Frostfell_ The Wizards - Mark Sehestedt [14]
It was some time before she thought to open her eyes. Both of them. The skin on the right side still felt too large, but she could open her eye all the way. She lay beside a small campfire. She was naked but wrapped feet to chin in some sort of animal hides. On the other side of the fire, wrapped much as she was, lay an elf. Tattoos twisted like vines over his ivory-pale skin.
Recognition hit her. Then remembrance. Running through the woods. Pursuit.
"Keep going! Make for the water."
"Mother, no! I-"
"Go! Lose them in the water. I'll find you."
"You promise?"
Pain… fire… cold.
"Silo'at!"
Amira let out a small cry and reached for her stomach. She'd felt Walloch's blade pierce her, felt her muscles resist a moment before the sharp steel broke through, kept moving, slicing, then-"Silo'at!"-and cold such as she'd never known, a cold that burned.
"Jalan!"
She tried to sit up, and the world swam around her.
Amira heard light footsteps and when her vision cleared, an old man was crouching next to her. Only he wasn't old at all-or even a man. His face was pale like the elf beside her, and his skin was also broken by tattoos twining over his cheeks and round his eyes, but among the black inks were vines of green and even thin streaks of blue. But unlike the other elf, this one had strange, red symbols on each cheek and over each eye. To Amira, they almost looked like runes, but they were like none she had ever seen. His hair was white as snow; he wore it unbound and wild save for two long braids that dangled before his sharp ears. Not a single wrinkle or crease marred his features. His nose and chin were sharp, and his eyes… they seemed lit by both joy and sadness, and also something else. Something… wild.
"Who?" said the elf, speaking Common.
"Jalan." Amira tried to swallow. Her throat felt raw. "My son."
The elf looked away, but not before Amira saw the look on his face. Regret? No. Resignation.
"What? Where is my son?" Amira tried to sit up, but shadows flooded her vision and she almost passed out again. She lay back down. "I remember. I woke. The big one said that-Lendri, was it?-had gone for my son. Where is he?"
"Try not to move," said the elf. "My craft has done much to heal your wounds, but you are still very weak."
Amira thrust a hand out from the blankets and grabbed the elf's cloak. It was thick, heavy, made from some animal hide. Her arm felt hollow, her grip feeble, but the elf did not pull away. "Where-?" her throat caught. So dry. She tried again. "My… son?"
"A moment."
The elf stood and walked away. He returned a moment later with a wooden bowl cradled in both hands. "Drink this. I will tell you what I know."
He lifted her head with one hand and brought the bowl to her lips with the other. The water was oddly warm and brackish. She winced but swallowed.
"The waters of the Lake of Mists are warm," said the elf. "Many of the streams that feed it come down from the Firepeaks, and there are hot springs everywhere. I have never known the lake to freeze, even in the harshest winter."
"Where is my son?"
The elf placed the bowl beside her and settled himself down. "I am the belkagen. What your folk might call a priest, a shaman."
Amira lay back down and fixed him with the glare that had sent many pages and servants running from her as a child. "I don't care. Where is my son?"
"Gyaidun and Lendri were the ones who came to your aid last night. After the slaver fled, they brought you here, to my island. You would have surely died had they not. Lendri went back out to find your son."
Amira studied the belkagen. Shaman or no, these three could easily be slavers themselves. What had the big one told Walloch last night? "Slavers… the caravan trails are thick with them this time of year." Amira had been embroiled in the courtly intrigue of Cormyr before she could count. She hated it, but she could play with the best of them, and she read no deception or malice in the shaman's face.
"Lendri-" the belkagen motioned to the elf who still lay sleeping behind him. "He found