“Perhaps, do you recall the tale of Maugrym?” asked T’orrac with another of his calculated smile, the sort that never reached his ears.

“Moral stories for children do not help me win a war,” I replied as I slapped the half-emptied mug wildly on the stone table. The contents of the mug slightly spilled over and spread across the rough surface.

Negotiation with T’orrac was always challenging. I wished lyria was with me. It has been only a mere two and half weeks, a small time by elven standards and I already missed Lyria. Her warmth, the twinkle in her eyes, the comfort of her embrace and her alluring scent. My mind struggled to hold on to a concise image. When it came to the adorable tiefling, only a strong surge of sensation, like a giant tidal wave, submerged my other rational thoughts. And on occasions, when the cold of the night manifested, the want for her caress over my demure self would leave my heartbeat racing. Warm blood rushed through my veins when I imagine her warm breath wafting over me.

I would have proceeded otherwise, but in the end, it was Lyria’s own decision. After handing over the letter to High-Archoness Stormaire, she departed in another direction with the promise that she would have something to help me when we meet again. My only concern was that Lyria would go focus on shopping for our wedding instead of war efforts. After all, in the fathomless depth of her being, she was a hopeless romantic at heart.

Deep down, I had to agree, that it is her blessing and her flaw, that she cannot perceive the grand scale of things.

“And I ask myself, what would a mercenary commander gain from volunteering for such a risky assignment?” For a brief moment, the squint in his eyes held a sharp twinkle, like a polished blade.

“The same profit that I gained from rescuing your people in Arlond,” I answered wryly.

“But you did not specifically come to Arlond for us,” responded T’orrac. His thinly drawn lips opened just a bit wide enough to reveal his razor-sharp canines. I thought of Rodo and wondered who was more of a wolf, Rodo or T’orrac? Even bereft of claws or threatening fangs, it was obvious who the winner is.

Interpreting my silence as a sign of his petty victory, T’orrac gloated, with controlled eloquence.

“Our goals merely aligned. A debt paid in full.”

T’orrac gathered the long flowing sleeves of his robe, leaning closer, in a distance that was too close for scrutinizing and too far for sharing secrets. A strong current of air carried his scent. He smelled of sweat, soil, manure and herbs. The sickle moon harvest blade hung on his waist, more ornamental as a sign of his station of Archdruid, stuck with an unpleasant noise against the stone table.

“Now you approach us with demands, requesting healers, warriors and plague for a war that you have no right to involve and we have no grounds to participate in.”

Any alliance with T’orrac is transient at best and fickle at worst. Trusting Delyn’s nature with T’orrac would be a grave mistake. That was not a secret for me to share. My daughter struggled with her true nature ever since she became aware of herself. She struggled alone, not even willing to share the burden with me. It is the least I could do as her mother. To provide her with a safe nurturing environment when she is ready for the world.

And should I fail, one misstep, and the result would be the final wedge driven between us. The final fracture from the blow will leave us both shattered. She would never trust me again. Only residual hatred would lace with her isolation. A fate I could not allow to befall my daughter.

“A while back, some unsavoury agents from a group calling themselves, The Pruning Hands, paid us a visit.” At his mention of the name, I perked up. From the thin smile on his tight lips, it was evident that he got his intended response from me.

“That was before Arlond, before we were acquainted. They were seeking a particular drow by the name Altonarrak.” T’orrac paused briefly. Damn! He brought up that name. Still, the name of the Tempest Ghost is definitely not going to help him catch me off-guard.

“Naturally, we could not help them,” he scoffed, “as if the Tempest Ghost was even real. But then you are the most likely person to distinguish between veracity and legend.”

“They chased a shadow because most assassins would not take the assignment.” My words must have ruined T’orrac of his gloating rights, but the Archdruid still held the upper grounds.

“Or maybe someone has been protecting you all along. A powerful hand, eliminating organisations as a whole before they took a contract on you,” responded the elf.

