AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I turn away, not wanting Rayne to see whatever it is my face might be doing right now. And then another sound yanks me out of my thoughts and brings me crashing back into reality.
It’s a high-pitched, haunting melody, sung by a single voice that rises and falls almost like swells on the sea. The song makes me feel like someone has set a fishhook in my guts and is tugging me out of one world and into the next; for a heartbeat, I almost want to clap my hands over my ears.
But that would, of course, be unspeakably rude. I glance at my mother’s curled lip, her final growl to the world, and a strange sort of calm settles over me. I will not dishonor her memory by reacting inappropriately to an elven lament. It’s not the kind of song the elves share lightly.
I turn around, square my shoulders, and gesture to Rayne. She closes her open mouth, then takes my hand, and yes, the ragged bottom of her dress is indeed on fire. It’s a look that suits her well, honestly. Together, we walk out of the ruins of my house and into the bright morning.
On the trampled, muddy grass that used to be my garden, the group of firefighters has broken into regiments. But no one is working right now. Instead, every face in the crowd is turned toward the singer, and most of them are crying openly.
At the edge of what was once my front door, Elyon the elven ambassador to the Iron Mountains is kneeling in the ashes. His head is raised to the sky, his eyes are closed and, by the Mothers above, he’s crying. The man who’s expressed all the emotional range of a particularly nondescript potato is actually crying.
His song rings out across the devastation of my home, across the body of my mother that so clearly reveals she died fighting despite her ruinous injuries, and I feel like even the flames sink lower in response. He sings of sunset, of autumn, of a loss that will always ache no matter how the seasons pile up around it, and the crowd of humans who can’t understand a word of the elven lament stands motionless in response.
By the time Elyon finishes, the sun has risen high in the sky and the flames have all but died. Into the silence that fills the air after his song, the cry of the gulls in the harbor echoes over my garden, followed by the distant ebb and flow of voices. Human voices, in my human city. Where I no longer belong.
Elyon comes to his feet in a single, smooth motion with both arms outstretched.
“The peace of the stars upon you,” he says, in High Elvish. “Vederill Yzzarith, Queen of the Iron Mountains.”
Wait, what? Elyon drops his arms to his sides and then turns to me, his expression more solemn than I’ve ever seen. The man looks like he’s aged decades since I last saw him. The knot of human firefighters slowly resumes their hushed conversations as Elyon walks over to me.
“Doshir,” he says, extending both his hands. “I am so sorry.”
I take his hands in mine, some part of me noting how strange it is for Elyon to give me such an intimate greeting.
“My mother,” I stammer as my thoughts swirl inside my skull and refuse to line up properly on my tongue. “She— She was—”
Elyon nods. “She was a fine queen, Doshir. This is a loss that will be keenly felt inside the Iron Mountains, and among all your allies.”
I nod, as if I know what in the nine hells he’s talking about, but inside my mind is staggering like a busted top. This doesn’t make sense. My mother was Champion of the Throne, not queen.
Something ripples the surface of my memory, the taste of hibiscus tea and lemon cookies, my mother sitting primly in an armchair and holding a golden teacup made by the dwarves.Who’s sitting on the Throne of Claws these days?I’d asked her.Come to the Iron Mountains,she’d replied,and find out.
A shiver crawls up the back of my neck. Was it really possible my mother had been chosen to serve as Queen of the Iron Mountains and she’d neglected to mention any of this to her only hatchling?
My shiver is quickly replaced by yet another slow, sickening twist of guilt. Hadn’t I told her, over and over again, that I had no interest in dragon politics? That I couldn’t care less whose scales were warming the Throne of Claws? That I’d moved to Cairncliff to get away from all of that, and would she please find it in her heart to respect my wishes?
I swallow hard and realize Elyon is still talking. I catch something about funeral arrangements, and an advance party to retrieve the remains, and the Queensmoot.
Queensmoot? Another memory rises from my battered brain. The inside of a dungeon that stank of blood and smoke and dragonsbane. My mother in chains, and Rensivar holding the dragonsbane-coated dagger that had just sliced a bleeding arc across my bare chest.The Queensmoot approaches,Rensivar had said to my mother.When and where will it be?
“Wait,” I say. “What about the Queensmoot?”
Elyon blinks slowly, and I have the sense that his estimation of my character has just slipped a few notches.
“Your mother was running unopposed,” Elyon says, his Draconic spoken in a voice that’s almost a whisper. “Now, the throne is empty, and the successor is unclear.”
I open my mouth to say perhaps they should delay the Queensmoot, but the words die in my throat. The dragons of the Iron Mountains would never stand for such a gross violation of protocol. I close my mouth, swallow, and try again.
“Elyon,” I say, and my voice sounds like it’s been forced to travel a very long distance in a very small container. “I— I don’t—”
Elyon’s face gives nothing away.
“You asked about arranging transport to the Iron Mountains,” he says. “Discreet transportation. I assume you did not wish to be observed, you or the woman?”
He tilts his head very subtly at Rayne, who is walking toward the far side of the house with a bucket in each hand and smoke still rising from the ever-shrinking hemline of her charred dress. I nod.
“I regret that I was unable to complete my preparations to fulfill your request,” he continues, still speaking in Draconic. “I can offer you horses, but no guide.”
