the helm.
Nothing happened.
With tense excitement, Targrael examined the helm carefully to make sure nothing was inside, like a blade set to snap across the wearer’s throat, or any sharp inner points coated with suspicious substances. None.
She hadn’t needed to breathe for over a century, but as she lifted the helm, she realized she was trying to hold her breath.
In sudden impatience, she hauled it down over her head, settled it in place, and peered out of its eyeslit at the room around her.
Nothing happened. Silence.
Utter silence, that is. The ever-so-faint, everpresent singing sound that had been in her head since Manshoon’s first trampling invasion was gone.
Gone.
She was free.
Truly free.
Unleashed and with the leash torn away, let loose to follow her own desires. To serve Cormyr properly once more.
Free to hunt Manshoon down. And do the same to Elminster the meddler and the incumbent fools of the court, the current courtiers and wizards of war-from the doorjacks on up, most of them were incompetent traitors and fools who endangered Cormyr by their very presence.
Yes, she was free to be herself again. No archwizard’s slave, but the guardian of Cormyr.
The guardian of Cormyr. Its sole true bannermaster. Her every thought and moment once more devoted to calculated deeds that would advance Cormyr to new greatness. Unmoved by sentiment and misplaced loyalties to traditions or the House of Obarskyr or anything else. She would be the clear-headed, dispassionate agent of the Forest Kingdom.
Unless, of course, she ran into that bitch Alusair again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It had been, Elminster decided, a very long day.
This young lass whose body he was riding was more fit and supple than he’d ever been, but right now she was footsore and weary.
Her legs groaned at every step; she’d long since reached the stumbling stage; and if her life suddenly depended on sprinting somewhere farther off than, say, yon tree… well, Amarune Whitewave’s life would come to an end right then.
He had a new appreciation for the views of upcountry Cormyreans who said the King’s Forest went on forever.
El knew better, having walked across it a time or two and magically whisked himself over it or translocated from end to end of it often. But, traversed this way, step after clambering step in the deep brush flanking the Way of the Dragon trade road, it certainly seemed endless.
The cozy, private Delcastle hunting lodge Arclath had promised them was still half a day’s trudge north, then a good walk west from the road along a grassy track straight into the deep heart of the forest. A walk that would happen on the morrow, being as night had fallen while they were tarrying in one of the roadside camping glades, debating whether or not they should push on to the next one.
“Clean jakes,” Storm reported crisply, in a tone that made it clear she’d decided they would stop there for the night.
Arclath gave her a sour look that swung around to include El. “So you’ve decided, have you?”
“Look ye, young lord,” Elminster replied, waving at the trees ahead. “Can ye see clearly, to avoid missteps? Or to always find room enough to swing thy blade in a good clear sweep, so as to slash a wolf off its feet and away from thy throat? Because I’ve been hacking at wolves in forests for far more than a thousand years longer than ye have-and I know I can’t, when nightgloom gets this deep.”
“Well, of course not now, in your dotage,” Arclath muttered, but bit off his next words with a sigh, shrugged, and spread his hands. “You’re right. We camp here.”
Storm chuckled. “Well, we can go on arguing about the life El and I lead-and our fell attempts to ensnare Rune in it-just as well here, around a fire, as we can stumbling on blindly through the forest in the dark.”
Arclath gave her a look.
All day long, as they had trudged along beside the road, they’d debated the ethics and merits of the life in service to Mystra that El and Storm had led for the better part of the last century. Arclath was obviously more interested in what they’d done than he cared to admit, but he held several reservations about his Amarune joining in that life, not to mention dragging him along with her.
“Couldn’t we just have stayed in Suzail to fight Windstag and his ilk barehanded?” he asked. “Or taken on those blueflame ghosts, with us naked and blindfolded? Wouldn’t that have been safer?”
Storm smiled. “Safety is most often a matter of how one feels, rather than true security. Ask your Amarune about Talane, and see if she feels so eager to return to Suzail.”
“I can’t ask her,” Arclath pointed out bitterly as they went to the glade’s little roofed stand of ready firewood to take what they needed for a small fire. “Not with old Leatherjaws in residence.”
From the far side of the clearing came Elminster’s dry chuckle, higher pitched than it should have been thanks to Amarune’s younger throat. “I may be ancient, lad, but there’s nothing at all wrong with this splendid young body’s hearing. Speaking of which, I should be returning it to her so the two of ye can kiss and cuddle and try to pretend ye’re alone.”
Arclath gave El a hard look, or tried to. He found it difficult to favor his beloved with a properly withering scornful glare, even when she was wearing the lopsided grin El liked to adorn her face with.
The noble gave up trying, sighed again, and went to his knees by the firepit to set down his wood for Storm to build the fire. Firetending was something Delcastles left to servants; he knew only enough about it to be certain you didn’t just pile the wood in a heap and try to get it going.
“I believe I’ll be more accepting of this,” he told the silver-haired lady, “when I know who-or what-Mystra really is. To me, she’s little more than a name from the past. The dead goddess who once ruled or corrupted all magic.”
“You have much to learn,” Storm replied softly.
Arclath nodded. “That, I freely grant.” He held out some of the smaller split logs to her. “Yet I hinted as much earlier as we walked, and instead we talked more about the current politics of Cormyr.”
Rune joined them, still speaking with Elminster’s voice. “Well, such concerns matter more to ye and to the lass, right now. Talk of gods-and ethics-can take lifetimes.”
She bent down and embraced Storm, breast to breast. Arclath watched, fascinated, as ashes suddenly flowed from Rune’s mouth, ears, and nose, flowing like purposeful lines of ants down Storm’s cheek and neck, to vanish into her bodice.
Then he looked away. It seemed somehow… obscene. “Done yet?”
“Well, El’s out of me,” Rune murmured in her own voice, reaching out for him, “if that’s what you mean. Is there anything to eat?”
Storm smiled. “Trust me. Where foresters make these camping spots, Harpers hide food nearby. And despite what you may have heard, there are still Harpers in the world.”
Arclath nodded skeptically. “Can you name me one, who’s here in Cormyr?”
“Certainly.” Storm gave him a wink. “Me.”
Under her hands, the fire flared up then, with an eager crackle. She fed it carefully, calmly moving a flaming twig to three different spots before letting it fall into the rising flames, then she rose to her feet.
“I’ll be right back. Or I can take some time returning, if you two would prefer.”
