(...continued)

“Wait!” Darek howled, clutching at her cloak. “You don’t like me anymore? Are you scared of me now?”

“What? No!” exclaimed the faerie, drawing him into a tight hug. “I’m scared for you. I won’t do any better than your family at keeping you safe, but them? They’re shifters, like you. They know how to keep you safe, and can teach you things about your magic that I never could!” Disentangling his hands from her cloak, she nudged him back, plastering a broad grin on her face. “Besides, I can come visit you later, after I go see my cousin. How’s that?”

“...You know how to get there?” checked the boy, forgetting she’d dismissed A’lara as a joke.

“I – sure!” she lied, her smile wavering. “All faeries do. I’ll meet up with you later, okay?” Ruffling his hair, she turned away from his enthusiastic nod. The poor kid needed to be with his own kind.

Three steps later, she crumpled to the floor. “Vithril!” Oblivious to the heads turned in their direction, Darek dashed over and dropped to his knees beside her. “What’s wrong, what happened? Are you okay?”

Vision swirling, she put a hand to her head, pushing herself upright with a groan. “What... did you do?” she asked, clearing her throat to dislodge the knot there. “It’s not your fault, but... what did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything! You were far away! It wasn’t me, I’m sorry!” he babbled, horrified that she thought he’d done something to her.

She picked herself up, and the other patrons of the tavern returned to their talk. “No, when you were running, Darek. From that dog. What – why were you running?”

Licking his lips, the boy almost denied his participation in such things. But Vithril had fainted over it, so he hung his head and confessed, “I stole that pie. The man’s dog chased after me.”

“We have to go back and pay for it.” She pinched the bridge of her nose to ease the throbbing behind her eyes. “Before you leave.” Though the connection eluded him, the boy agreed.

Hood low over her face, Vithril eased down onto Darek’s bench, frightened and angry with her dreadful mistake. Long ago, the mountain elves had unleashed a curse upon her people, and it bound her to Darek for helping him steal. Until he committed a good deed equal to his crime, she couldn’t leave his side.

“It is time, Kingard,” Lorvelle concluded with a deep nod toward Vithril and the boy. “Thy questions will be answered in due course, as will theirs. The timeflow is not yet right for explanations, but that time will come.”

“You’re not coming with us?” Kingard banged a fist on the table. “Lorvelle! You know the last verse as well as I do–”

“But I,” the old elf interrupted, bidding his companion to silence, “am merely Tenant, and what has been said I follow.” He signaled the door’s rattling handle and consoled, “The timeflow is not right for ye either, old friend. If we chance to meet again–”

“No!” barked Kingard over the loud gust from the doorway. “Master Lorvelle, you can’t–”

“–it will then be right.” Fist over his heart in an ancient salute, he rose. “I am honored to but play my part.”

Three men in black cloaks stormed inside and scoured the room from the entrance, door wide open behind them. Along with the sharp tang of snow came another faint scent that struck Darek through the gut – charred flesh. “It’s them!” hissed the boy, grabbing Vithril’s hand so hard she winced.

“Gentlemen!” called Lorvelle, gliding from the dim corner with his hands spread in welcome. “At long last, you confront an old man.” His approach unexpected, the imperials swung their palms at the elf, who bent forward in a strange rendition of a bow. “Now, we shall see if you can capture him.”

He dropped, catching himself on arms much too long, and Lorvelle shifted before their eyes. One moment a stooping man and the next a majestic drake, he stretched twelve feet from nose to haunch and five at the withers, his leathery hide bright green. Clawing one mage and flinging a second through the air with his tail, the wingless dragon slithered into the evening storm.

Chaos erupted, the mages scrabbling after the shifter while the patrons scrambled out the door. In the confusion, Kingard clapped a hand on Vithril’s shoulder and grabbed Darek by the upper arm. Yanking them close, he stoked the draft from the doorway into a whirlwind raging around them. A tremendous crash of thunder split the night, and Kingard dragged his quarry through the unyielding ether.

With another burst of thunder, they jarred back into the world, snow driving hard upon their faces. Disoriented from the sudden transport, Darek spun from the elf’s grasp. “What was that?!”

“Shh!” Kingard ordered, hauling him past the first pines of Kalrein’s dark border. “They’ll hear you, boy.” Those imperials knew the telltale crack of a transport and would track them down once they finished with Lorvelle.

“Wait! We have to go pay!” protested Darek. “Vithril said–”

“Just go!” Nauseous from her trip through emptiness, the jangled faerie waved him onward. But you are going too, faerie. I would have it no other way. The old elf’s words mocked her ringing ears.

Kingard called a halt under the quivering boughs, and Vithril pressed against a tree trunk to block the wind. Flopping back onto the icy pine needles, Darek groaned when the elf advised, “Don’t get comfortable.”

“Where exactly is A’lara anyway?” scowled Vithril. “Are we walking the whole way there?”

“If necessary,” Kingard snapped, trying to focus. Beneath the hood of his cloak, a soft glow bloomed in the darkness, and Darek watched a red rose illuminate the elf’s brow. The rune’s three petals twisted around a center point, fading as the wind died away.

Vithril gaped at the snowflakes bending around them. “What’d you do?” Faeries controlled the air magics, and many without such precision. “How’s it warm?”

“Magic,” supplied the elf, signaling for them to get moving.

“Well... thanks.”

“I didn’t do it for you,” he shrugged, gesturing to the shirtless boy with snow melting off his stomach, “but you’re welcome.”

“What’s that red thing?” Darek clambered to his feet, hands outstretched to catch the drifting flakes, which veered to either side of his palms without landing.

Kingard marched the boy forward. “A rune. Certain people can harness deep magic, and it appears when they do.”

