Bearers of the Black Staff

She wouldn’t disagree, and since it didn’t do any good just talking about it, she left things where they were and went off to pack. Shoving clothes and personals into her backpack, she had a momentary twinge of regret that her companions of the last trip would not be going with her, especially Panterra Qu, about whom she had not stopped thinking since he had departed Arborlon more than a week ago with the Gray Man. Certainly thinking about Pan was preferable to thinking about her stepmother, but her thoughts were generated less as a matter of choice than of fascination. Even now, she remained intrigued with this boy, and although she had tried repeatedly she could not explain it.

She sighed, pondering on it anew as she stood there in her bedchamber, staring at her backpack. Some of her odd attraction to Panterra had to do with his unavailability, she knew. He was human, she was Elven, and the two did not mix when you were a member of the royal family. He was unavailable to her, and that made him desirable. Some of it had to do with the singular nature of his profession, how remote he kept himself from the rest of the world, how isolated he was. How he could do what he did and be happy, living on his own with no one to talk to but Prue Liss, separated from the rest of his people, immersed in reading sign and interpreting the behavior of nature’s creatures.

She knew plenty of Elven Trackers, understood their lives and their need to live free. She had talked with some and listened to their explanations. But Panterra Qu was different, and she could not explain how. Something in the way he viewed the world. Something in the way he spoke and moved. Something in the Tracker part of him that made her feel he could manage in any given situation—which was part of why she had been so quick to cajole him into investigating the campfire that had led to Prue Liss’s captivity.

Something in the way he looked at her.

She stopped suddenly, just at the end of closing up her backpack and preparing to set out, struck by a shocking possibility.

Was she in love with this boy? Was that what this was?

She rolled her eyes at the very idea of it and went out the door and down the walkway to the quarters that housed the Elven Hunters. Once there, she inquired after her escort and found that they had assigned Rendelen and Dash to go with her, two who had accompanied her on previous outings in the valley. The former was a veteran, small and tough and smart. The latter was younger, bigger and full of good cheer. They greeted her with friendly waves, their packs already in place, ready to leave.

The morning had not yet reached midday when they set out for Aphalion Pass.

As they walked to the edge of the bluff and started down the Elfitch, she was surprised to find Arik Sarn coming up. The Troll was carrying writing instruments and paper, his head lowered, his mind elsewhere. He did not see her until he was almost on top of her, and when he did he was visibly startled.

“Princess,” he greeted in his guttural voice, bowing deeply.

Too deeply to suit her. She still didn’t like him. But it didn’t much matter because she hadn’t seen him once in the time he had been there. Until now, of course.

“Good morning to you,” she said in reply. “Taking a walk?”

“Just to the ramp’s end and back. I’ve come from your gardens. We have no such flowers where I live.”

“They are beautiful,” she agreed. “The gardeners work very hard to keep them so.” She glanced at the notebook. “Writing something down about those flowers?”

“Drawing them,” he said. He showed her several pages of very good sketchings of early-spring flowers. He smiled. “Helps me pass the time. We don’t have these plants outside.”

She found it surprising that he liked to draw flowers, but who could tell about Trolls? She left him there with a smile of encouragement and a wave of her hand. She could feel him studying her back.

With Dash and Rendelen as companions, she walked through the remainder of the day at a steady pace, passing out of Arborlon and down through the Eldemeres, making her way across the lowlands to the forest that lay just at the base of the mountains leading up to the pass. The day was cloudy and gray, but the air was warm and the ground soft and dry. As nightfall approached, the trio made camp and ate dinner, and then afterward sat around a small fire drinking ale and telling stories. Phryne might have been born to a privileged and high-ranking family with expectations for her future, but she had not been raised that way. In fact, she had pretty much spurned all of it since she was very young, insisting that she be allowed to spend her time with whomever she wished—which in her case meant with the rough-and-tumble boys and girls being raised as Elven Hunters and Trackers. Her mother and father, seeing how set she was on choosing her own playmates and lifestyle, gave up on trying to manage that aspect of her life early on, settling instead for teaching her what they thought important about deportment and manners and court life in the privacy of her own home. She endured their lessons stoically and structured her life pretty much as she chose.