Declan blinked, not anticipating his own response to the word. It was odd to his ears, and yet distinctly familiar. After several seconds of being unable to place it, he looked to Ester and Bonner for help, meeting the half-elf’s gaze first.

  Her expectant, knowing gaze.

  It hit him, then. He had indeed been made to know the word before, when he’d thought the woman to have misspoken the name of the er’enthyl. He hadn't given that particular confusion so much as a second’s thought since, the limits of perplexion his mind was capable of consistently strained by the innumerable other uncertainties which had weighed on him in the last week.

  “I… have…” he answered Ryn uncertainly, not looking away from the woman, recalling the other details of the exchange in question. “Ester mentioned it to me, in this very context. She told me the Queen was… ‘er’endehn’, was it?” He frowned at what he hoped was a correct pronunciation, turning his attention back on the dragon. “Are they a different breed of elf, perhaps?”

  Ryn snorted. I would be careful calling them a ‘breed’ of any sort, Declan. They’re not likely to take that kindly, and as good as you are with a blade, I can’t say I have much faith in you coming out on top in a duel with any er’endehn you might obliviously offend. He sobered, meeting Declan’s eye carefully. I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of them, of course. It’s probably been six centuries since they locked themselves away in their lands. I suppose even some legends fade with time, given the short lifespans of your kind. Put simply—” he paused, seeming to consider his explanation “—the er’endehn are what you would call ‘dark elves’.

  Declan’s brow shot towards the ceiling, at this. He watched Ryn carefully for a moment, then looked to Bonner, and then Ester in turn. Neither of the others showed any sign of astonishment at the dragon’s words, and he was left to swallow the facts by himself. In retrospect, he supposed he could have deduced as much at his own pace. ‘Dehn’ was the elvish word for ‘black’ or ‘night’, something he’d puzzled out given that the favored rebuke of the Iron Wind’s quarter-master for anyone who lost a piece of gear was to accuse them of being “t’wel syn’trev dehn”, or “unable to find the stars in the night.”

  “Dark elves?” he repeated after several seconds turning this revelation over. “No… I’ve not heard of them. And they’re not of the Vyr’en? Where do they live? Beyond the southern forests?” It was the only position he could think to give them. To the west, beyond the Reaches, there was nothing but coastal ridges and an explored ocean, and to the east was Borel’s Sea—so named for the explorer who had first charted its crossing some centuries ago—across which could be found the deserts of Sarahkan. He even considered, briefly, whether such a people might live underground, involuntarily looking down at the hard-packed earth upon which he sat.

  This notion he discarded quickly enough.

  Man has always had a talent for explaining away what he does not know, or what he does not wish to remember, Ryn said, tone tinged with just the faintest note of disappointment. I suppose it’s too much to hope that you might know why the ranges north of us are called ‘the Tears’?

  Declan felt a little indignant at that. “Of course I know that,” he said, not at all pleased with the assumption. “Some great war, long ago. Thousands dead. So many the Mother is said to have wept for grief. Any boy knows the tale.”

  “Not even the right bloody mountains,” Bonner muttered in annoyance.

  Declan look around at him, but Ryn reclaimed his attention at once, ignoring the old man.

  But that’s all they know? he pressed coaxingly. Not the name of the war, nor the participants in that conflict? They couldn’t even tell you—he paused for emphasis—what lies beyond those peaks?

  North…

  The thought struck Declan so firmly, his eyes widened. He hadn't even considered Eserysh—the fabled lands beyond the Mother’s Tears—an option worth thinking on. The realms passed the mountains were said to be nothing more than an uninhabitable tundra, a rolling wasteland of snow and ice and frozen lakelands, home only to feral beasts and unworthy creatures, the most civilized of which were the wereyn. Then again, no one in written memory had conquered those brutal ranges, or at least none Declan had ever heard of. Those who’d tried had never returned, always written off as having succumbed to the savage storms of the peaks, or the beastmen themselves…

  “North,” he said aloud, voicing the realization. “They… The elves live on the other side of the Tears?”

  He could hardly wrap his mind around the concept, a familiar sensation he didn’t like feeling he was growing accustomed to.

