She looked at him. “You do? Why do you say that?”
“Because I think we’re all going to get to know more of it as time goes on. The valley won’t be our home anymore. We’ll do what our ancestors did before they were closed away. We’ll go exploring. Haven’t the Elves been talking about that for a long time now? At least since there were signs the protective wall was coming down?”
She nodded. “That’s so.”
“I don’t think we can stay in the valley much longer, even after the Drouj leave. We have to go out and see what’s there. We have to learn what survived and how to deal with it. We have to educate ourselves. Trackers understand this. Whenever something new is discovered, we go to study it right away. A new place, a new creature, a new plant. We build on our knowledge of things that way. It won’t be any different for us now that we have the world outside the valley to study.”
“Well, I want to be someone who does that. I want to be like you. I want to travel to places and see things and learn about it all. I don’t want to sit around a palace and be Queen. I never wanted it before, and I don’t want it now. What use is it? Some people like making decisions and giving orders and controlling other people’s lives. Even Father liked it, I think. But I don’t. I don’t want any of it.”
“Who will take the throne if you don’t?” he asked. “Aren’t you the last of your family?”
She shrugged. “There are cousins, other families related to the Amarantynes. Or to the Belloruus line. Let one of them take the job. Once we’re safe again and I’ve dealt with Isoeld and her creatures, I’ll give up the Elfstones and leave.”
She made it sound simple enough, but he wondered if someone in line for the Elven throne could simply walk away. Would it even be allowed? He hadn’t heard of anyone ever doing so.
“We don’t have to spend time thinking about it just yet,” he said finally. “We’ve got to find a way to stay alive long enough to make worrying about it necessary.”
“I know.” She made a dismissive gesture. “You don’t have to tell me that. I know what we’re up against.”
She seemed to go away then, looking off into the darkness, easing away from him just enough to let him know she didn’t want to think about the present, and talking about the future, about its possibilities and her dreams, was her way of escaping. He heard her exhale slowly and felt her lean forward, head lowered as if the weight of all that had been laid upon her shoulders was suddenly a burden too great for her to bear.
“It’s just so unfair. For all this to happen at once—the Drouj invasion, the death of my father and grandmother, being given responsibility for the Elfstones, and finding myself trapped outside the valley and hunted like a fugitive. I just feel beaten down by it.”
He leaned forward, placing his head next to hers. “It isn’t easy now and it won’t be easy later, but we’ll get through it, Phryne. You and I. We’ll look out for each other.
We’ll take care of each other and things will work out.”
He didn’t know if he believed that or not, but he said it because it seemed that it needed saying. If they weren’t committed to that much, then he didn’t see any hope for all the rest of it—for the larger threats of the loss of their homelands and the destruction of their peoples, for a failure of any form of magic to survive if theirs was lost, for a collapse of what remained of civilization and a quick descent into anarchy.
She inclined her head sideways until it was touching his own. “I could go with you when it’s time, Pan. When you decide to go out into the larger world, to leave the valley and go exploring, I could go with you. I would like that. I could learn to be a Tracker.
You know I could. You’ve seen what I can do. I’m strong enough.”
He put his arm around her and hugged her against him. “I don’t think there’s anything you can’t do.”
“Will you take me with you, then?”
Her voice was so plaintive that it almost broke his heart. She was asking so much more than what the words suggested. He could tell it from the tone of her voice and in the hesitancy of the way she spoke. He could feel it ripple through her where they touched heads and shoulders. She wasn’t just asking if he might consider her request; she was begging.
“Please, Pan. Will you take me?”
He took a deep breath, his arm tightening about her. He knew what he should say, what it made sense to say, what everything that was practical and right suggested he say. But he also knew what she needed to hear. He knew how close she was to coming apart. As strong as she was, as steady as he had seen her on so many occasions when there was every reason for her to crumble, it was different now. Here, in this place and time, she was right on the edge.