Delyn! She has been watching me, in her own way. Until now, only the Tenebrous Weaver made her futile attempt and she was Sinvaintra’s puppet. Neither the famed assassins guild nor any of the other houses have forced their hands yet. And the Sequestered Conciliators would have moved in public. Their absence meant someone in the council feeding them false information. Savvas the younger would have been the obvious choice, except such a tenacious sleight of hand is beyond his abilities. The answer leads back to Delyn.

With that revelation, a beam of radiance laced my smile. There is resplendent hope for us. I could hold my daughter, wipe her tears, listen to her stories, the two of us could be a family. No..... the three of us could be a family. A family that Lyria dreamt of, I could now envision before my eyes. Delyn with her two mothers, in a small cottage in some tiny forgotten hamlet. Preferably in the orc territory with Overlord Urganza’s protection over our idyllic life.

“The answer is, T’orrac,” I responded with a clear and firm voice, “I am getting married and plan to settle away from all the adventure. In an isolated house, patching our vegetable garden with my future wife. Away from politics and turmoil and living self-sufficient is what I have in mind.”

T’orrac staggered as if struck with a giant hammer. My response caught him off-guard. The predator became the prey.

“T’orrac you are no priest and truth be told, we do not hold priests in high regard either, but as an Archdruid, I would be happy if you presided over the ceremony.”

T’orrac eyes struggled within their socket. He was drenched in paleness. His mind, frantically racing to process my words. He licked his dry lips, repeatedly and finally bit his lower lip as he rejected one explanation after another that his mind spits out. In the end, he slowly swiped his long thinning hair back, accepting the facts as they are told before he eventually set down.

“I would be honoured to carry this responsibility. Our commune would gladly have you, should you seek for a quiet life,” offered T’orrac with a genuine smile. For once, his smile reached his ears and he was all radiant, shaking with vigour and candour. Swiftly, he clasped my hands tightly and gave them a gentle squeeze while a radiant smile still lingered on his face.

“I promise T’orrac, I do not intend to let the invading horde reach the hold. Your healers will not even gaze upon the banners of the enemy. And should they reach the hold, you healers will be the first to be safely escorted to Fort Halcyon,” I added earnestly.

“But your plan to weaken the enemy, will still fail, given the huge number,” said T’orrac with obvious concern seeping in his words.

“I just need an airborne plague. The mortality rate is unimportant but should be highly infectious and affect the bone. Make them brittle, distorted, crumble the joints or simply mutate the skeletal structure,” I reiterated my words again.

“Also preferably, infecting a wide spectrum of bipedal races,” completed T’orrac as his hand unconsciously rose to his face, the nails of his fingers digging into the fine stubble on his chin as he scratched.

“So what is your interpretation of the events behind Maugrym’s fall?” T’orrac asked. A steel fire glistened in his eyes as he returned back to the same question. I wondered why T’orrac would circle back to this particular tale.

“A simple moral tale for little children,” I sighed in exasperation as T’orrac from his position, opposite to me, wore a smile of acknowledgement, like the sort tutors reserved for their students.

“Maugrym the god-king sought immortality, attained it through an elixir. Went mad with power and committed vile acts, till the divine, gods or deities or whatever the local prominent belief was, struck him with the vilest of curses. In the end, he along with his brood took their own life,” I completed nonchalantly.

“But what is the tale shared among adults,” said T’orrac with the same coaxing smile on his face. He wanted me to continue.

“Maugrym was lecherous and self-indulgent. Cared less for his folks and even less for his own family. Only valued his own lust. Violated his own daughter and when she took her life, he turned towards necromancy, not allowing the girl, a rest even beyond her grave. Only when she returned, she came back as wight haunting him, driving him mad, till he isolated and barricaded himself to his death.”

I could taste the bitter bile rising up my throat. This was one of the few versions, that constricted my stomach and made me retch in revulsion. With the back of my hand, I rubbed the sweat from my face but not the disgust. My nails dug into the edges of the stone table, holding them both for support and as an outlet for my rising rage.

“Your spymaster and her council would have been redundant if you were to believe every tale brought by a spy,” the elf slowly edged closer, his warm breath invading the space between us, though he kept his hands folded in front of him as he continued, “and what is your interpretation?”

