“Redden, what difference does it make now? That search is ended!”
“Only because, until this moment, we had no place to look. We didn’t know where to go. Only Khyber knew anything, and she took that knowledge with her when she died. But think about it! Tesla Dart knows this information, too. She can take us down there into that pit. We can still find the Elfstones and bring them back out again!”
Oriantha stared at him. “Listen to yourself. How many are dead already because they thought they could find the missing Stones? How many, Redden? Now you want to risk our lives, as well? You want to forget about getting out of here, about finding a way back to your brother? You want to go hunting for the Elfstones, too? You must be out of your mind!”
Redden stepped forward so that he was right in front of her.
“I need to do this. Do you understand me? I need to. I’ve watched everyone die—and most of them right in front of me. I watched Carrick die. I watched the Ard Rhys die at the hands of Tael Riverine. All of this happened because of the search for the Elfstones—I understand that. But if we now have a chance to find the Stones and bring them back into the Four Lands—to finally do what we set out to do—don’t we have an obligation to try? It would provide some small vindication for what’s been sacrificed. It would prove that those who are gone didn’t die for nothing!”
Oriantha shook her head. “No. It was madness before, and it is madness now.”
“But we’ve suffered so much! The Druids are mostly dead; the order is destroyed. Your mother is dead. My brother may be dead, too. The search was a disaster. If we could get possession of the Elfstones, at least we would have something to show for all that.” He shook his head and stared at the ground. “I am not going back without trying. I can’t. I won’t ever be the same if I give up on this chance. I have to try to find a way back to who I was before all this began. Maybe I can do that if we recover the Stones.”
Oriantha folded her arms. “The Elfstones have been the cause of everything bad that has happened. Why do you think it would be any different now? Insisting on this just gives you one more chance to kill yourself and take us with you. I risked my life to break you free of that cage. Was it all for this? To have you take up right where you left off and in the end die anyway?”
“But what if all that is behind us?” He wheeled on Tesla Dart. “Are you sure the Elfstones are still down there, in this underground storage chamber? Can we find a way down there like you did?”
She looked from him to Oriantha and back again, clearly uneasy. “Stairs take you down—a long way down. But the stones are there. No one touches Old World magic, not even Tael Riverine. We can do, can go, if you want.”
“Does something guard the magic? Are there creatures watching over it? Is it dangerous down there?”
“Nothing guards. Nothing watches. It is a dead place with dead things from a dead world. Only the Straken Lord goes. And Weka, too, once upon a time. Now, you maybe.”
“You see?” Redden turned back to Oriantha. “We can do this! If we bring back the Elfstones, it will mean we didn’t fail entirely. You must see it. We can’t let this chance pass! We have to take it. We have to at least have a look!”
She glared at him. “You were the one who claimed to be falling apart. You were the one who insisted we had to be out of the Forbidding by day’s end. Remember?”
“But knowing the Elfstones are down there changes everything. Now we have a real purpose in being here, one that doesn’t involve running and hiding and fighting to stay alive. We have a chance to bring back the most important magic in Elven lore.”
“Bringing back the Elfstones won’t bring back the Ard Rhys or my mother. It won’t bring back any of them. The past is done. You understand that, don’t you?”
Redden took a deep breath and exhaled sharply. He could feel this opportunity slipping away from him, and he couldn’t stand the thought of it. Oriantha was determined not to go, and if she didn’t she probably wouldn’t let him go, either. She was too invested in saving him, had given up too much to bring him back to his family. He understood what that meant, and he knew he wouldn’t fight her.
But if that happened, he would never recover from what he had gone through. He could sense it—and not just in an offhand way, but deep down inside where the pain never quite goes away. Doing this, giving it at least a chance, would help him heal. It would lend him the emotional strength that had been steadily eroding all during his imprisonment and systematic incapacitation.
He met Oriantha’s hard stare squarely. “What if the Elfstones could be used to help us defend against the Straken Lord’s invasion? What if one of those sets has the power to negate the size and numbers of his army—maybe even to destroy it? Would it be worth it then?”