Sath sighed loudly. “I never won your trust in the first place, did I, not completely anyway.” Gin looked down at the ground for a moment and shook her head. “Okay. Fair enough. I will answer any question you ask me.”
“Are you sure about that? I am not asking for that, Sath, please don’t misunderstand me…”
“I do not misunderstand anything. You are willing to share everything about you with me, so why wouldn’t I be willing to do the same? But you’re right, not now. We need to get moving while the sun is up, and at least make our way through to the forest.”
“Where are we headed?” Gin asked.
“I’m not sure, to be honest.” He stood up and leaned on his staff a moment, then held out a hand to her to help her up. Gin took it without hesitation, making him smile.
“I like that plan. I like the idea of wandering. It’s what we druids do, after all,” she said.
“Well, only the ones with poor senses of direction,” Sath said, chuckling. Gin beamed a smile up at him that stopped his heart for a moment, and then started out ahead of him. Sath grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “Hey, let me go first this time, okay?”
Gin chuckled. “Fine, and my name is certainly NOT Elysiam, so you don’t have to worry about me running off ahead of you…unless there is something I need to jump off…”
Sath grabbed Gin by the arm and swung her around. “I am only going to tell you this once more,” he hissed, his giant teeth close to her face. “You are never to jump off anything tall as you did that tower again, do you understand me?” Gin stared up at him in silence. “Please…if you want me to trust you, I am asking you not to do that again, ever, and not to even joke about it.”
“I’m sorry. I will do my best.” Her voice was laden with emotion, but her face was a solemn mask.
“Fair enough,” he said. “Now, let’s go, we need to make it to that forest by nightfall. More cover there.” Gin nodded, and Sath turned on his heel and headed out.
Nine
Alynatalos and the Outpost, Revisited
Ellie perched in a tree just outside of the front gates to the city of Alynatalos. Taeben had given her directions to find his hidden journals, and all she had to do was make it past the guards at the front gate. She wondered if they could see through her invisibility magic as she watched travelers go in and out the magnificent golden entrance. Only it wasn’t magnificent to her, it was gaudy and bright. The high elves really were proud of themselves and their city, clearly, and chose the most brazen way to show it. How many young ones could be fed with the money used to buy all that gold? Taeben’s stories were charming – they made her long to be like him, like those from Alynatalos. She scowled and then noticed a wood elf headed for the entrance. What caught her attention was that the young female was under an invisibility spell, and she was able to slip past the guards without them giving her as much as a nod. Ellie’s heart soared. She had been right to also cast a spell allowing her to see those that were invisible to the naked eye, and now she had her entry to Alynatalos.
She shimmied down the tree as quietly as she could and recast her invisibility spell before hurrying along toward the front gate. Running as fast as she could, she slipped past the guards and into the city, pausing only to pull a map out of a hidden pocket in her robes. The drawing and the handwriting on the map gave her pause…it was in his hand. “Not now,” she chided herself. These journals held powerful information—that overruled her grief. “Emotion is a weakness, and weakness is death.” How many times had he made her repeat that very phrase? She turned the map around until she figured out where she was and then began moving deeper into the high elf citadel.
Inside the gates, there was a drawbridge leading the inner part of the city. Ellie crossed it and took the left tunnel through the thick walls that fortified the city. She marveled at how cleverly the high elves had built their home into the side of a large rock outcropping so that its strength could provide layers of protection to the city. It was almost as clever as her own kind building deep into the ground—almost—but the gilt face of everything here ruined any plans of secrecy. Ellie chuckled, thinking that one could probably spot Alynatalos from the front of the moon, it was just that shiny.
The tunnel opened up into a much smaller space, surrounded by hedges that were bursting with white flowers. The smell was overpowering, and it was all Ellie could do to hold in a voracious sneeze. How did they live like this? She wound her way through the labyrinthine streets, her gaze ever on Taeben’s map. Finally, she spotted the archways he had carefully drawn at the bottom and knew she was on the right track. The tile of the pathway gave way to grass once she was beyond the archway and more of those hedges with the potent smelling white flowers. Ellie moved quickly toward what seemed to be a single tower, situated in the middle of the grass and surrounded on all sides by the thick hedge. On closer investigation, the hedges were actually stone walls—part of the mountain most likely—covered with whatever the plant was that made up the hedges in the front part of the city. After consulting her map one more time, Ellie stepped onto a glowing platform that was partially hidden by the vines and plants
