that children were exempt from the Elven code of etiquette?
'You mean my sister Idalia.' He hoped she meant Idalia. It was all so difficult trying to maneuver around this Elven reticence—
Well, Idalia had said that humans weren't expected to know the rules. He took his courage in both hands and plunged in. 'Your Majesty— Ashaniel—I'm sorry. I'll be happy to tell you just about anything I know, but you're just going to have to ask me. I don't want to be rude, but—' He gestured helplessly. 'I'm not very bright, I'm afraid, and I just can't manage to make out what you want to know if you won't ask me directly.'
'It was I who did not wish to offend,' Ashaniel said, looking uneasy, yet relieved. 'I do not wish you to feel unwelcome here, or to hold yourself treated as a criminal or one without family.'
'I won't,' Kellen assured her. 'But I know… I think I know there's some kind of trouble here. There are things you want to know. And everything will go a lot faster if you just ask.'
' 'Ask.'' Ashaniel set her cup back on the table, regarding him gravely. She folded her hands in her lap, as if preparing herself to play a difficult game. Perhaps, for an Elf, it was. Perhaps, because they lived for such a very long time, speaking directly and asking questions was as difficult as mastering an auctioneer's rapid-fire patter.
'Is your sister Idalia with you?' the Queen asked.
'Yes,' Kellen answered. 'We both had to flee the Wildwood; we left just ahead of a Scouring Hunt. She's staying with me at the guest house.'
'Is it true that she has come here at last to live?' Ashaniel seemed to be choosing her words as if this were a riddle game that required absolute precision.
'Yes. I mean, I think—' But he got no further.
'Holy Stars be thanked!' Ashaniel gasped, bending forward and covering her face with her hands. He could see the golden leaves in her dark hair tremble with the force of her suppressed emotion.
Kellen would have been less shocked to see a stone statue get up and walk—after all, in Armethalieh, he'd seen that happen many times. Ashaniel had seemed so remote, so untouched. He'd seen at dinner that she was worried, but this was more than worry. Under that serene exterior had been nothing less than panic. Maybe there still was—but for some reason, these people thought that Idalia held an answer to their problem. The only answer, perhaps.
'We are in desperate trouble, Kellen,' Ashaniel said simply, raising her head and composing her features once more. 'I do not know what to do. My husband, Andoreniel Caerthalien, has been away for moonturns, searching for a solution to our plight, but this very day I have had a message from him: he has found no answer.'
She rose to her feet, and turned away to gaze out through the darkened windows.
'You have seen the state of the land as you rode through it on your way here. The land is starved for water. There has been no rain. The drought has gone on since the spring, and nothing we can do will break it. Our magics are very small: long, long ago, we surrendered all our part in the Great Magics to the Gods of Leaf and Star in exchange for long life and peace, and now, what power we retain is not enough to save the land we hold and love.'
It sounded to Kellen as if she were talking about a pact of the Wild Magic—paying a price in exchange for a boon. Did that mean Elves had been human once? Did it mean humans had made a bargain like that with the Gods—or that they'd had a chance to make a bargain and hadn't, and so kept their ability to do magic?
But Ashaniel was still speaking.
'I do mean save it, for I fear, Kellen, that the land is dying, and if it dies, there will be no reviving it. We have only just been able to keep the forest and fields near Sentarshadeen and our own herds and flocks alive by carrying water from the five springs to the fields, and to the roots of each tree in the Flower Forest, but if a wildfire should start in the arid lands beyond our home forest, there will be no stopping it before all—the woods, the home forest, our city—is destroyed.'
She was right, Kellen knew, nodding in agreement. Back in the Wild-wood, he'd seen the damage a flash-fire could cause even in a normal well-watered forest. And no matter how much water the Elves had carried to their home woods, if Sentarshadeen was surrounded by a million acres of burning forest, it just wouldn't make any difference. And winter was coming, and winter meant storms. He thought of the dryad's lightning-struck tree back in the Wildwood, and what would have happened if the Wild-wood had been as tinder-dry as the country he and Idalia had ridden through for the last sennight. And even without a lightning storm, high wind could bring disaster, if it carried a spark from a cook-fire or lantern into dry grass.
'I can only hope—when Idalia hears of how it stands with Sentar-shadeen—that she can—that she will—help us,' Ashaniel finished brokenly.
'I can't promise that she can help,' Kellen said carefully. 'I can promise that I'll talk to her and tell her what's going on. And that we'll try.'