  “And very well.” Bonner spoke again, more firmly this time. “These tales of snow-covered barrens and endless white I’ve heard in this last century.” He snorted. “Without magic I would have at least hoped to see Viridian move forward in its study of sciences and maths, and any learned observer of weather should be able to tell you such a drastic shift in climate with such little change in latitude is hardly plausible. I mean,” he took on a distinct air of indignation, apparently offended by the very thought, “I grant that the winters are cold in our valley towns, but to think of the storm build-up it would require to cover the world in snow at all times of the year? One can hardly fathom the… the…”

  He trailed off, at last taking note of the stares he was getting from the others, even Ryn. With a disgruntled huff he crossed his arms, muttering something about “seeing to their education in the important things”, before settling back into silence.

  Bonner is correct, in the essential, Ryn picked up. As far as we know, the er’endehn live as well—if not better—than we do here, or the er’enthyl within the boundaries of their forests. They are an old people, and long-lived, longer even then their wood elf cousins. Theirs was a civilization well established long before mankind found his hold in Viridian.

  “Then how do we know nothing of them?” Declan demanded, truly refusing to believe now. “If such a-a nation—” he struggled to find the appropriate title “—existed, then surely we would have dealings with them? Trade? Border disputes? Even occasionally, if not on the regular! How is such an absence possible?”

  “By desire of the er’endehn themselves.” It was Ester’s turn to answer, putting the response simply. “It was they who have cut themselves off from the world, Declan. They ended contact with the al’Dyor line. Father told me they even regularly drove the wereyn out of Eserysh and into the Tears, making the ranges essentially insurmountable.”

  “They did what?” Declan demanded, anger welling momentarily over his disbelief. He felt entitled to his outrage. Even if he couldn’t recall any memory of Ertus Idrys, he had lost a father to the beasts.

  Ryn attempted to cool him with a raised hand. It’s not what you think. The er’endehn have their own lands to protect, and have been waging something of a constant war with the wereyn since the race’s creation along with the rest of the Endless Queen’s brood. They would not deliberately press the beastmen into Viridian, but they have good reason—at least to their own logic—to segregate themselves from the world. Particularly mankind.

  “What ‘reason’?” Declan demanded incredulously. He hadn't missed the rest of what Ryn had said—the “creation” of the wereyn?—but his anger was more pressing. “What logic could they possibly have, especially to push their enemies to the limits of our own borders? I have to tell you, Ryn, of all the things I’ve been made to swallow this last week, I’m having trouble understanding why—”

  Sehranya.

  The quiet way in which Ryn said it had Declan shutting up in an instant, and the dragon took his chance to continue.

  Magic is a strange thing, Declan. We know very little of it. I won’t weight you with the details now—Bonner would be able to better explain it, anyway—but magic is not so lifeless an entity as one might assume. It is… unpredictable. It has been known to pluck at the strings of fate, to set into motion events both wonderful and terrible, often in subtle ways, but occasionally simply by the manner in which it manifests itself. He looked Declan up and down, then, almost pensively. You have an aptitude for it. Has Bonner told you that?

  Of all the things the dragon could have said, then, this was the last thing Declan might possibly have expected.

  “W-What?” he stuttered, unable to craft any other response. On his right, he thought he felt Ester tense.

  You have an aptitude for magic, Ryn repeated promptly. Fire weaving in particular, if I had to guess, and a rather high one. But that isn’t surprising. Mankind as a whole has always had an easier time manipulating the arcane than the elves of either race.

  “There was a theory going around, when I was at school,” Bonner started to provide, clearly thinking he was being helpful, “that this directly correlated to our shorter lifespans. Of course, little conclusive evidence was ever found to back the idea, and judging from my own experience I can’t say—”

  He shut up swiftly, cowing under the sharp look Ryn shot him before looking away and whistling an innocent tune at the far wall.

