The Elf Queen of Shannara

She lay back, drowsy still, taking time to gather her thoughts. She had not seen much of the room the night before. It had been dark, and Eowen had used only candlelight to guide her. She had collapsed into the down-stuffed bed and been asleep almost immediately.

She closed her eyes momentarily, trying to connect what she was seeing to what she remembered, this dreamlike, translucent present to the harsh, forbidding past. Had it all been real—the search to find where the Elves had gone, the flight to Morrowindl, the trek through the In Ju, the climb up Blackledge, the march to the Rowen and then Arborlon? Lying there as she was, swathed in sunlight and soft sheets, she found it hard to believe so. Her memory of what lay without the city’s walls—the darkness and fire and haze, the monsters that came from everywhere and knew only how to destroy—seemed dim and far away.

Her eyes blinked open angrily, and she forced herself to remember. Events paraded before her, vivid and harsh. She saw Garth as he stood with her against the Shadowen at the edge of the cliffs above the Blue Divide. She pictured once more how it had been that first night on the beach when Tiger and Spirit had left them. She thought of Stresa and Faun, forced herself to remember how they looked and talked and acted, and what they had endured in helping her travel through this monstrous world, friends who had helped her only to be left behind.

Thinking of the Splinterscat and the Tree Squeak was what finally brought her awake. She pushed herself into a sitting position and looked slowly around. She was here, she assured herself, in Arborlon, in the palace of the Elf Queen, in the home of Ellenroh Elessedil, her grandmother. She took a deep breath, wrestling with the idea, working to make it be real. It was, of course—yet at the same time it didn’t yet seem so. It was too new, she supposed. She had come looking to find the truth about her parents; she could not have guessed the truth would prove so startling.

She remembered what she had said to herself when Cogline had first approached her about the dreams: What she learned by agreeing to travel to the Hadeshorn to speak with Allanon might well change her life.

She could not have imagined how much.

It both intrigued and frightened her. So much had happened to bring her to Morrowindl and the Elves, and now she was faced with confronting a world and a people she did not really know or understand. She had discovered last night just how difficult things might prove to be. If even her own grandmother would choose to lie to her, how much trust could she put in any of the others? It rankled still that there were secrets being kept from her. She had been sent to the Elves for a purpose, but she still didn’t know what it was. Ellenroh, if she knew, wasn’t saying—at least not yet. And she wasn’t saying anything about the demons either—only that they hadn’t come through the Forbidding and that the Ellcrys hadn’t failed. But they had come from somewhere, and the queen knew where that was, Wren was certain. She knew a lot of things she wasn’t telling.

Secrets—there was that word again.

Secrets.

She let the matter drop with a shake of her head. The queen was her grandmother, the last of her family, the giver of life to her mother, and a woman of accomplishment and beauty and responsibility and love. Wren shook her head. She could not bring herself to think ill of Ellenroh Elessedil. She could not disparage her. She was too like her, perhaps—physically, emotionally, and in word and thought and act. She had seen it for herself last night; she had felt it in their conversation, in the glances they exchanged, and in the way they responded to each other.

She sighed. It was best that she do as she had promised, that she wait and see.

After a time, she rose and walked to the door that led to the adjoining chamber. Almost immediately the door opened and Garth was there. He was shirtless, his muscled arms and torso wrapped in bandages, and his dark bearded face cut and bruised. Despite the impressive array of injuries, the big Rover looked rested and fit. When she beckoned him in, he reached back into his own room for a tunic and hastily slipped it on. The clothes that had been provided him were too small and made him look decidedly outsized. She hid her smile as they moved over to sit on a bench by the lace-curtained window, happy just to see him again, taking comfort from his familiar presence.

What have you learned? he signed.

She let him see her smile now. Good, old, dependable Garth—right to the point every time. She repeated her previous night’s conversation with the queen, relating what she had been told of the history of the Elessedils and Ohmsfords and of her mother and father. She did not voice her suspicion that Ellenroh was shading the truth about the demons. She wanted to keep that to herself for now, hoping that given a little time her grandmother would choose to confide in her.

Nevertheless, she wanted Garth’s opinion about the queen.

“What did you notice about my grandmother that I missed?” she asked him, fingers translating as she spoke.