“What’s deep magic?”

“Just walk, kid.”

Straggling a bit to doff her winter cloak, Vithril called, “So where is A’lara?”

“The Glades of Despair. Now hush.”

“Lovely,” drawled the faerie, lamenting her unplanned voyage with the grumpy elf. “What could be better?”

“If you were silent for the trip?”

No rejoinder came to her, so Vithril muttered curses under her breath until the silence stretched long enough to smooth her rumpled feathers. “What’s in A’lara, anyway?” she ventured.

“Nothing. Everything. Sugar plums and butterflies. Does it matter?”

“I’m just making conversation!” cried the indignant faerie. “Who the hells do you think you are?”

Whirling on her, the elf snarled through gritted teeth, “Keep. Your voice. Down.”

“You’re not very nice,” Darek noted, and the faerie snickered at the accusation.

Abashed by the child’s candor, Kingard cleared his throat. “Those mages will track us down, and I need to transport you two out of danger before they do. I’m trying to keep everyone safe, kid. I’m... sorry.”

Darek slipped his hand into the elf’s cold grip. “It’s okay. But, where are we going, right now?”

“To the D’jed,” grumbled Kingard, uncomfortable touching the child’s sticky hand. “We’ll be safe there. We can lose those darkmages through the Halls of Thunder.” Attempting to be more pleasant, he added, “We don’t have to walk the whole way. Once we’re close enough, I can transport us there.”

“How close is close enough?” Vithril eased her question into the fray.

“No idea.” With that, the discussion snapped shut, and they hustled through the trees in silence.

Just past midnight, Darek collapsed into slumber, dropping face-down in the snow. Kingard rolled him over to prod him in the ribs with the toe of his boot. “Hey. Hey kid. Wake up–”

“Oh for Mother’s sake, leave him alone!” scolded the faerie, kneeling beside Darek to brush pine needles off his face. “He’s been through so much. Those imperials burned his family, you know, right in front of him. I’d say he’s been really good about all this.”

With a resigned sigh, Kingard crouched and hoisted the unconscious boy over one shoulder. “Come along, faerie,” he called, a forearm anchoring the back of Darek’s knees. “He won’t be safe until we reach the D’jed.”

“You know that I won’t be safe there, right?” In Porthal, she’d hoped to book a human guide to negotiate her through the hostile range, and her people’s feud with the mountain elves weighed heavy on her mind. “They hate–”

“Trust me, faerie,” grunted the elf. “If you’re with me, you’ll be among friends.”

Acclimating to his gruffness, she queried, “Why would they even care? You’re no mountain elf.” She hadn’t glimpsed Kingard’s face in the bedlam of their sudden escape, but it was a safe assumption since he hadn’t attacked her yet.

“I hold sway with about anyone. Most elves have studied enough to recognize me. I don’t like being known, though, since it tends to bring trouble – take you, for instance.” He turned his head to smirk at her. “If I showed my face, I trust you wouldn’t make an attempt on my life? I am, after all, trespassing through your forest once more.”

Disbelief spluttered from her lips. “That was you? Nine Hells, that’s just my luck!” This far after the fact, her residual fury felt childish, so she diverted, “How’d you recognize me? You never even saw me!”

“Of course I did. I just know how to look like I haven’t spotted prying eyes.”

Torn between irritation and approval, Vithril let the matter drop. “So... darkmages? I’ve never heard imperials called that before.”

“It’s not necessarily imperials. Any man can turn if he’s so inclined.” Those who embraced the darkness gained a whole new array of powers, from black fire to mind reading. “With a skilled enough mindwarp, the turning will infect anyone.”

“So you think those imperials were evil? Not just–” Thunder rocked the air, splintering across Darek’s dreams, and Kingard thrust the squirming boy at the faerie. “They’re surrounding us,” he hissed. “Take him; fly southeast. I’ll draw them off.”

“Will you, now?” challenged the slick voice of a cloaked mage emerging from the forest ahead.

Behind them, a second mage materialized. “Hand over the shifter and we may spare your lives.”

“Leave them alone!” Snarling in Vithril’s arms, Darek twisted free and dropped to all fours. “Go away!”

The first mage laughed. “Not without you.” Rage prickling into tears, the child backed toward Kingard. “Now cooperate or we’ll kill everyone.”

“You already killed everyone!” shrieked Darek, tortured faces seared into the space behind his eyes. “I hate you! I hate you!” Inside that same space, he set the imperials on fire and watched them turn to dust. “I hope you burn!” Pins and needles swept Kingard’s skin, and the mages ignited a moment later. Blue-white tongues of flame raged into twin infernos, reducing both men to ash without a cry between them. “I hate you...”

Too shaken to soothe Darek’s frantic sobs, Vithril stammered, “Did you do that?”

Kingard jerked his chin at the boy. “It was him.”

“No!” wailed Darek, throwing himself to the ground. “It wasn’t me, I’m sorry! It just happened!”

Throat tight, the elf hefted him off the forest floor and continued east. “You know,” he remarked over the boy’s dwindling cries, “it wouldn’t just happen if you learned to control it.”

“But magic is dangerous!” Darek objected. “And I don’t know how. I never went to school!”

“He called you the dragon mage,” reasoned Vithril, shaky voice as cheerful as she could manage with two new murders compounding the boy’s theft. “Dragons don’t go to school, but they have all sorts of magic we don’t. Besides, you just saved us! We’re glad you’re magic, right Kingard?”

“Err – right. Right,” affirmed the staunch elf, patting Darek twice on the back.

After a wary silence, the boy hazarded, “So I’m not in trouble?”

“Not with us, kid,” Kingard praised. “You’ve done well. Now try to get some sleep.”