He had pale skin, nearly white, and a crescent-shaped scar on his left cheek. His brown eyes were flecked with gold and appeared ancient, making Dion feel like a young child, insignificant beside someone wiser and greater. Lustrous silver hair hung to the eldran’s shoulders.
Thinking of Triton, Dion reached for his bow, but then remembered that Chloe said Triton was broad-shouldered, with one eye missing and skin tight on his bald head. This eldran was slim, with long hair; his face was gentle, weathered like parchment by the passage of time.
‘You won’t need your weapon, Dion. My name is Zachary. You have nothing to fear. You are in our lands, but I won’t harm you.’
‘How do you know my name?’
‘I know you well, young prince Dion of Xanthos.’
‘How?’ Dion climbed to his feet, and the eldran slowly rose with him. Though he was extremely thin, Zachary was taller than Dion by a full six inches. ‘How do you know me?’
‘Through your mother,’ Zachary said softly.
‘My mother is dead.’
‘I know.’ He spoke simply, but his voice carried a sense of loss and sadness. ‘I grieve with you.’
‘Leave me be,’ Dion said, hanging his head. ‘I came to pray to my gods, not to talk to eldren.’
‘Dion,’ Zachary said as he gazed down at him. ‘Look at me.’
Despite himself, Dion tilted his head back to meet the eldran’s gaze.
‘You will want to know what I have to say. What she never wanted you to know.’ Zachary paused, and then spoke clearly and succinctly, so that Dion could not mistake his words. ‘Your mother was one of us.’
‘She cared for your people, I know. You are all most likely alive because of her. She—’
‘It’s the truth,’ Zachary said. ‘Although I can understand why you find it hard to accept. I always thought she should tell you, but she wanted you to be completely one of them, rather than partly one of us. You should know the truth.’
Dion wondered if he was still lying on his back, dreaming as his closed eyelids banished the light of the stars. ‘Truth? What truth?’
‘Long ago Markos, your father, King of Xanthos, had a tragedy. His wife died giving birth to his firstborn, a son.’
Dion frowned. ‘Nikolas.’
‘Yes, Nikolas. Your half-brother.’ Zachary nodded. ‘Markos grieved, but after some years his advisers pressed him to bear another child to ensure the succession. They found him a young wife, a noblewoman named Thea, from a tiny far away kingdom called Azeros, to the north and west of here, in a valley between two mountains.’
‘I know all this,’ Dion said.
‘Then humor me and allow me to continue.’ Zachary’s ancient eyes suddenly blazed, and Dion felt a stab of fear. He remembered the crescent scar on the face of the serpent that cleared the narrows . . . and then realized that he was looking at the very same eldran.
But all the eldran did was fix Dion with a steady stare.
‘Out of duty, the king agreed to the marriage,’ Zachary said, ‘in order to father a noble son, more than to build an alliance with a small kingdom he knew little about. The young bride, Thea, and her retinue set off for Xanthos.’
Zachary’s voice changed in character. The brown eyes that never left Dion’s face became penetrating.
‘We discovered her just outside her homeland,’ he said.
Dion started. ‘What did you just say?’
‘She was badly wounded but still alive, the only one of her retinue to escape harm, for her escort had fought for her to the last man. We took her in and tended to her wounds, discovering the nature of the wildran attack on her homeland. I sent some of my people to Azeros and we discovered that it was destroyed by the giants, completely and utterly.’
Zachary’s voice became sad. ‘We tried, Dion, we tried. We tried to heal her but her body was as broken as her heart, for she knew that her home was gone, and she would never see anyone she knew again. Our best healer spent a great deal of time tending to her, sharing in her life, doing all she could for her.’ He paused. ‘But even so, despite the healer’s efforts, the woman died.’
Dion wanted to tear his eyes away from Zachary’s, but there was such strength in his stare that he couldn’t look away. He didn’t believe it, couldn’t believe any of it.
But, at the same time, he knew it to be true.
‘We eldren began to fear for ourselves. For at that time there was no peace between Xanthos and our people. We knew that if the king of Xanthos’s new bride was killed by wildren, his wrath would come down on all of us. There aren’t many of us, Dion. It is your race that won the war, long ago. We only want to live here in peace.’
Zachary reached out to take Dion’s hands. His touch was strange, and then Dion realized why. It was no different from the touch of any other person.
‘Your mother, who was the healer, came up with a desperate solution. She dyed her silver hair black and went to Xanthos. That healer became Thea. And from then on, until she died, that is who she was.’