The elf stared intently at Silvanoshei, who met his gaze and held it.
“See with your heart Drinel,” Rolan urged. “Eyes can be blinded. The heart cannot. You heard him when we followed him, when he had no idea we were spying on him. You heard what he said to us when he believed us to be soldiers of his mother’s army. He was not dissembling. I stake my life on it.”
“I grant you that he favors his father and that there is something of his mother in his eyes. By what miracle does the son of our exiled queen walk beneath the shield?” Drinel asked.
“I don’t know how I came to be inside the shield,” Silvan said, embarrassed. “I must have fallen through it. I don’t remember. But when I sought to leave, the shield would not let me.”
“He threw himself against the shield,” Rolan said. “He tried to go back, tried to leave Silvanesti. Would an imposter do that when he had gone to so much trouble to enter? Would an imposter admit that he did not know how he came through the shield? No, an imposter would have a tale to hand us, logical and easy to believe.”
“You spoke of seeing with my heart,” said Drinel. He glanced back at the other elves. “We are agreed. We want to try the truth-seek on him.”
“You disgrace us with your distrust!” Rolan said, highly displeased. “What will he think of us?”
“That we are wise and prudent,” Drinel answered dryly. “If he has nothing to hide, he will not object.”
“It is up to Silvanoshei,” Rolan replied. “Though I would refuse, if I were him.”
“What is it?” Silvan looked from one to another, puzzled.
“What is this truth-seek?”
“It is a magical spell, Your Majesty,” Rolan answered and his tone grew sad. “Once there was a time when the elves could trust each other. Trust each other implicitly. Once there was a time when no elf could possibly lie to another of our people. That time came to an end during Lorac’s dream. The dream created phantasms of our people, false images of fellow elves that yet seemed very real to those who looked on them and touched them and spoke to them. These phantasms could lure those who believed in them to ruin and destruction. A husband might see his wife beckoning to him and plunge headlong over a cliff in an effort to reach her. A mother might see a child perishing in flames and rush into the fire, only to find the child vanished.
“We kirath developed the truth-seek to determine if these phantasms were real or if they were a part of the dream. The phantasms were empty inside, hollow. They had no memories, no thoughts, no feelings. A touch of a hand upon the heart and we would know if we dealt with living person or the dream.
“When the dream ended, the need for the truth-seek ended, as well,” Rolan said. “Or so we hoped. A hope that proved forlorn. When the dream ended, the twisted, bleeding trees were gone, the ugliness that perverted our land departed. But the ugliness had entered the hearts of some of our people, turned them as hollow as the hearts of those created by the dream.
“Now elf can lie to elf and does so. New words have crept into the elven vocabulary. Human words. Words like distrust, dishonest, dishonor. We use the truth-seek on each other now and it seems to me that the more we use it, the more the need to use it.” He looked very darkly upon Drinel, who remained resolute, defiant.
“I have nothing to hide,” said Silvan. “You may use this truth-seek on me and welcome. Though it would grieve my mother deeply to hear that her people have come to such a pass. She would never think to question the loyalty of those who follow her, as they would never think to question her care of them.”
“You see, Drinel,” said Rolan, flushing. “You see how you shame us!”
“Nevertheless, I will know the truth,” Drinel said stubbornly.
“Will you?” Rolan demanded. “What if the magic fails you again?”
Drinel’s eyes flashed. He cast a dark glance at his fellow.
“Curb your tongue, Rolan. I remind you that as yet we know nothing about this young man.”
Silvanoshei said nothing. It was not his place to interject himself into this dispute. But he stored up the words for future thought. Perhaps the elf sorcerers of his mother’s army were not the only people who had found their magical power starting to wane.
Drinel approached Silvan, who stood stiffly, eyeing the elf askance. Drinel reached out his left hand, his heart hand, for that is the hand closest to the heart, and rested his hand upon Silvan’s breast. The elf’s touch was light, yet Silvan could feel it strike through to his soul, or so it seemed.
Memory flowed from the font of his soul, good memories and bad, bubbling up from beneath surface feelings and thoughts and pouring into Drinel’s hand. Memories of his father, a stern and implacable figure who rarely smiled and never laughed. Who never made any outward show of his affection, never spoke approval of his son’s actions, rarely seemed to notice his son at all. Yet within that glittering flow of memory, Silvanoshei recalled one night, when he and his mother had narrowly escaped death at the hands of someone or other. Porthios had clasped them both in his arms, had held his small son close to his breast, had whispered a prayer over them in elven, an ancient prayer to gods who were no longer there to hear it. Silvanoshei remembered cold wet tears touching his cheek, remembered thinking to himself that these tears were not his.
They were his father’s.
This memory and others Drinel came to hold in his mind, as he might have held sparkling water in his cupped hands.
Drinel’s expression altered. He looked at Silvan with new regard, new respect.
“Are you satisfied?” Silvan asked coldly. The memories had opened a bleeding gash in his being.
“I see his father in his face, his mother in his heart,” Drinel replied. “I pledge you my allegiance, Silvanoshei. I urge others to do the same.”
Drinel bowed deeply, his hand over his breast. The other two elves added their words of acceptance and allegiance. Silvan returned gracious thanks, all the while wondering a bit cynically just what all this kowtowing was truly worth to him. Elves had pledged allegiance to his mother, as well, and Alhana Starbreeze was little better than a bandit skulking in the woods.
If being the rightful Speaker of the Stars meant more nights hiding in burial mounds and more days dodging assassins, Silvan could do without it. He was sick of that sort of life, sick to death of it. He had never fully admitted that until now. For the first time he admitted to himself that he was angry—hotly, bitterly angry—at his parents for having forced that sort of life upon him.
He was ashamed of his anger the next moment. He reminded himself that perhaps his mother was either dead or captive, but, irrationally, his grief and worry increased his anger. The conflicting emotions, complicated further by guilt, confused and exhausted him. He needed time to think, and he couldn’t do that with these elves staring at him like some sort of stuffed curiosity in a mageware shop.
The elves remained standing, and Silvan eventually realized that they were waiting for him to sit down and rest themselves.
He had been raised in an elven court, albeit a rustic one, and he Was experienced at courtly maneuverings. He urged the other elves to be seated, saying that they must be weary, and he invited them to eat some of the fruit and water. Then Silvan excused himself from their company, explaining that he needed to make his ablutions.
He was surprised when Rolan warned him to be careful, offered him the sword he wore.
“Why?” Silvan was incredulous. “What is there to fear? I thought the shield kept out all our enemies.”
“With one exception,” Rolan answered dryly. “There are reports that the great green dragon, Cyan Bloodbane, was—by a miscalculation on the part of General Konnal—trapped inside the shield.”