, like she wasn’t sure if I was being serious or not. “Ever since I was a little girl, I have prayed that Lapiloque would return to us somehow and end this war. You aren’t what I expected, but who am I to question the will of the gods?”

“I don’t think this is what any of us expected,” I agreed.

Araxie sat quietly for a moment or two, twirling a lock of her silver hair around one of her fingers. Finally, she spoke in a quiet voice, “My father is in mourning. He is filled with shame for almost killing the one who speaks for the god stone. He should be here to greet you but he won’t leave his private chambers.”

I was disappointed to hear that. He was my uncle, and even if we’d gotten off to a horrendously bad start, I still wanted to talk to him. I wanted to get to know him, and try to understand what had happened that made my mother leave her people for Maldobar. For now, I decided not to press the issue, though.

“And my friend?” I asked. “The human who came here with me, where is he?”

Her expression tightened and she looked away uneasily. I knew she had some history with Jace. A lot of bad blood ran between them. “Alive, but only barely. We have done all we can, but his injuries are great. He fell under a fever two nights ago and our healers cannot break it.”

“I need to see him.” I tried to sound firm, but gentle in my request. After my encounter with Paligno, I was only beginning to understand my place in this world. But I did know enough now to suspect they probably wouldn’t refuse me anything I asked. I wasn’t going to use that as a license to be a jerk. After all, she was my first cousin. For me, friendly family members had always been hard to come by.

Araxie tucked some of her long hair behind one of her pointed ears and huffed unhappily. “Why do you favor him? He is a murderer.”

“We’re all murderers now,” I reminded her. “War tends to do that to people.”

She didn’t like that answer. I could tell, even if she didn’t argue. “Very well, then. Come with me.”

I started to stand, but my knees nearly buckled underneath me. Before I could fall, Araxie seemed to appear out of nowhere and helped me steady myself. She was petite, a full foot shorter than I was actually, and yet I could feel strength in her that probably surpassed my own.

“S-sorry,” I stammered with embarrassment. “I feel strange. Like I’ve been asleep for a long time. How long was I out?”

“Three days.” Once I was confident enough to walk on my own, she stood back and took a long length of black silk from a hook. She began to roughly wrap it around my waist several times before tying off the ends and tucking them in. “The power of Lapiloque has been sleeping inside you for a very long time, but it can only be awakened when you accept Paligno’s blessing. Things will be different now. Now that the ritual has been completed, you will embody his power and be able to control the things of nature.”

I realized that this must have been the same ritual Sile had told me about. “And if I had refused?”

“Your power would have faded away and been given to another,” she replied matter-of-factly. “There must always be a Lapiloque. It is the balance, you see. So long as the stone endures, so too must the speaker endure with it.”

Her vibrant eyes caught mine under the dim light. She held out two more things for me to take, both of which I had given up as lost forever. One was the scimitar—the one with the stag’s head on the pommel that had been robbed from the King of Maldobar years ago. I took it and slid it into my waist wrap. The other was the handkerchief Beckah had given to me before my avian year of training. It was stained with sweat and blood now, and some of the edges were getting ragged, but the sight of it made me smile.