The Fading Dream_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [3]
There was no response, not even a shift in the music. He tried again, shouting with all the volume he could produce as he stepped out of the trees.
“Hello! I’m over here—”
As he stumbled again, his shout turned into a cry of pain as he caught his twisted ankle and fell to the ground. For a moment the pain blinded him. His vision cleared and he screamed again.
He hadn’t stumbled on a root. He’d tripped over the body of a boy, younger than Drix, his silk clothes stained with fresh blood. His long, golden hair was spread out over the ground, his skin pale and white. His chest was a ruin. He’d been stabbed through the heart, and it had the look of a barbed blade, something that had torn the flesh apart as it had been pulled free.
The riders were upon him before Drix had time to collect his thoughts, a half dozen figures in colorful cloaks and polished chain mail, slender soldiers with gleaming blades and eyes that shone in the darkness. Their mounts were graceful, white horses with red ears and coppery eyes, mares that moved through the woods in utter silence. Swift and silent as they were, they were no match for the woman leading the party. Drix never even saw her dismount; one moment she was on the back of a horse, and an instant later, she was standing over Drix, kneeling down to study the body of the boy. She wore a gown of black and silver, and moonlight eyes gleamed against pale skin. Her dark hair was bound by a circlet of golden leaves. A crystal shard was set into the circlet, shining with the same lunar radiance as the woman’s perfect eyes. She was the most beautiful woman Drix had ever seen, but as she knelt over the fallen child, her face froze in fear. She laid a gloved hand over the boy’s chest, and the stone in her crown pulsed with a brilliant light. Yet when she drew back her hand, nothing had changed.
The woman turned to Drix, and there was fury in her gaze. Her words were like a song, so musical that it was hard for him to make perfect sense of them. It was an Elven dialect. He’d learned the old speech as a child, but he’d rarely spoken it and never heard a voice like that. It was a demand, an angry one. He thought she said, “What have you done?”
“I didn’t do this!” he cried, trying to gather his thoughts and reframe it in the Elven tongue. “Found like this, not by my hand!” They couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t as if there were bloodstains on his clothes. It wasn’t as if he were holding a bloody dagger in his hand.
Except he was.
The weapon he’d found in the woods had changed. No longer was it a smooth blade with pretty patterns of gold along the steel. The blade was ugly and jagged, a barbed weapon made to shred flesh. And it was covered with drying blood. He could even see a shard of silk caught in one of the teeth.
“No!” he cried. “Not mine! Not my hand!” He let the knife fall and struggled to rise to his feet, his ankle burning with pain. He had to run, but he could barely stand.
The queen caught the blade before it hit the ground. She was on her feet even as he rose, and her voice was a simple cry of rage. She struck before Drix could find his balance, the blade sinking into his heart. He felt a horrible chill, followed by bright pain as the blade was torn free. Then he was falling again, warmth spreading over his chest as he collapsed atop the dead boy.
The blood of our hearts … is one, Drix thought. He couldn’t feel his arms or legs, just that fading spot of pain and warmth in his chest. Then something pulled him away. It was the queen who’d stabbed him, her pale eyes and the stone in her crown blazing as she stared at him. The sky itself was on fire, a brilliant light that turned the woods to shadows. And another shadow rose above the trees, a great spire, a lone tower that he should have seen long before, seared into his vision by the blinding sky.
The fire in the sky grew brighter even as Drix’s vision faded. He could