sentries to watch them-”
“There was no need for sentries in the vault. I tell you, teleportation was impossible. Study the seals yourself. The room was anchored!”
“This argument is pointless.” Shan Doresh’s voice rang out across the room, and the others fell silent as he spoke. “What is done is done. It seems you have brought disaster on your people once again, Lady Tira. It was your hand that brought this curse upon the Tree, and your call that led us to this ruin.”
“You placed your trust in me,” Tira said. “And I in you, despite your fantastic claims.”
“Listening to my tale placed you in no danger,” Doresh said coolly. “For my part, my trust has cost me dearly. Once again, I have undertaken a great risk to protect our people, and again, my people have paid the price. I should never have returned to the Silver Tree. And I will not do so again.”
“Wait!” Cadrel shouted. All eyes turned to the old bard, Thorn’s among them.
Cadrel walked between the eladrin, raising his hands. He was indeed a master storyteller, and he drew on all of that presence; even the angry Syraen stilled his rage. “I know that this is your loss, that I am not one of you and cannot truly understand what this has cost you. Yet surely you are stronger together than apart.” He paused in front of Shan Doresh. “You said it was your gift to make dreams manifest, but it was my nightmare that you showed. Now that nightmare has fallen upon you all. If you are the hero you say you are, will you abandon your people when this nightmare is upon them?”
“You know nothing of nightmares,” Doresh said quietly. “While I have spent hundreds of your lifetimes walking among them. My subjects have endured torments you cannot imagine, all because the ancestors of those who stand in this room lacked the courage to stand by my side. I thought this to be the righteous path. I thought I could find common bond with those who abandoned me so long ago. But they are not my people. My people await me, and I will have to tell them that we have suffered again due to the arrogance of our kin. So leave me be, human. And you, ghaele of the Silver Tree. We will not see each other again.”
He threw his dark cloak over his shoulder, and in that instant, he was gone.
“True words,” Syraen said. “This council is broken, Lady Tira. The Silver Tree crumbles, and it is time for us to see what fate awaits the boughs as they fall. I must return to my people, to make ready for the moment these humans attack me. I pray I will not fall prey to their guile as easily as you have.”
Something was nagging at the back of Thorn’s mind. She played the events over in her mind again and again, struggling to fit the pieces together.
“No!” Tira raised her hand, and silvery light gleamed around her fingers. “Do not leave. Not yet. If we cannot face this together, we will surely fall.”
“You will surely fall,” the Rose Queen said. “Perhaps the Tree will grow again in more fertile ground.”
“A pity,” Cadrel whispered to Thorn as he returned to her side. “To come all this way only to see such discord. Still, I suppose their weakness is a boon for our people.”
That’s it, Thorn realized.
“Stop!” she cried. “All of you. Stop fighting. I know what’s happened here.”
All eyes turned to her, but none were friendly. “As do we,” Syraen growled. “Your kind stole our greatest treasures.”
“An impossible theft,” Thorn said. “And one that makes no sense. A nightmare that has turned you against one another. And the one truly responsible is here in this room.”
The ghaele all looked at Tira. “I don’t understand,” the veiled lady said. “What is it you accuse me of?”
“I’m not accusing you,” Thorn said. Steel was in her hand, and his point was pressed against Cadrel’s throat.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Mournland B arrakas 24, 999 YK
Cadrel laughed. “Well done, my dear.”
Then he was gone.
But he didn’t go far enough. Thorn had her full attention on the bard, her supernatural senses keyed to any trace of his motion. Even as she felt the air rush in to fill the void in space, she felt a displacement to her left, just at the door to the chamber. It was an excellent trick. Not only did he teleport, but he’d wrapped himself in invisibility; the doorway seemed to be empty. But Thorn could feel his presence, and she let that instinct guide her as she threw Steel.
Cadrel cried out in pain as the blade caught him in the back of the knee. Blood spattered across the floor as he returned to view, falling to the ground. Quickly Syraen was upon him. The winter lord wrapped one hand around Cadrel’s neck and lifted him off the ground. There was a sharp chill in the air, and ice formed around the bard-a layer of frost that grew and spread, becoming a coffin binding Cadrel, leaving only his head free.
“What is this?” Tira said, her eyes flashing.
Thorn walked over to the trapped man. “Do you want to tell them, Essyn? Is that even your name?”
Cadrel grinned. “Not the one I was born with, no. But it’s good enough for you.”
Thorn turned to look at Tira. “No one could teleport into or out of your vault. Yet somehow, our enemies did. But why? How did they know where we were? What treasures you possessed? What do they even think they’ll do with your shards? It seems that I have two of them, and they’ve brought me only pain.”
“Explain yourself,” Syraen said.
“Cadrel said it himself, just moments ago,” Thorn replied. “When this journey began, these soldiers attacked the prince of Cyre. It had nothing to do with you or your gems. It was his fear, the fear that his people would turn against him.”
“So?”
“At sea, the captain faced an old nightmare, a weapon she’d hoped never to see again, and one that claimed her life. On land, my suspicions were confirmed when it seemed that we’d been followed. But even then I was afraid that we’d been followed. But I didn’t know what my enemies wanted. And nothing they said explained it. Only here did they seem to have a purpose… and one that made no sense. If they were following us, using us to get to you, why try to kill the prince in the first place? And possessing scrying and teleportation magic… this Covenant of the Gray Mist may be a tough group of soldiers, but they don’t have the resources for that sort of magic.”
“I was scrying on the vault,” Tira said. “I saw what occurred.”
“You saw what you feared,” Thorn said. “As we’ve seen since this journey began. Nightmares made manifest. And who was present at every occasion? My friend Essyn Cadrel, a man who had no true need to be in the vault with us.” She set Steel back against his throat. “When I took the wand from Cazalan in Seaside, it vanished when the fight was over. When I touched him in the vault, I felt no life in him. I don’t think he teleported. I think he was never there to begin with.”
“Then where are the stones?” Syraen said.
“I thought glamour was your specialty,” Thorn said. “If I had to guess, I’d say they were wrapped in illusion. Hidden so we couldn’t see them. And that you gave them to Shan Doresh just before he left, didn’t you, Cadrel?”
He laughed. “The Citadel should be proud. Too little and too late, of course, but well done.”
“Who are you really?” she said. “I’ve seen you cloak yourself in illusion, back during the attack on the prince. And then you brought his nightmares to life. But why?”
Cadrel smiled and as he did, his face changed. His beard turned to smoke and drifted away. His skin became soft and smooth, suffused with a rosy hue. His ears became long and pointed, with silky, black hair flowing around them. He was a young, handsome eladrin. Only one thing marred the image. At first Thorn thought his pupils had expanded to fill his eyes. Then she realized that he didn’t have eyes. Just empty holes opening into a hollow shell, as if his face were a mask filled with swirling mist.
“I’m Essyn Cadrel,” he said. “Or I have been for as long as you’ve known him. I’ve stood at the prince’s side since the Day of Mourning, planting the seeds of doubt and fear in his mind. And I’m Cazalan Dal. I’ve been many others since my return. But I was born Kalas Tan Doresh, a child of the Fortress of Dreams. I fought by the side of my lord when the eladrin of the Silver Tree fled in fear, and I suffered with him in the long nightmare that followed.
