Kith-Kanan was dying.
Soon the whole house was saturated with the smell of incense and the sound of chanting. The Clerics of Quen invoked their mightiest spells, and they succeeded in slowing the creep of death through the Speaker’s limbs, but they couldn’t stop it. Aytara admitted as much to Verhanna and Ulvian in the sitting room of their father’s chambers.
“How—how long will he live?” asked Verhanna, silent tears trickling down her face.
“A day. Perhaps two. He is very strong. A normal elf would have died on the spot from such a blow. You should be prepared, my lady. The end could come at any time.”
“Is there nothing you can do?”
Aytara bowed. Her white robes were wrinkled, her sky-blue sash loosely tied. She, too, was crying. “No, Highness. I am deeply sorry.”
Verhanna nodded and the high priestess departed.
After a silent moment, Ulvian coughed. “There remains the matter of my succession,” he said.
Verhanna. Glared. “What succession?”
“When our father dies, who will be the next Speaker? Certainly not our mad half-brother.”
Snarling with outrage, Verhanna seized her brother by the front of his shirt and propelled him backward out the door and into the hallway, until he thudded against a pillar. “Don’t talk to me about crowns!” she said through clenched teeth. “Our father isn’t even dead yet, and already you crave his scepter! I tell you this, Brother, if you mention such a thing to me again before Father is gone, I’ll kill you. I’ll gut you like a wild pig! Is that clear?”
Mastering the fear that trembled through his body, Ulvian said that it was. He had no doubt she meant what she said. Though he clutched her arms, he knew he’d never break her grip.
Verhanna felt something hard under her wrist. She plucked open Ulvian’s blue shirt, sending buttons flying. There was a leather bag hanging around his neck. Her brother’s eyes were wide with fear and anger.
“What’s this?” she hissed. When he didn’t reply, she drew her dagger in her left hand and held it to his face.
For an instant, he thought Verhanna was going to slit his throat, but all she did was cut the thong holding the leather bag. Stepping back, she pried it open and found the onyx amulet.
“What are you doing with this?” she demanded.
“It’s just a lump of carved stone,” he said, his voice quavering. Ulvian prayed silently for the amulet to intervene. Nothing happened.
“This was destroyed in the fire when Drulethen was—” Verhanna stopped in midsentence. Her head snapped around in the direction of their father’s bedchamber. Slowly she turned back to Ulvian, her face suffused with blood.
“You!” she breathed.
“No, Hanna, it wasn’t—”
She seized her brother again, shoving him so hard against the pillar that his vision filled with stars. “Let me go! You’ll regret it if you hurt me!” he babbled.
“I haven’t got time for you now,” she muttered fiercely. She let him go. Ulvian’s feet dropped to the floor.
“Sergeant of the guard!” Verhanna bawled. A warrior with a fanlike array of horsehair on the top of his helmet came running down the corridor. “Post a guard around this room,” she ordered. “No one is to enter but I myself, Tamanier Ambrodel, or the holy lady Aytara. Got that?”
The guard glanced sideways at the prince. “Is my lord Ulvian to be excluded, Captain?” he asked.
“He most certainly is. If I find out anyone else but the three I named has gone in there, I’ll have your head.”
The sergeant, a seasoned warrior, swallowed hard. “It shall be done, Captain!” he vowed.
A squad of eight guards formed before the doors to the Speaker’s rooms. It was nearly dawn. Verhanna left Tamanier to make the announcement to the people. Already heralds clad in golden tabards were appearing in the halls, rubbing the sleep from their eyes and tugging on their ankle-high boots. The old castellan, strain and sorrow written into every line on his face, shepherded the elf boys and girls into an adjoining room. Minutes later, the heralds emerged, red-eyed and weeping. They raced out of the building to cry the sorrowful news to the waking city.
Verhanna went to see Silveran. The guards outside the chamber stood aside for her as she unlocked the thick door of his room.
“Captain,” one of the guards said to her before she entered, “you’d best look at his hands.”
She was weary and heartsick and still angry with Ulvian, and she told the guard she had no patience for riddles.
“Please, Captain,” insisted the guard. “He was once called Greenhands, wasn’t he? Well, his fingers aren’t green anymore.”
Verhanna’s brows lifted at that. She went in and closed the heavy door behind her.
Despite the thick chains that encircled his arms and legs, Silveran was the picture of peace. It made her heart ache anew to see him lying so innocent and untroubled while their father was dying. What evil miasma had invaded his simple, guileless mind and made him go mad with fear? She still held the black amulet in her hand. Verhanna knelt on one knee and studied the elf’s hands. Just as the guard had said, Silveran’s fingers were now white, contrasting with his tanned hands.
Slowly, with much fluttering of eyelids, Silveran was waking.
“Hanna,” he said happily. “Hello.”
She stared down at him, incredulous at his calm manner. He sat up, and the chains draped heavily on his stomach. “Oof,” he wheezed. “What’s this? Why am I bound?”
“Don’t you remember what happened?” she asked.
“Remember what? Won’t you take these chains off? They hurt me.”
“How do you think you came to be here?” she said sharply.
Silveran’s brow furrowed. “I was asleep,” he said thoughtfully. “I had some bad dreams—then I woke up, and there you were, and here are the chains.”
In slow, deliberate words, she explained what had happened. Silveran cried out and retreated to the wall. The door opened and a guard poked his head in, but Verhanna waved him out. Silveran hugged himself and gasped for air.
“It cannot be,” he said, shaking his head. “It was a dream, a terrible dream!”
“It is the truth,” she said grimly. “The Speaker is dying.”
He buried his face in his hands. “I am cursed!” Silveran moaned. “I have slain my beloved father!”
Verhanna sprang forward, grabbing his hands and dragging them away from his face. “Listen to me! You may have been cursed, but you’re all right now. When father dies—” she choked on the word—“you must go before the Thalas-Enthia and demand that they name you Speaker of the Sun. Otherwise Ulvian will claim the throne. You must do it!”
“But I must be punished for slaying our father,” he objected, sobbing. “No one could want me to rule. Let Ulvian be Speaker. I must be put to death for my crime!”
Verhanna shook him hard, rattling his chains. “No! It wasn’t your fault. Ulvian used Drulethen’s black amulet to drive you mad. He’s the criminal. You are the chosen successor. Everything depends on you. Father believes you are the future of Qualinesti!”
Bells began tolling from the high towers of the city. The heralds’ dire tidings were spreading fast. Verhanna listened to the doleful sound, knowing it was the Speaker’s death knell. When the bells ceased ringing, it would mean Kith-Kanan was dead.
Quickly the warrior maiden unlocked the fetters on Silveran’s hands and legs. “You stay here,” she said. “I’ll have the guards lock you in. You’ll be safe.”
“Safe from what?”
There was no time to explain. Silveran reached out for Verhanna as she made for the door. Whatever he intended to say died in his throat as he noticed for the first time that his fingers were no longer green.
“The power has left me,” he breathed. “I no longer feel its touch.”
Verhanna hesitated, her hand on the knob. “The magic? It’s gone?”
He nodded. “Good,” she said firmly. “Maybe that will be to your advantage.”
The door slammed behind her before he could ask what she meant.