To Light A Candle

“Well, there are nine Elven cities, and every Elven city has a Flower Forest, so there are probably at least nine,” Idalia said gravely. “I’ve only seen two of the Elven cities—counting this one—so I can’t say for sure.”

“It must be wonderful to be able to travel and see things,” Vestakia said, sounding very young. Idalia wondered just how old she was. It was hard to tell, given the girl’s rather exotic appearance, but she didn’t seem to be much older than Kellen was.

They stopped in a little clearing, where the rain had made a small pool. Tiny white and purple flowers starred the deep green moss about its verge. The forest canopy stretched overhead, protecting them from the rain.

“We didn’t actually have to come all the way in here,” Idalia said, “but I thought you’d like a little privacy. Elves can be rather daunting when you meet a lot of them for the first time. Although you and Jermayan seem to get on well enough.”

“Oh.” Abruptly recalled to the reason they’d come to the forest, Vestakia regarded Idalia nervously with wide golden eyes.

Idalia reached into her bag and pulled out a small flask, offering it to the girl.

“Here. Have a drink. It’s just brandy and hard cider. My name’s Idalia, by the way, if you didn’t catch it back there in the tent. I’m Kellen’s sister.”

“Yes,” Vestakia said, unstoppering the flask and drinking gratefully before returning it to Idalia. “He told me about you—a little. You’re a Wildmage. My mother was a Wildmage, too.”

Idalia’s eyes widened a little at that, but she said nothing. So Vestakia’s mother was a Wildmage, was she? Even more reason for Kellen and Jermayan to trust her.

“And how did you come to find my brother?” Idalia asked. She drank in turn, and as she slipped the flask back into her bag, she closed her fingers about a charged keystone.

Show me truth, she commanded.

“Oh, I didn’t find Kellen,” Vestakia said simply. “He found me. He rescued me from a bandit who was stealing my goats—and then I went with him and Jermayan to the Barrier, just as they said. They never would have found it without me,” she added proudly.

All at once her shoulders seemed to droop with more than weariness.

“Jermayan told me his people would accept me here. But… I do not think they will. No one will, when I look the way I do!”

The keystone spell had told Idalia nothing, which was in itself an answer. The truth was already here for her to see.

“They’re afraid,” Idalia said neutrally. “But tell me the rest—if you’ve known my brother for any length of time at all, you’ll know he’s miserably bad at telling a story, and if I wait to hear the rest of your tale from him I might very well wait forever!”

It took very little prodding to get the rest of Vestakia’s story out of her, of how her mother, a Wildmage, had been seduced unawares by the Prince of Shadow Mountain; how discovering that she was pregnant with a half- Demon child, she called upon the Wild Magic to help her… and been offered a choice.

The unborn child could be completely hers in spirit, and its Demon-father’s in body; or its father’s in spirit, yet human in body. Vestakia’s mother had made the harder choice; Vestakia had a human spirit, but a Demon’s body. To keep her unborn child from being slain at birth, Vestakia’s mother had fled with her sister deep into the Lost Lands, where Vestakia had been born. There Vestakia had lived alone after both women had died, until Kellen had found and rescued her.

Her Demon-father, of course, continued to hunt for her, but Vestakia had one great gift that kept her safe, though it came at a price. She could sense the presence of Demons, because they made her ill. The closer they were, the greater her distress, and she learned quickly to hide whenever she felt a hint of their presence.

“And then I found—when Kellen asked me to try—that my gift worked just the same way with the Demon magic, if the spell is strong enough. So we found the Barrier,” Vestakia said, her voice a mixture of triumph and remembered horror. “Jermayan saved my life there. And Kellen… Kellen saved all of us,” she said softly.

—«♦«♦»♦»—

THERE was a moment of awkward silence after Idalia and Vestakia left, and Kellen wasn’t quite sure what to do next. At least he was sure that everything was going to turn out all right. Of course Idalia would find that there was nothing wrong with Vestakia, and they could all stay. Of course. Idalia could do anything she set her mind to.

And if he had to—well, wait until Jermayan told them the whole story of destroying the Barrier. Elven custom would force them into such overwhelming obligation to him that they would probably do anything he asked of them. For once, the intricate dance of Elven custom would work in his favor, for by the time