“You can tell me anything.”
“You are the best of us, Aphen. You were always meant to be the Ard Rhys after Khyber. She wanted it that way. I know. I’m not the right choice. I lack the necessary balance. I don’t have the necessary skills. Mostly, I’m a fighter, a weapons master. I’m not a diplomat. I don’t have the patience. I would match my use of magic against anyone or anything in combat, but it takes more than that to be the Ard Rhys.”
She paused. “If you stay here, good intentions notwithstanding, you will be wasting your life. You will try to find a way to make your mother love you again, but that’s a small victory even if it happens. And while talking with Arling will make you feel better about yourself, it isn’t what she wanted for you. If she were still your sister and not the Ellcrys, you wouldn’t think twice about coming back to Paranor. And you would bring her with you the moment she finished her term as a Chosen. You’ve already told me this is what she wanted. It was what you wanted, too. It can’t happen for her, but that doesn’t mean you should abandon your place in the order. It doesn’t excuse you from carrying out your obligation to see it continue. Arling would want that, and you know it. She would tell you to go back. Come to Arborlon to see her when you can, but don’t make that your legacy.”
The words were blunt and hurtful, though Aphen couldn’t say exactly why. But she was used to Seersha speaking her mind, and she knew that what her friend was saying wasn’t meant as a reprimand.
“I’ve thought about all that,” she replied, though in fact she hadn’t thought about it in those exact terms. “I just think staying here is the best choice.”
Seersha gave a small smile. “Will you think about it some more?” she asked. “Can we talk about it another time?”
Aphenglow smiled back. “I don’t see why not.”
They visited for a while longer, and then Seersha grew tired and fell asleep. Aphen watched over her for several long minutes, thinking of what she had said. Sound advice from a good friend, but not the advice she wanted. She rose and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.
Outside the healing center she stood blinking in the bright afternoon sunlight, deciding what to do next. She chose to go to Ellich, hoping he might find time to speak with her. She was troubled by what Seersha had said, suddenly uncertain about her decision to stay in Arborlon. She thought she knew what her uncle would tell her, but she wanted to hear him say it. If he reaffirmed what he had been telling her for months about coming home, she might find it easier to dismiss Seersha’s arguments.
She found Ellich ready and willing to speak with her, which was something of a relief. Although he was elbows-deep in his newly minted role as King—a role she still believed should have gone to him in the first place—he put everything aside immediately and walked out into the palace gardens to speak privately with her.
“I’m still coming to terms with things,” he told her. “Very much the same as I suspect you are. Discovering the truth about Jera was heartbreaking. I won’t ever know for certain how long that creature was playing at being my wife. I won’t ever know how long she had been dead. It’s very difficul t to believe, any of it.”
“We were all deceived, Ellich. It was cruel and evil; it took someone like Edinja to conceive of such a plan.”
“It cost us both people we loved. It cost me the ability to trust my own senses.”
She looked at him carefully, noting how worn and haggard he looked and the haunted glint in his eyes. He would never be the same, she knew. He would rule the Elves wisely, but he would not again be as strong a man in himself.
She pushed back against her sadness. “I need to ask you something about my own life, if you will consider listening. I have a difficult choice to make.”
What he advised was pretty much what she had expected. She belonged in Arborlon with the Elves. She needed to be close to her mother and to her people. Her time with the Druids was over. The order was decimated in any case, all of its members dead save for Seersha and herself, and there was no firm guarantee that Seersha would recover. It was a grim thing to say, but he believed Aphenglow should be realistic about how matters stood.
When he had finished, he told her again how sorry he was about both Arling and Cymrian. She knew what he was feeling. With Jera and his brother gone, he was left with Aphen and her mother as his only family, and quite naturally he wanted to keep both with him. He was uncertain, at this point, how he would do as King, and it would help to have Aphen, in particular, there to advise him.