He wasn’t poisoning or drugging General Lakelost. Brandy was medicinal.
In the time it took for the new treaty to be delivered, there came word of another big battle: at the pass in Tharnapyr, trapped between the harpies’ Forest of the Suicides and the trolls’ Roaring Cliffs. Where the 15th were stationed, and no other troop close enough to reach them. When Elliot heard about it, he was sitting with Louise. She had to be strapped down to her bed to stop her from rising, commandeering a horse, and riding off to a fight that was already over.
Elliot sat with her all that long, cold night.
Word came in the morning, not slowly as before, but in shouts piling on shouts from every messenger and passerby, like the sound of victory bells. They heard of how the 15th had held the pass, their young leaders never faltering, and how Michael and Rachel Sunborn had led an army of their own people from across country and crushed the trolls’ force from behind.
The name was repeated so often it began to seem like a thousand candles lit one by one and illuminating night into dawn; it began to seem like a hosanna: Sunborn, Sunborn, Sunborn.
Rachel Sunborn did not stay at the pass long. She got a fresh horse and rode for the Border camp and her daughter. She came in laughing and sweaty, dirty and bloodstained, and stood framed in the entryway of the tent. Rain glittered in her golden hair like diamonds.
“Alive?” snapped Elliot and Louise as one, the sound instinctive as crying out when hit.
“The whole family,” said Rachel. “By which of course I also mean that gorgeous elf girl. She stood on the cliffs and fired until we had no arrows left, and every arrow hit a mark. Her kill count is in the hundreds. I’m kidnapping and adopting her.”
“Only daughter right here,” said Louise.
Rachel strode over to Louise’s bed and began to undo the straps. Louise let Elliot’s hand go.
“I thought you might be pleased to know the new treaty’s getting signed today, little funny face,” Rachel said over her shoulder. “You like all that kind of thing, don’t you?”
“It was a pretty good treaty,” Elliot said.
He was not heard, but he did not mind. Rachel was sweeping Louise’s hair off her forehead, looking at the stark wound on her face, and Elliot liked watching her until he heard what she was saying and the cold that had been freezing him all night long trickled back into his blood.
“Never mind that you missed out on the last bit of the fun, baby,” Rachel murmured. “There’s always another war.”
Now the treaty was signed and Rachel was with Louise, there was nothing to be done but go to class, so Elliot went because learning was imperative and he worshipped at the temple of knowledge.
“Could you stop looking out the windows, Cadet Schafer, and listen to the question?” asked Mr Dustlaid, his voice hopeless.
“The Wavechasers discovered the island a hundred and twenty-four years ago,” Elliot snapped. “I read extra materials. And looking upon greenery makes the mind relax and absorb information better. That’s science. Brain science.”
Well, he would worship at the temple of knowledge if the rest of the class would catch up with him and stop being so boring.
The lesson Elliot already knew droned on. The trees shook fistfuls of leaves in the wind like impatient customers waving sheaves of crumpled bills, and the wind whooshed and rustled and carried no other sound.
Until it did. Until Elliot heard, faint and far away, the sound of an elven horn.
He’d imagined such sounds before, but he saw Myra’s head jerk up. She’d heard it too.
Elliot’s desk and chair went crashing onto the floor, the desk before him and the chair behind.
Mr Dustlaid was startled enough to shout.
“Sit back down, Cadet Schafer!”
Elliot considered this, said: “No,” and raced out the door. There was nobody in sight yet, no sign of armies in the fields or over the hills. Elliot went for the woods, which would screen sight, climbing over the rise of a hill as he went around the last few clusters of trees.
He wanted to see them, expected to see them, and was yet not quite prepared for the sight of them, the small band of faraway figures, little more than black dots in the green. Elliot squinted, hand over his eyes to block out the glare of the sun, to make sure it was them: he saw Luke’s hair shining like a helm, and then knew that the figure standing farther off from the troop but closer to Luke than anyone else must be Serene.
In another moment he was sure of it, and sure she had seen him. She began to run, faster than any human could, racing elven-fleet across the grass. Elliot ran down the hill toward her, stumbling as he went, lent speed by the slope and not caring if he fell.
He fell into Serene’s arms. She flew at him and he stumbled into her, and her hands held on to the back of his shirt, clutched handfuls of it as if he were trying to get away. He wasn’t. He clung to her, felt her slim and strong and safe against him. He buried his face in the crook of her neck and the sheltering dark veil of her hair. And he heard the sound of Luke’s panting and running footfalls, indrawn hesitant breath and hovering warmth. He grabbed hold of his jerkin and drew him in. Luke’s hand caught Elliot’s arm, and his free arm went around Serene’s waist, and Elliot could hear them all breathing, could almost hear their heartbeats, had proof they were both alive and returned and whole.
Elliot lifted his head and looked into Serene’s eyes. Serene drew in a shaky breath, Elliot knew so as not to cry and be unwomanly, and said: “You’re taller.”
“Am I?” Elliot asked. “I missed you.”
Someone was going to cry, he was fairly sure, but then the war-training classes arrived on the scene, every boy and girl who had not been sent to war, all of the younger ones, and they rushed them. Elliot stepped out of the way basically in order to avoid getting trampled down as by wild horses. People were already chanting, the same refrain: “Sunborn, Sunborn!”
“No,” Luke said loudly, and the boys paused in the very act of pulling him onto their shoulders. He offered Serene a hand, courtly as if he were helping her into a carriage. “Serene was with me every step of the way. I did nothing she did not do as well, and better. Serene too.”
Serene took his hand. Boys swarmed around her too, lifted them both up high into the air. Their shouts seemed to echo off the sky.