The Coming Storm (98 page)

Soul bond
. What would happen to Elon now?

And her. How could she bear this?

With the strength she’d always shown and his heart ached to think of it.

“Ailith,” he said, quietly.

“Colath,” she said as she turned to greet him and smiled.

It was so good to see his familiar face.

No matter how many times Ailith saw him, his beauty always caught at her.

Long hair the color of wheat trailed over his shoulders and back. Not all Elves had beauty as men measured it. Although he was always beautiful to her, Elon didn’t, however striking he was, but most did to some extent. Some of it was that all of them had that impassive look, as if their faces were carved from alabaster or marble.

Ailith knew better, she could see the truth in Colath’s pale eyes and feel it through the bond that hummed between them.

True-friend, her true friend and a brother-in-heart but she would have loved him even without it and she knew it each time she saw him. Just the sight of him lifted her spirits, even on this mission, as terrible as it was. There was that as well, that Elves could look so severe, as still as a statue and as forbidding. Even Colath, as beautiful as he was.

Yet when they smiled it was like the sun appearing from behind a cloud. 

That welcoming smile nearly destroyed him. Colath closed his eyes against the emotions that surged inside him.

Yet he wouldn’t be a coward in this.

He reached out, clasped her arm tightly and looked into her eyes, into the eyes of his true-friend.
Ailith
.

“My Lady,” Colath said, giving her such title as her people did, allowing himself a small smile and bowed a little.

Would she remember the time he’d teased her about Gwillim
? he wondered. If nothing else, he would also do her the honor she deserved, it was the least he could do. Give her back the title they’d taken from her and she more than deserved.

That memory brought back so much.

Ailith gave him a fond grin.

“So, did you draw the short straw again?” she asked, with a half laugh.

Colath smiled himself a little at the memory.

Racing for the gap between the mountains, the two of them trying to outrun a troop of goblins. A desperate attempt to get help for those besieged in Raven’s Nest behind them. Elon among them. Her with an arrow in her. That merge when she’d borrowed his strength, that had set and sealed the bond between them and Elon.

“No, this time I asked for it.”

Bitter as it might be.

Ailith’s heart twisted, grateful and sympathetic at once. She could feel what this did to him through the bond they shared. To willingly take such a duty…

“Thank you, Colath.” Her hand tightened on his arm. “They’ve sent Elon and Jareth off.”

Grimly, he nodded. “I know. Jalila told me. That’s why I volunteered. At the very least, you will have one friend standing for you.”

His hand tightened on hers in return, shared pain and comfort both.

“Thank you, for that and this then.” It eased her heart, if only a little.

“No thanks. Not for this. If it were my choice we wouldn’t be doing it.”

“Nor mine,” she said, with a wry grin.

So Ailith, that grin.

He nodded in rueful acknowledgment and took his tone from hers. No shadows, no darkness. What was to come would come soon enough. That couldn’t be changed.

“No doubt. I’ve come, then, to give you escort to the Council chambers.”

Ailith raised her eyes to his, looked into his pale ones.

It had been like this between them since the very first moment they had met, as if they’d been close friends all their lives and not merely for a few months. A fondness that had no depth that Ailith could measure. A knowledge and trust that knew no bounds.

True-friend
.

She took a breath. His eyes met hers. Held.

They would stand for each other here.

She took a breath and smiled, a little unevenly, but she smiled. “Then let’s not keep them waiting.”

At Colath’s knock, the guards opened the door and took the fore as the Alatheriann Hunters fell in behind them. There were few in the halls, most were gathered now outside the Council building. Those few they passed glanced quickly at them and then away.

One of the guards at the main doors frowned and looked to say something but thought better of it when he met Colath’s warning glance.

Colath held Ailith’s arm, for comfort and no other reason. No doubt the man thought Ailith should be bound, or even perhaps in chains.

That thought brought back the dreadful memories of when Colath himself had worn chains, he and Elon both, and the trackers had brought her to them, with Ailith in chains as well.

He wouldn’t do that to her. He knew how she loathed them, as much as any of Elven blood. Had he not seen it that day, when she came? That wild, despairing anger?

There was no need in any case.

If she would have fled, she would have done so before now and made herself outcast by her own actions. She hadn’t. She wouldn’t. In honor and in pride she wouldn’t. Never. Of that he had no doubt.

The causeway was empty of traffic but below some folk still went about their business as if nothing had happened, as if nothing were happening. For them it didn’t and it wasn’t.

He cautioned, “Stay close once we get beyond the walls.”

For a moment she went still. Her eyes sought his.

“Has it gotten that bad?”

It had.

The people needed an enemy, a target for their wrath.

Whoever had begun this, they’d done their work well. What had started as whispers and rumblings among men had spread. Nor was it whispers any longer, some folk spoke of it openly and some shouted. There had been fights in the streets.

Rumor had done its evil work well. Colath had heard all manner of talk and some of it had sent a chill through him.