  The point I was attempting to get at—the dragon didn’t look away from the reprimanded mage for a moment—is that the ability to wield magic varies. As it might change the course of events and time, so too does in appear to select its vessels with equal prejudice, and with as little transparency. That variation can be drastic, too, even among those of human blood. Ester—” he waved a claw to indicate the woman even as he offered her an apologetic look “—has a lower aptitude, while yours is abnormally elevated.”

  Declan could not stop himself from feeling alarmed at this so-casually made proclamation, but Ryn placated him at once.

  I misspoke, he said, raising both hands before him in an appeasing gesture. I would have done better to say that your potential is artificially elevated. The gifts Herst was given by our primordial line affected more than his physical prowess. They expanded his ability to commune with the ley lines of the world—the heart of magic, stretched across every land, known and unknown—to an extent nearing our own ability. Ryn grimaced. In a twisted way, my kind have more akin to the drey then we do with any of the other sentient races. We are the elders of this world—some dragons believe we were born from magic itself, though I find that fanciful. Whatever the case, we are tethered to the lines almost directly, our ability to manipulate the currents of magic restricted only by the limits of our own bodies, as opposed to the reserves humans and elves draw from and rely on.

  An image of Bonner, weary and staggering as the fight with the drey wore on, flit across Declan’s mind, and he thought he understood. He nodded slowly.

  You share—in part, at least—with that power, much as you share Herst’s memories. Ester, meanwhile, is of elven blood as equally as she is of human…

  Ryn hesitated, looking to the woman, clearly desiring to offer her an opportunity to explain herself, which she did so promptly at a puzzled look from Declan.

  “It’s probably the reason my ability is so low,” she answered with a half-grin, not bothering to hide what was clearly a healthy measure of disappointment. “Elves bear few children as is, and fewer still with any talent for spellwork. I’ve been through every book on the subject my father ever gave me a dozen times over, and I couldn’t give you a rhyme or reason for it. It’s just a fact. But—” she paused, exchanging a quick look with Ryn “—when one does come along…”

  They are often exceedingly powerful, the dragon finished for her. Like much of the scattered potential of an entire generation, condensed in a single individual. It’s a trait of their kind, the wood elves and dark elves alike, and not always a blessing. That amount of power tends to consume the wielder, devouring the children sometimes even in their mother’s wombs.

  “But not always.”

  It was Declan himself who said it, the words hissing out of him, comprehension finally starting to rise as the pieces fell into place.

  Ryn nodded slowly. No. Not always.

  “Sehranya.” The name finally started to carry with it a measure of the fear Declan now saw it was due. “Born to the er’endehn.”

  “A people who had little to no knowledge of the arcane arts, much less any means by which to train her.” Bonner reentered the conversation, his tone serious. “And they would have wanted her trained…”

  “Of course they would have.” Declan had seen his share of battlefields. Minor rebellions crushed by the firm hand of the al’Dyors. Skirmishes at the borders of the Vyr’en, usually with poaching groups or trespassers. Outlaws forming raiding parties a hundred strong, thinking themselves far from the eye of the crown when they set upon the minor towns and villages at the extent of Viridian’s lands. Just as well he had seen, too, Bonner’s prodigious capability on the field, and it was more than a little obvious that combat was not the old man’s specialty. A mage, particularly a powerful one, to bolster the ranks of any standing army, adding to its offensive, defensive, and support capabilities…

  The larger picture was coming together faster now. “They would have wanted to see to her education. They would have sent her to the only kingdom with the means to do so, who bore enough mages to warrant that sort of training.”

  The others, even Ester, only nodded.

  “We made her, didn’t we?” Declan finished, his fingers suddenly numb. “Mankind created the Endless Queen…”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  They spent the rest of the day in relatively tame company, going about basic tasks to make the cave even slightly more hospitable, though no one spoke as to how long they would be staying. Declan got his bath, as did Ester after him, but Ryn was still exhausted and his sleek scales never held filth well regardless. Bonner, for his part, shrugged off the proffered wash without comment. Seeing as the man was uncommonly spotless most any time Declan had ever laid eyes on him—including after their morning-long hike through the woods—he thought nothing more of it than to give the old man’s robes a wistful glance.