That was his real intention. To test me. To assess my abilities in seeing past the projected events.

“Here is my interpretation of it. Maugrym did not violate his daughter,” I uttered calmly, “That must have been an embellished tale added to magnify his dastardly nature. To demonize him or to make the surviving communities appear more heroic.”

The archdruid briskly turned away from me. With his hands firmly clasped behind his back, and neck thrust forward, he gazed at the bleak fog rolling from the distant white-capped mountain peaks. He, then, let his eyes roam over the druids toiling in the fields. It was difficult to read his expression from his back.

“Maugrym, the so-called God-King, was a tyrant, ruling his territories through terror. Given the previous tales, if I were to surmise, his preferred political tool for consolidation of his own power might have been ritual or institutionalised rape,” I continued as disgust speared through my throat. I took a moment to suppress the rising bile and the churning of my own stomach. Waves of repugnance washed over me.

“Daughters of prominent families from the frontiers or territories would have been forced as sacrificial maidens for the God-King. To further terror as a medium of his absolute power, he would have acted as an enabler for his court officials, encouraging the same with lesser families and finally his foot soldiers and low officials would have fallen into the practice of Prima Noctis.”

“I am impressed.” T’orrac finally shattered his silence with a low sibilant voice.

“So in your insightful opinion, the humans and the orcs were justified in their rightful fury against the Verdant Hegemony?” questioned T’orrac with bewildered amusement.

“Maugrym’s reign might have been the initiator but resultant decline and the centuries later purge, the pogrom was a pure land grab. Displace the wild elves and occupy their territories.” I still struggled with where T’orrac was leading with his interrogation of ancient events. If the sharp furrow on his forehead and the bulging vein in his neck as he turned were anything to go by, then something that I said struck a nerve in him.

“So why did the dark-elves, high-elves and the sea-elves abandon the wild-elves?” His hot fiery rage-induced breath cut across like a finely tempered steel blade.

“The sea-elves,” I could not stop the condescending scoff from erupting out my lips as the name rolled off my tongue, “were far removed as the sun and the stars. Moreover, they could care less about what happens far away from the oceans.”

“As for the high-elves, contrary to their moral condemnation, they hate racial intermixing. Their hatred for elven blood mixing with humans and orc blood far outweighs other ethics. If anything they detested the product of rape more than the perpetrators. So the high-elves isolated themselves from the affair.”

“And what about your people?” The Archdruid’s scrutinizing gaze lingered around me, like a hawk circling its hapless prey on the ground.

“Neither the God-King nor the resulting chaos posed us any threat. Our houses were deeply involved in our own games,” I gave my earnest answer.

“You know the politics of interracial tensions and the wisdom to look beyond the obvious. You have earned our trust,” declared T’orrac in a lucid and arid voice, “You can have a few of our healers. Zurin and Ar’krak will transport the three mature mantiverns. Ferocious beast but sadly also untameable.”

T’orrac again returned to take the place opposite me. He made a grand gesture of adjusting the folds of his beige robes and swiped the back before sitting with his back straight on the stone bench.

“There are certain facts that might shed some more light. Facts that only druids from our order are privy to.”

The Archdruid’s words flowed without any urgency, almost as if time was of least importance before the matter that he was about to reveal.

“Maugrym did seek out immortality and had the druids prepare elixir but not for him -- for his daughter. The God-King, despite his multiple flaws, was still a devoted husband and loving father.”

Somehow I was not surprised by T’orrac’s revelation. It is often the people who were capable of indefinite love, were also capable of heinous crimes. Moreover, for the God-King Maugrym rape was never about lust or control. It was a piece of political machinery. His means of spreading terror to quell any impending rebellion.

“His daughter was always a fragile child and to aid her failing health, he approached the druids. Our Order did create an elixir, to strengthen her inner-self against infections. The whole royal household consumed the elixir and isolated themselves further.”

“But his daughter still got sick,” I intercepted. I expected to see an irritated T’orrac but only a razor-sharp smile appeared on his face.

