Then she remembered Arlingfant and Cymrian and the Elven Hunters who had been aboard the airship with her, and she forced herself into a sitting position. A wave of dizziness swept through her, and she seemed to hurt everywhere at once. But when she tested her arms and legs, one by one, she could tell that nothing was broken. Her ribs were another matter. At least several were cracked and perhaps worse. She took a moment to use her magic to layer her midsection with a healing wrap that gave her some relief from the pain.
Then, ignoring what pain still lingered, she forced herself to her feet and took a few steps toward the glow of the embers. She could tell the airship had come down in a forest; the trees closest to her were scarred and ripped by the force of the crash. Pieces of the vessel lay everywhere, scattered about like the bones of a dead thing. She found one of the Elven Hunters only a few feet away, what was left of him barely recognizable. Shivering at the implications of what this might mean about her sister and Cymrian, she stumbled ahead more quickly, looking everywhere at once.
She found the larger part of Wend-A-Way some distance farther on, her hull holed in a dozen places by enemy fire and her decking collapsed. The glow she had seen earlier was emanating from sections of wood planking that were still smoldering. The masts were shattered, and lengths of them lay all around the wreck. One was even caught up in the branches of one of the trees. The parse tubes and light sheaths had been thrown all across the space where the airship had come down. Yards of radian draws hung from the trees like spiderwebs.
She found parts of another of the crewmen nearby, able to tell that it wasn’t Cymrian from the markings on the one remaining forearm. She pushed on through the haze, coughing as the acrid smoke and ash entered her lungs, peering about for signs of her sister and their protector. But she couldn’t find either. She was widening her search to the areas outside the immediate crash site when she remembered the Elfstones. She had chosen not to use them when they had been attacked, relying instead on her Druid magic. But where had she put them? She began searching through her pockets without success. If they had fallen out somewhere during the crash, she would never find them. They had to be on her somewhere.
And they were, tucked in an outside pocket of her pants, down along her thigh. She felt their distinctive shape through the fabric and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Aphen.”
She turned to find Cymrian coming toward her from out of the haze, his clothes soaked, wild and streaked with mud. Blood from a deep cut on his forehead ran down his face. She felt a sudden rush of emotion that surprised her—a sense of relief coupled with something much stronger.
“I can’t find Arling,” she told him at once. “Have you seen her?”
He shook his head. “I just now found my way to you. I was thrown off the ship when she came down. Right into a bog. Arling? I don’t know. She might be anywhere.”
“Let me see that cut,” she said, moving over to examine his head.
She cleaned the wound as best she could with the sleeve of her tunic and then used a small bit of magic to close the gash and initiate the healing. He stood quietly while she did so, his lean feature intense, his eyes turned away. “Are you all right?”
“Better than you, I think. Mostly, I’m just sore. We have to find her, Cymrian.”
He nodded as she finished and stepped away. “We will. Can you walk?”
“As far as you need me to.”
“Then let’s conduct a sweep of the area. Spread out from here. We’ll find her quick enough.”
They began a slow outward circling from the ruins of Wend-A-Way, searching the brush and trees as they went, careful not to neglect the possibility that Arling was caught up in the branches of one of the trees. Around them, mist and smoke swirled through the night, thick and pungent. They were barely able to find their way, but they pushed steadily onward until at last they were far enough from the airship’s remains that the haze had dissipated and they could see clearly again.
“This is close to where I landed,” he said at last, stopping. “Maybe we’re guessing wrong. Maybe she didn’t even get off the ship. She could still be inside, trapped belowdecks. It looked as if the ship collapsed in on herself, so …”