Otherling
.

There were some folk, though, who wouldn’t merely shudder at the notion. The mere idea of her triggered a revulsion so deep it seemed they could hardly bear it. The Dwarves particularly, Men, too, but even some of his own folk.

It was worse yet in the streets where the rumors ran rampant and grew more fantastic with each telling.

Colath was frightened for her.

All he said, though, was, “There are rumors. Your arrest didn’t help.”

No, instead it had given credence to the rumors and confirmed that the Council saw her as a threat, too.

The whispers and shouts had grown in volume.

Had they calculated it this way, Daran and the Three?

A few they passed seemed startled to see Elves, for this was a city of men. Save for Council meetings his folk were seldom seen here, especially in the company of the King’s Guard. Some, though, noted their passage with averted faces or with darkling looks, a few with scowls or grim glares.

They passed a narrow street and a voice called, “Otherling. Traitor.”

Ailith glanced that way but couldn’t see the face to match the voice.

“When did I become traitor?” she wondered aloud.

That one wasn’t brave enough to face her with his accusations. She saw other looks as well, the turned heads, the glares. Few, very few, looked on her with sympathy.

She took a deep breath to ease her sinking heart.

“Don’t listen, Ailith,” Colath said. “Only a coward would shout from a crowd rather than say such to your face.”

“They’re afraid,” she said.
Of me
, she thought, incredulously.

What had she done to merit this? She knew, well enough. She’d known it when she’d done it but had done it all the same. What choice had there been, really? Elon. Trapped and helpless. With Colath, the same? To stand and do nothing, to wield her sword only and let hundreds die? When there had been a means to stop it?

It had been a risk but she’d taken it in full knowledge of the consequences. She’d done it even so.

Now she would pay the price for it.

She’d so hoped to be wrong.

The square block tower of gold-threaded white marble that was Council Building gleamed in the sunlight. Even from several streets away they could hear a low roar, the sound of the crowd that had gathered in the Council Square for her trial.

It sounded somewhat like a hungry beast calling for its dinner but that might have been mere fancy.

Still, the sound of it made Ailith shiver.

Turning, Colath took them down a side street, away from the throngs in the Square.

Here Guards turned those folks away who sought a better vantage point and thought they might find it through the back alleys around the Chamber. They didn’t turn Colath and his escort away. They waved them past and through a massive wrought-iron gate – like the marble, a gift from the Dwarves. Fanciful leaves and delicate embellishments decorated that gate. It was lovely yet strong, the work of the women of the Dwarves.

With the Council Building their boot heels clicked on marble floors and it felt like sacrilege to walk on those beautiful, highly-polished stones with their thin veins of gold and silver.

Another set of guards opened a door to an empty chamber.

It seemed that as the once-Heir to a Kingdom they afforded her more privileges than the usual prisoner going to stand before the Council. Food and drink were set upon a table wrought so delicately from wood that it had to be the work of Elves. So, too, the tapestries on the walls and the carpet on the floor.

Elven-silk, like Ailith’s mother and grandmother had once woven.

It was beautiful work. Once upon a time she might have been thrilled to see it, to see this building, this place. She had never seen the Council Chambers either. No longer. She would soon now.

The food—her last meal?—didn’t tempt her but her mouth was very dry.

“I’ll pour,” she said.

“My thanks,” Colath said, looking around the room.

It was a cold place. Not like his own lands, not like the lands of his people. There wouldn’t be these enclosing walls of stone but pillars and galleries of highly-polished wood, open terraces that let in the light and living things. Flowering vines would drape to send showers of petals to scent the air. He longed to be home in Aerilann again, away from this cold place, from the harsh scent of men and the harsher, metallic tang of Dwarves. Away from this terrible pain and what they were about to do here. Hand him a hundred trolls and he would have taken them over this.

Instead Ailith handed him a cup and lifted her own in salute.

Ailith took a small sip. Juice, berries and peaches, perhaps. Sweet. She’d expected wine and was grateful it wasn’t. Her head was light enough as it was. Fear had her stomach fluttering.

“This place is cold,” Colath said, abruptly and she couldn’t mistake the longing in his voice.

Looking around the room she knew what he meant. It was impersonal and barren, stone walls and floor, relieved only by the tapestries and the tables.

“I’ve never been in any Enclave but Talesin’s,” she said, with a sigh. “I so wanted to see Aerilann.”

“You may yet and when you do, you’ll love it as I do. I was thinking how much gentler it is than this. There would be flowers everywhere and the perfume of them would fill the air. We live among the trees and living things, the sun and air and sky.”

“You miss it,” she said, sympathetically.

She knew he did. He and Elon both.

So like her in that, too, facing what she did and yet she still cared about his homesickness.

“Do you miss Riverford, Ailith?” Colath asked, carefully.

She’d rarely spoken of it after her disinheritance.

As he asked he looked in her eyes and he knew.