don’t know much about Esprл’s heritage. Her mother didn’t talk about it, and I never met her father.”
• “She is a full-blooded elf?” Deothen asked.
Kandler shrugged. “As far as I know. She doesn’t seem to have a drop of human blood in her. From what I know about dragon marks, elves these days only ever manifest one kind.”
“The Mark of Shadow,” Deothen said. “The bloodline of the Mark of Death died out centuries ago.”
Kandler’s spine filled with ice. He turned away from the table and walked over to a black-cloaked pile of ash near the door, a mound of dust that had once been a vampire. “What was the name of the house that once held the mark?”
Deothen hesitated for a moment before he spoke. “The House of Vol,” he said. “They were said to experiment with the abomination of breeding elves and dragons together for the purposes of furthering their power. The other elves and the dragons banded together to destroy them all long ago.”
Kandler reached down and picked up the black cloak at his feet. Holding it at arm’s length, he shook the dust from it. When it was done, he turned the cloak about to expose the crimson insignia embroidered on its left breast.
“This is the symbol of the Blood of Vol,” Kandler said, “a religion devoted to blood and death.” He looked straight into Deothen’s silver-flamed eyes now. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?”
The senior knight nodded gravely. “The bearer of the Mark of Death can only be a direct descendant of the House of Vol. There were always rumors of at least one survivor, and the followers of the Blood of Vol always pursue them vigorously. But no one in Flamekeep believed them… until the prophecy that brought us here.”
Kandler shook his head. “I can’t swear that Esprл doesn’t have the Mark of Shadow. I’m a fighter, not a scholar. I couldn’t tell one mark from the other, I’m sure. It seems the bloodsuckers who followed you here are confident she bears the Mark of Death, though. Can you bet on them being wrong?”
The light flickering in Deothen’s eyes faded and went out. “No,” he said. “The light of the Silver Flame brought us here, but I was too blind to see it.”
Chapter 17
The overcast sky above the house was barely a shade lighter than the pitch black of night, but Kandler had charitably decided to call it dawn. The others-Burch and the five knights-hadn’t disagreed, so they all found themselves standing in Kandler’s yard, their horses each packed and ready for a long, tortuous trip. The knights were dressed in their full, gleaming suits of armor and their crimson tabards, their swords and shields buckled in various places, ready to be put to use at an instant’s notice. Kandler and Burch wore less armor than the knights, but they moved more surely for it-a compromise between protection and speed Kandler was always willing to make.
“What do you say, Burch?” Kandler stood over the shifter as Burch examined the ground.
Kandler could barely see even his own footprints on the ground, but the shifter sauntered around the place as if the noontime sun had burned through the clouds and exposed the secrets on every inch of ground.
“They came this way,” the shifter said. He knelt down and ran his hand over the thin, gray, weedy grass that made up Kandler’s lawn. “Two people-both in boots-and a big dog.”
“Vampires often take the form of wolves,” Deothen as he climbed astride his white stallion. Each of the knights followed his example.
“Fits,” Burch said.
“The one we saw turned to mist,” Kandler said. “I hear they can fly as bats too.”
“All true,” Deothen said.
“Then there’s no way to tell how many of them there are,” Levritt said.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Kandler. “We’ll kill them all.”
The shifter followed the tracks for a while on foot, his russet-coated mount-a shorter, shaggy-coated horse known as a lupallo-close on his heels. The others trailed after him in single file-first Kandler, then Deothen, Sallah, Levritt, Brendis, and Gweir, each of the knights on their snow-colored horses.
After a short while, Burch raised his hand to call a halt. The others spread out behind him as he studied the ground before him. “A horse waited here. The two pairs of boots lead right to it. The wolf and the horse went off that way.” He pointed eastward.
“Were the two people Esprл and the changeling?” Kandler asked.
Burch rubbed his chin. “Maybe the changeling, but the other one wasn’t Esprл. Both sets of footprints are too big for her. The changeling was hurt bad too, but better now.”
“How could you know that?” Gweir asked.
Burch reach down and picked up a small, metal vial. He raised it to his nose and sniffed. He wrinkled his nose and then tossed the vial to Deothen, who plucked it out of the air. “Healing potion,” Burch said. “Powerful stuff.”
“It might have been the vampire,” Levritt said.
“Healing magics harm the undead, my son,” said Deothen. “That would have been like poison to one of their ilk.”
“The horse’s trail is clear as a road,” Burch said. “Let’s ride.”
The shifter mounted his lupallo and spurred it to a trot, heading to the northeast. The others fell into line behind the squat, powerful steed.
The hunters rode without speaking, the rhythm of the horses’ hooves the only sound they made. Soon, the edge of the crater reared up before them. Burch picked out an aggressive switchback path that worked its way up the curve of the crater wall, winding its way through the scrub. As the riders rose along the ever-steeper wall, they grew closer and closer to the swirling gray mists that obscured the crater’s edge. The air grew close and oppressive.
“Is it always like this?” Brendis asked.
“Ever since the Day of Mourning,” Kandler said, relieved to have something to think about other than Esprл. “This wall of fog rolled out to the edges of what was once Cyre, and no one’s seen a ray of sunshine in the Mournland since, even four years on.”
“I thought we were already in the Mournland,” said Sallah.
Deothen chuckled at that but allowed Kandler to explain.
“Mardakine is on the edge of the Mournland. We’re low enough that the mists rarely reach the crater floor, and we’re close enough to the border that we sometimes see the sun. If the wind blows in the right direction, we can get full days during which you’d think we were in Breland’s green and fertile fields.”
“They say little can live in the Mournland,” said Sallah. “You have a solid people here, but I wondered how even they could manage in such a place.”
“That’s life on the edge,” Kandler said. “If it wasn’t for the crater being right where it is, I don’t think we could make it this close to this place.”
“Then why are you here?” asked Deothen. “This seems an inhospitable place for a town.”
“Everyone in Mardakine except for Burch and me hailed from Cyre-even Temmah. After the Day of Mourning, the people had nowhere else to go.”
“Other refugees fled the place,” Deothen said. “Your people could have joined the others in New Cyre or Sham.”
“That’s deep in Breland, not Gyre.”
“But your King Boranel granted them the land for New Cyre, and the town is run by none other than Prince Oargev. How much more Cyran could it be?”
Kandler laughed. “Look around you. You see this place, how gray and horrible it is? The people of Mardakine love sunlight as much as the next person. No one enjoys living in the shadow of the largest mass grave in recorded history.”
“Then why?”
“Back when there was a Cyre, this crater was part of it. The people of New Cyre hope to one day return to their homeland. The residents of Mardakine live that dream every day.”
