“Maybe everything changed once she found out about the collapse of the Forbidding and saw the demonkind knocking on the gates of her city,” Cymrian offered. “She didn’t know about any of that before, and it might have made her change her plans. Not because she wanted to, but because she had to.”
“Cymrian’s right,” Aphen agreed. “Nothing’s the way it was a week ago. Even Edinja Orle would have to take a second look at what she was thinking to see if it still had relevance.”
Arling nodded, but didn’t say anything in response, and Aphen let the matter drop. She could tell her sister was not convinced, her doubts and fears of Edinja Orle deep-seated and troubling. Letting a little time pass was probably best. Arling had been through a lot—and unless Aphen was badly mistaken, the worst was still to come. Edinja was likely to turn out to be the least of her sister’s problems.
They piloted the Sprint for several more hours through the darkening night. Close to the the southern fringes of the Duln Forests, Aphen decided they should stop; none of them had slept for more than a few hours in days, and all were exhausted. They would moor their vessel for the night, take turns standing watch, and set out again at daybreak.
Arling curled up in the aft cushions of the cockpit and was asleep within seconds. Aphen sat with Cymrian in the bow, looking out at the night. The Sprint was anchored perhaps two dozen feet off the ground, and the landscape about them was grassy and flat and open for miles. The sky was clear this night, its dark bowl bright with stars even in the absence of moonlight. The madness they had witnessed in Arishaig had begun to recede into the background.
“She’s handling all this better than I would,” Cymrian whispered, nodding toward Arling. “I don’t know how.”
“She’s stronger than she looks.”
“A lot is being asked of her.”
Aphen didn’t respond.
“What do you think is going to happen once we get the seed back and find the Bloodfire?”
“I don’t know.”
“She’ll have to decide.”
“I know.”
“If there’s even a decision left to be made.”
“Stop talking about it.”
“Because maybe there isn’t.”
She glared at him. “I’m aware of all this. I’m sure she’s aware of it, too. It doesn’t help to talk about it further. There’s no point in speculating. We don’t even know what’s going to happen when we find the Bloodfire. We don’t know how the quickening of the seed works.”
Cymrian was quiet for a few moments, speculating. “I didn’t think about that.”
“Well, I did. I’ve thought about everything that could possibly happen and then some. I’ve thought about everything I might do to try to help Arling. Everything. But there’s nothing to be done until we reach the moment of reckoning.”
“I guess not.” He went silent again, and this time he stayed silent. They sat together, shoulder-to-shoulder, looking back at the sleeping girl and thinking their separate thoughts.
“Remember when this all began?” she said finally. “You were my protector against whoever was attacking me in Arborlon. That seems a lifetime ago. It doesn’t even seem connected to what’s happening now.”
“Like the missing Elfstones. This started because of them, and now they don’t have anything to do with anything.”
She shook her head. “We don’t even talk about them anymore. We don’t even think about them. But hunting for them destroyed the Druid order. Hunting for them changed everything.”
“It seemed the right thing to do at the time.”
“It was a mistake.”
He glanced over. “Hard to know that for sure. Events are connected—sometimes in ways we don’t see. One thing leads to another, but the path isn’t always recognizable. I don’t think you can second-guess yourself.”
“I can do anything I want. Especially second-guess myself.”
“It’s pointless, Aphen.”
“I’m feeling pointless. Everything in my life is feeling pointless—in spite of what I’m trying to do for Arling and the Elves and the Druid order and everyone else in the Four Lands. Pointless and hopeless and overwhelming.”
“You’ve done pretty well so far.”
“Have I?”
“As well as you could. Anyway, that’s the past, and what matters is the future. That’s how life works, because it’s short and precious and kind of doubtful.”
She looked over at him. He met her gaze and held it. “You constantly surprise me,” she said.
“You mean that in a good way?”
“I do.”
“Then shall I continue to try to surprise you some more?”
“Like you did that first night in Arishaig?” She smiled, then leaned in and pressed her mouth against his, taking her time, making sure he understood what she was feeling. Then she broke the kiss, cocked an eyebrow, and grinned. “There. I feel much better. Now I’m going to sleep.”
She rolled into her travel cloak, shifted on the Sprint’s cushions until she was comfortable, and started to drift off. Her last memory before sleep took her was of his voice saying, “I feel pretty good, too.”
They rose at dawn and flew throughout the day, over the vast stretch of the Tirfing. By nightfall, they had just passed its northern fringes. Though they could have kept going through the night and made their destination by dawn, exhaustion claimed them shortly before midnight, so they once more made camp.
When Aphen finally brought out of the blue Elfstones the following morning and summoned their magic, she no longer had to stop and think about what she was doing. By now she was familiar with the process and prepared for the magic’s response. When the tingling began in her fingers and the heat washed through her body and out again in swift, insistent waves, she was neither frightened nor intimidated. She didn’t even bother with closing her eyes when she conjured the image of what she wished the Elfstones to find for her.
She might have chosen to focus her efforts on the silver seed that was the object of their search, but she chose instead to find the two people who had taken it. Her memory of their faces was clear enough that she was able to visualize both easily, and she could tell from the magic’s response that it recognized what it was she was looking for and knew where to find it.
Thus, she was carried out of her body and across the countryside, through woods and over grasslands, down roadways and paths to where the buildings of a tiny village were scattered in either singular isolation or tiny clumps all about a cluster of shabby businesses that included a stable and harness repair, a blacksmith, a mercantile and grocery store, two taverns, a tiny inn, and a meeting hall. Men and women moved through the shadows of trees canopied overhead, and horses stamped and nickered softly in their traces where they were hitched to posts.
There, right in the midst of it all, the man and the woman who had found Arling and taken her to the Federation walked beside their little wooden cart and donkey on their way up the road and out of town.
Aphen dismissed the magic and the images. “We have them,” she announced, a grimness to her voice. “Let’s get flying.”
They flew on throughout the morning then, somewhat past midday, set the airship down in at the edge of a small clearing. Leaving it safely tucked into its leafy concealment, they set out on foot.
The afternoon was winding down by now, shadows lengthening as the gray day threatened to bring more than brief showers, dark thunderheads beginning to form to the west and move in their direction. They picked up their pace in response, walking more quickly, anxious to reach the shelter of the village before the worst of the storm caught up to them. Hoods lifted, and the collars of their cloaks pulled tight, they bent their heads against the wind and rain and slogged on through the deepening dark like wraiths, as faceless and voiceless as the shadows through which they passed.
Aphen managed to keep them moving in the right direction, even after the road had disappeared in a muddy smear and they had to reach the village by following a cow path that wound upward through the surrounding hills and came down on the far side. She began searching for the cottage she had seen in her vision, the one the couple had been traveling toward. Sora, she remembered suddenly. That was the man’s name. But she couldn’t remember the woman’s, only the sound of her voice—kind and filled with concern.