  They gathered dry wood for the evening, stacking it just outside the mouth of the cave—none of them imagining that Talo would have appreciated an open flame in the closed confines of his home—and set about scrounging for their dinner. Ryn was allowed to return to sleep, what little help he’d attempted to provide taxing his injuries to their limits. As a result, Ester set off alone with her bow and quiver to hunt, while Bonner went foraging for other edibles in the surrounding undergrowth. This left Declan to the fishing, looking to make good on their promise to the bear as much as he was hoping to catch enough to smoke and dry, ideally easing their next bout of travel.

  For most of the afternoon Declan lingered in private contemplation, his mind distant while scouring the shallows for the flash of scales beneath the water, the four-pronged spear he’d fashioned for himself out of the straightest branch he’d been able to find at the ready. Their earlier conversation had kept on for a while after he’d come to see that Viridian—his own country—was at least partially responsible for the rise of the witch who would come to be called “the Endless Queen”. He felt the chill in truth, now, whenever either of the dark elf’s names were mentioned, a puzzling feeling given that he still had only little sense of what had made the woman so terrifying in her time, and even less what made her frightening now. The drey had been a terror, to be sure, as had the ghouls, but it was hard for Declan to connect those experiences with a being he’d only come to hear of mere days ago.

  Still, he couldn’t complain, knowing a good deal more now than he had even the day before…

  Ryn had not been exaggerating the limited extent of his, Bonner’s, and Ester’s knowledge of the fabled necromancer. Once the connection had been established, the dragon had been able to explain only what Declan himself might have been able to eventually deduce on his own. Sehranya had been sent to the magical colleges of Aletha—the capital of Viridian centuries before Ryn himself was born, apparently—a consortium of schools now long-demolished. There she’d received the training her people had so desperately desired for her, making a name for herself among peers and professors alike. After that, though, she’d vanished for some unknown part of history, and Declan had begged to be excused of the details of her reappearance, if only for the time being. Ryn had wanted to say more, had very badly wanted to say more, but Bonner stopped him, recognizing that Declan was growing rapidly overwhelmed. The dragon eventually conceded, and settled on explaining a final, key point:

  After the Queen’s fall, the dark elves had shut themselves off from the lands of man, mistrusting the corruption their good faith had been repaid with.

  Declan’s eyes darted about the pool of clear, smooth water he was knee-deep in, having rolled up his pants and left his boots on the shore not far to his left. He’d picked the spot carefully, a narrow cut just beyond a pair of large, jutting rocks in which the current whirled back on itself, slowing the flow almost to a stop in certain places. He’d had good luck thus far, having speared and tossed two sizable yellow perch and a redfin of respectable girth up onto the bank already. Had he been of a clearer wit, he might have called an end to the chore some quarter-hour before, given the others were also out searching for food. But, caught in the depths of his own thoughts, Declan lost himself in the calming rhythm of the stalk, taking advantage of the mindless waiting to let everything sink in.

  Even with the cool rush of the water about his feet and the soothing sound of the river all about him, he felt like his head was going to split in two.

  Again Declan thought that it was too much. Too much. Dark elves. The Endless Queen. His own potential in the arts he’d witnessed Bonner yr’Essel wield to devastating effect. All of it pulled down on him like a heavy chain strung about his neck, and he was doubly grateful to the mage for having pressured Ryn into forgoing the rest of his recounting. Declan wanted to hear more, needed to, even, but with every new understanding he made, so too did the implication of it come to bear. He could scarcely believe, not needing to look back more than a few days, how the world presented itself to him now. He had felt he’d lived an intricate life, then, an adventurous path to be commended and even envied, in many ways. He’d been among the youngest ever to be counted in equal part with the grizzled former soldiers and renowned sellswords of Aletha’s mercenary companies. He’d been a trusted hand of Cassandra Sert, guildmaster of the Iron Wind, and had carried out work for some of the greatest families of the Alethan royal court, his contracts shying just short of the King himself. Even that limit existed only because it had been years since the al’Dyors had seen fit to reach out to the companies for assistance, and not due to any shortcoming of his own. He had thought, from the perspective of any man—himself included—to have lived a boast-worthy, exciting life.