“Put it in my hand, Pan.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked, doing as she requested and watching her take a long, slow drink. “Are you hurt?”
She finished drinking and held out the skin for him to take. Aislinne took it instead, giving Pan a worried look.
Prue’s laugh was soft and unpleasant. “The King of the Silver River warned me there might be something more taken away. He as much as told me to plan on it if I did what he asked of me. I didn’t pay enough attention to what that might mean. I didn’t want to.
I only wanted to help you.”
“You did help me,” he told her.
“Attacking the demon to distract him long enough for you to fight back cost the scarlet dove its life—if it possessed any real life in the first place. I don’t think it did. I don’t think it was real. I think it was a part of me. So when it was destroyed, another part of me was destroyed with it.”
Pan shook his head, bending close to look in her milky eyes. “What are you talking about? What’s been destroyed?”
She gave him a small smile, and her hand found his cheek. “It doesn’t matter, Pan. It isn’t your fault.”
“Prue, you have to tell me. What’s been destroyed?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “My sight, Pan. When the demon tore the scarlet dove off its face and smashed it, I lost the rest of my sight. Now I really am blind. Completely. I can’t see a thing.”
BY MIDDAY, FOLLOWING THE MORNING THAT WITNESSED the end of the Drouj threat, the news of the Elven victory at Aphalion Pass had reached Arborlon. A messenger dispatched by Haren Crayel, captain of the Home Guard and commanding officer, had spread the word freely on his way to give his report to the Queen, and the city had erupted in cheers of jubilation and relief. Impromptu gatherings quickly escalated into full-scale celebrations that spread throughout the entire city, and by noon there was virtually no one who hadn’t heard the details.
Among those who had heard were Isoeld Severine and First Minister Teonette. The messenger had made certain they both knew all the details of the struggle that had resulted in the death of Taureq Siq and the wholesale flight of his Troll army. He had also advised them of the incredible appearance of Phryne Amarantyne riding astride a dragon and bearing the missing blue Elfstones, the magic of both beast and talismans combining to put a decisive halt to the Drouj invasion. He closed by adding that the Princess was on her way now to the home city to meet with the High Council, where she intended to set right the matters of who had killed her father and who was entitled to sit upon the throne.
All true, of course, save for that last part. But that was what the Orullian brothers had instructed him to say to the Queen, and Xac Wen knew how to tell a lie when it was needed and a greater good would be served. He had done it before, and he would do it again—though never with half the satisfaction he felt this time.
By midafternoon, he had completed his task, departed the palace and the chambers of the Queen, where she had received him with frosty silence, and headed straight to the north gates of the Ashenell where Tasha had told him they would rendezvous. The day was warm and overcast, and the skies suggested rain by nightfall. But in his present good mood, it felt decidedly bright and warm.
He found Tasha and Tenerife right where they had said they would be, just past the cemetery gates, hiding out of sight behind a scattering of ancient tombs in a small copse of evergreens.
“How was it?” Tasha asked at once. “Did you do as I asked, little monkey?”
“If you stop calling me names, Tasha, I might find myself more willing to carry out requests of the sort you keep making of me!” the boy snapped in reply. “Yes, of course I did as you asked.”
“How did she respond?”
The boy shrugged. “She didn’t like hearing any of it; you could tell that much by what she didn’t say. She just listened and stared at me and then sent me away.”
“Teonette?”
“He wasn’t there. I didn’t see him until I was leaving and repeated everything again.
He gave me the same treatment.” He paused. “Why are we doing all this? Why not just march right in there and haul her off to the prisons? Why not take it before the High Council and expose her for what she is? Why are we messing around with this?”
“Because we have to be careful here,” Tenerife advised. “Putting her in prison isn’t even a possibility. She is a Queen, and the Elves don’t put their rulers in prison. They banish them or confine them to their quarters in some out-of-the-way place.”
“More to the point, we don’t have the proof we need that she killed Oparion Amarantyne. If Phryne had lived …”
Tasha couldn’t finish. He shook his head, his lips tight. “We need her to confess. If she thinks Phryne is coming for her, we might find a way to get her to do that.”