Never before would the elves have countenanced a marriage between one of their own and a human. Alhana Starbreeze had been declared a dark elf for having married “outside her kind” by marrying a Qualinesti. Yet the young people—those who were near the same age as their king—had come to adore Mina. She could not walk the streets but that she was mobbed. The palace was surrounded, day and night, by young elves who sought to catch a glimpse of her. They were pleased and flattered to think that she loved their king, and they confidently expected to hear news of the marriage any day.
Silvanoshei expected it, too. He dreamed of her walking into the palace, being led to his throne room, where he would be seated in regal state. In his dreams, she flung herself eagerly, adoringly into his arms. That had been five days ago. She had not yet asked to see him. On her arrival, she had gone straight to her quarters and remained there. Five days had passed, and he had neither seen nor spoken to her. He made excuses for her. She feared to see him, feared her troops might not understand. She would come to him at night and declare her love for him, then swear him to secrecy. He lay awake nights in anticipation, but she did not come, and Silvanoshei’s dream began to wither, as did the bouquet of roses and violets he had handpicked from the royal garden to present to her.
Outside the Tower of the Stars, the young elves chanted “Mina! Mina!”
The words that had been so sweet to his ears only days before now stabbed him like knives. Standing at the window, hearing that name echo in the bitter emptiness of his heart, he made his decision.
“I am going to her,” he said.
“Cousin—” Kiryn began.
“No!” Silvanoshei said, cutting off the reprimand he knew was coming.
“I have listened to you and those fools of advisers long enough! ‘She should come to you,’ they say. ‘It would be undignified for you to go to her, Your Majesty.’ ‘It is you who do her the honor.’ ‘You put yourself in a false position.’ You are wrong. All of you. I have thought this over. I believe that I know the problem. Mina wants to come to me, but her officers will not let her. That great, hulking minotaur and the rest. Who knows but that they are holding her against her will?”
“Cousin,” said Kiryn gently, “she walks the streets of Silvanost, she comes and goes freely from the palace. She meets with her officers and, from what I have heard, even the highest ranking defer to her in all things. You must face it, Cousin, if she wanted to see you, she would.”
Silvanoshei was dressing himself in his very finest garments, and either he was pretending not to hear, or he had truly not heard. Kiryn’s heart ached for his cousin. He had witnessed with alarm Silvanoshei’s obsession with this girl. He had guessed from the beginning that she was using Silvanoshei to her own ends, though what those ends might be, Kiryn could not tell. Part of the reason he had hoped Silvanoshei would seek safety in the forest with the resistance movement was to take him away from Mina, break the hold she had over him. Kiryn’s plans had failed, and he was at his wit’s end.
Silvanoshei had no appetite. He had lost weight. He could not sleep but roamed around his room at night, leaping out of bed at every sound, thinking it was her coming to him. His long hair had lost its sheen and hung limp and ragged. His nails were bitten almost to the quick. Mina was healing the elven people. She was bringing them back to life. Yet she was killing their king.
Dressed in his royal robes that hung from his wasted frame, Silvanoshei enveloped himself in his cloth of gold and made ready to leave his chambers.
Kiryn, greatly daring, knowing that he risked rebuke, made one last attempt to stop him.
“Cousin,” he said, his voice soft with the affection he truly felt, “do not do this. Do not demean yourself. Try to forget about her.”
“Forget her,” Silvanoshei said with a hollow laugh. “I might as well try to forget to breathe!”
Thrusting aside his cousin’s hand, Silvanoshei swept out the door, the cloth of gold fluttering behind him.
Kiryn followed him, heartsick. Elven courtiers bowed as the king passed, many attempting to catch his eye. He paid them no heed. He wended his way through the palace until he reached the wing occupied by Mina and her Knights. In contrast to his chambers that were filled with people, the part of the tower where Mina had set up her command post was quiet and empty. Two of her Knights stood guard outside a closed door. At the sight of Silvanoshei, the Knights came to respectful attention, but they did not stand aside.
Silvanoshei gave them a baleful look. “Open the door,” he commanded. The Knights made no move to comply.
“I gave you an order,” said Silvanoshei, flushing, the red staining the unhealthy pallor of his skin as if he were cut and bleeding.
“I am sorry, Your Majesty,” said one of the Knights, “but our orders are to admit no one.”
“I am not no one!” Silvanoshei’s voice shook. “I am king. This is my palace. All doors open to me. Do as I tell you!”
“Cousin,” Kiryn urged softly, “please come away!”
The door opened at that moment, not from without. It opened from within. The huge minotaur stood in the door, his head level with the top of the gilded frame. He had to stoop to pass through.
“What is this commotion?” the minotaur demanded in his rumbling voice. “You disturb the commander.”
“His Majesty begs an audience with Mina, Galdar,” said one of the Knights.
“I do not beg!” said Silvanoshei angrily. He glowered at the minotaur blocking the door. “Stand aside. I will speak to Mina. You cannot keep her locked away from me!”
Kiryn was watching the minotaur closely, saw the monster’s lips twitch in what might have been the beginning of a derisive smile, but at the last moment, the minotaur rearranged his expression to one of somber gravity. Bowing his horned head, he stood aside.
“Mina,” he said, turning on his heel, “His Majesty, the king of Silvanesti, is here to see you.”
Silvanoshei swept into the room.
“Mina!” he cried, his heart in his voice, on his lips, in his outstretched hands, in his eyes. “Mina, why have you not come to me?”
The girl sat behind a desk covered with what looked to be map rolls. One map was spread out upon the desk, the curling edges held down with a sword at one corner, a morning star on the other. Kiryn had last seen Mina the day of the battle with Cyan Bloodbane. He had seen her dressed in the coarse robes of a prisoner, he had seen her being led to her execution.
She had changed since then. Her head had been shaved to only a fine down of red. The hair had grown back some, was thick and curly and flamed in the sunlight streaming through the crystal panes of the window behind her. She wore the black tunic of a Knight of Neraka over black chain mail. The amber eyes that gazed at Silvanoshei were cool, preoccupied, held the markings of the map, held roads and cities, hills and mountains, rivers and valleys. The eyes did not hold him.