“There is no single cure that can make one immune against all illness. Naturally, in the isolation, the disease spread amongst a closed community and mutated till it became potent. It made bones hollow like a bird’s bones, twisting them into horrible monstrous shapes. We called it the bone rot disease,” completed the Archdruid.

“So can you unleash the plague?” I asked with words full of hope.

“If tomb raiding is not below your dignity,” answered T’orrac with a grimace, “Due to the horrendous tales about the curse of Maugrym, you will find the tomb undisturbed. Get me a potent sample.”

“Point me to the location. I will have my ranger Arlene lead the expedition.”

T’orrac’s eyes held a hard squint at the mention of Arlene’s name. His sculpted politician features twisted, but not in dismay but rather with uncertainty. When he looked at me, his irises expanded to twice their normal size. Trepidation held the Archdruid; mangled him from within. With every breath that he took, the reluctant words struggled to escape his lips.

“When I first saw her, it felt odd. So I enquired among the druids.” T’orrac quickly grabbed the half-emptied mug and without any further consideration for etiquette, he emptied the contents through his dry throat.

“Twins are never born to elves and they never survive for half-elves. So their mother approached one of our wyress for help with childbirth. Iola, the one who nursed you back to health was the midwife during their birth.”

My heart jumped a bit as goosebumps slowly cascaded over my body. The elf-woman with a perpetual frown drawn on her face, almost as if the muscles of her face forgot how to smile. At least, that explains a lot of Arlene’s attitude and behaviour. If that was the face that Arlene first saw upon entering the world, there would be no need to slap her butt to make her cry. Iola’s sullen and despair-inducing face was enough.

“The disease thrived in isolation, mutated within a close circle, made potent on a particular bloodline. It would latch on to Arlene like iron nails to a magnet.”

While I sat motionlessly, stuck like a sudden bolt out of the clear sky at the Archdruid’s words, T’orrac slowly wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his sleeves.

“She is of Maugrym’s bloodline from her mother’s side,” spat out T’orrac after wrestling with words.

The first time when I met Arlene, she demonstrated extreme content for both races, far deep-rooted anger than the other half-elves. In lieu of her whole ancestry being the result of sexual violence motivated by racial tensions in cycles, her untamed rage at humans, elves and any other organisation that failed to protect them were justifiable.

“You could argue that the distorted tale of Maugrym is why Arlene partially hates her paternal grandfather. The rest was his own stupidity,” offered T’orrac with a surprising expression of unadulterated candour behind his eyes, “You send her to the Viridian Dawn Rangers. She is safe there.”

“Why?”

Judgement failed me, clouded by a colourless fog of apprehension. I came here to gain a means to win a war but getting dragged into long-buried family ignominy was not what I prepared myself for. And we dark-elves have our fair share of twisted mess for family issues.

“I must apologise, I did test you before,” confessed T’orrac with sincerity, “I wanted to know if you are unbiased enough, good enough to be a mother to her. The poor child has endured a lot, subjected to hatred and she walked every time, bloodied but with her head held high. She needs a warm nurturing mother to hold her hands. A soft and shrewd soul to anchor her. To comfort her when she is in despair and to embrace her when she seeks solace.”

Give me a dozen sons like Savvas and Celerim. I will hold them close to my heart, nurture them, raise them to be self-respecting and outstanding individuals, but not one more daughter. Commanding an army was a task, raising Delyn was a challenge.

“T’orrac, I thank you for your concern, but Arlene is in the good hands of Provost Vitalia,” I said the words even though I had my own reservations about the fae.

“Arlene needs the warmth and comfort of a mother, not a lashing tongue-whip of a mother,” snapped back T’orrac. Hearing his words, for a brief moment, I pondered if he knew my grandmother.

“But why would she be safe with Viridian Dawn Rangers?” I asked circling back to his initial suggestions.

“They will keep her safe if she does not burn them all with her temper. After all, she is the granddaughter of elven hero Raelion of the Viridian Dawn Rangers.”