“Only one fell in battle?” Cadrel said. “How did that happen? Surely you all fought to-”
He never finished the sentence. The Lady of the Silver Tree gazed at him, her eyes blazing, and his voice died in his throat. “I warned you once. I did not call you here, human.”
“But you called me here,” Thorn said, “and he is with me.”
“And for that reason I shall restore his voice when we are done here and not before.”
Thorn considered protesting, but a glance around the room changed her mind. It was clear that Cadrel had touched a nerve; all of the fey were watching him, eyes burning with anger. “Very well, then,” she said. “Two of the spires fell. And so…”
“Most of us realized that your world held nothing for us but danger and ill fortune,” Tira said. “And so we wove a great glamour, a cloak that spread out from the roots of the Silver Tree to conceal every branch. Your kingdoms rose around us, but the power of the glamour kept them from ever building too close to us or from seeing our spires when they fell back to your world. A few individuals found us, yes, and through these few, we formed bonds to your world. But we were content to watch from afar, seeing your kingdoms rise and fall.”
If this is true, the power is remarkable, Steel whispered. A spell channeled through a single focus, cloaking a half dozen cities for thousands of years. It seems improbable but we know the giants of Xen’drik possessed magic we have yet to replicate, and the power of Argonnessen is legendary. But what does this have to do with the Mourning?
“So what went wrong?” Thorn asked.
“He did.” Tira looked at Drix. “Just years ago as you measure time-a mere moment to us-my son was hunting with us. He drew ahead of us, but I had no fear; my sight is strong, and I’d seen no danger.” She looked at the ground. “My sight is strong, but the future is never certain. We found him dead on the ground. This man-little more than a child himself at that time-stood over him, a bloody blade in his hand. Fury overtook me, madness at seeing my nightmare made real. I seized the knife and stabbed the boy myself.
“The moment the blood of my child and this man of Cyre mingled on the ground, the earth trembled and shook. The glamour snapped and broke. I felt the land itself being torn apart, nature twisting on the most basic level.”
“The Mourning,” Thorn said. “But that’s just bad timing. A coincidence.”
“There is no coincidence,” Tira replied. “At that time, I didn’t know who this child was. You see the mingling of our blood in his features-human and fey.”
“He’s half-elf. So am I.”
“You carry debased blood in your veins. You are descended from the slaves of Xen’drik. Marudrix… he is of us. I told you that there were those who found us, even through the glamour. His ancestor was such a one, a brave warrior who won the heart of one of our own.”
Cadrel tapped her arm. He couldn’t speak but he mouthed a word: Ma-something… Marusan. Marusan. The knight in his tale. Marusan… and Marudrix.
“This was before I rose to wear the Circle of Leaves,” Tira continued. “Else I might have seen it in his features. But that man… he became a bridge between our worlds, as the Tree itself was. His descendants became the keepers of this forest. My predecessor even gave them one of Ourelon’s shards, to preserve the memories of those who fell between our visits.”
The ice lord rose to his feet again. “The line of keepers was extinguished over five cycles ago, when the Preserving Shard was lost to us. This is impossible!”
“I can discipline you as easily as the human, Syraen.” Tira’s eyes blazed. “Yes, we thought the line of keepers destroyed. And once again we find that our sight is not so perfect. This boy was of that blood. I struck him in anger, struck him for a crime he did not commit, spilled that blood upon that of my own son. And in so doing, I unraveled the foundation of both our worlds and set the Mourning in motion.”
Thorn looked at Cadrel. He couldn’t speak, but his expression mirrored her thoughts: She really thinks she caused the Mourning by stabbing Drix. We’re in the Tower of the Silver Madwomen.
Then she noticed that no one else was smiling or questioning it. The expressions of the fey were cold and grim.
“I’m sorry,” Thorn said. “I mean no disrespect, but you’re serious about this? Perhaps you didn’t realize it, but out beyond your woods, we’ve been fighting a war for the last century. The Mourning only targeted Cyre. Why would your curse do that?”
“You are mistaken,” Tira said. “The Mourning didn’t target Cyre.”
Thorn didn’t know what to say to that. She was even more surprised by what happened next.
She’s right, Steel said. But ask her what she means.
But Tira continued on her own. “Trust me, we are aware of your wars and your kingdoms. Your Cyre was a changing beast. In days past, it was far larger than it was that day. So if the curse struck at Cyre, why didn’t it affect the nation of the goblins, or the elves to the east?”
Exactly, Steel said. And it wasn’t even tied perfectly to those borders; Darguun and Valenar were simply quick to seize what little land remained outside the mists.
“What’s your explanation?” Thorn said.
“The curse should have spread across your world and ultimately through the bond into Thelanis as well. The moment I realized what was happening, I acted to save the boy. I bound the Shard of Life to him, the shard of the Silver Tree. And in doing so, I bound the curse to him. It is not your Cyre that holds the Mourning. It is Estara, the kingdom that stood here before your Galifar conquered it and gave it to his daughter. Marudrix is of the blood of the keepers of the wood and, through lost Marusan, a prince of Estara.”
Drix had been barely paying attention throughout all of that; perhaps he’d heard it before. But that snapped him back. “What? How am I a prince?”
“You are a prince of a lost kingdom. In the eyes of magic, you are that kingdom. In saving you, we stopped the advance of the mists, symbolically binding them to you.”
“This is ridiculous.” It was the ice lord again. “How dare you bind one of our greatest artifacts to an outsider? That is the source of our weakness. That is what drains the life of the tree. You have given its heart to a mortal.”
“You were not there, Syraen! I assure you, the glamour fell as the boy lay dying. Go outside and you’ll see the soil still tainted by his blood.”
The Lord of the Emerald Lights spoke, his sparks swirling around his head. “Either way, you are the one who brought this misfortune upon us.”
“And I am the one that can bring it to a close,” she said. “I have spent every moment since that day studying the matter. And I know what can be done.”
“And what’s that?” Thorn said.
“Keeping Marudrix alive holds the curse at bay, binding it to him. To bring it to a close, he must be healed completely. The unjust stroke must be undone. We must take Ourelon’s shard away from him and restore his heart again.”
The fey fell to arguing again. Next to her, Thorn heard Cadrel take a sudden sharp breath.
“Olladra smiles,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“What do you make of this?” she said quietly, rubbing her thumb against Steel’s hilt as she spoke.
“It seems most unlikely,” he replied. “But in my day, I’ve heard many stranger stories. We’re dealing with the fey, Thorn, with a woman who can hide a city from view or steal my voice with a glance. As unlikely as it seems, it is the sort of thing that would happen in one of the old tales.”
I have to agree, Steel said. It’s far more likely that it’s a vast coincidence. Yet as long as there is any chance that it is true, that this could somehow restore the Mournland or help us understand the true power behind it, we have to follow through. Getting the Cyran refugees out of Breland alone would be a tremendous boon to the nation. Beyond that… if she can remove that shard from Drix, that means it could be claimed for Breland. If it can be proven that the Mourning no longer poses a threat, the war will begin again; you know that as well as I do. Acquiring such a tool for Breland-not attached to a Cyran tinker-would be a great success.