Episode 127 To Send a Message
To Send a Message
Dawn has barely broken above the Wildthorne Woods when something draws Tharios from a deep sleep. It takes a moment for him to get his bearings as the previous night’s events fill his head again.
That’s why his body is tangled up with Viala’s beneath the hotel blanket he packed as the chilly morning air nips at his ears.
She hasn’t stirred, but something woke him, and a shiver slides down his spine.
Life magic. Someone nearby has life magic.
Without moving, he sends out feelers of his own, and it’s not hard to detect the three elves approaching.
None of them are his family.
High borns, judging by the strength and number of affinities they share among them.
The life wielder, who probably knows Tharios is awake now that their life magic has crossed paths, has a second affinity for soil wielding.
Another soil wielder stands at his side, but this one harbors plant magic, too.
He’s probably very at home in these woods.
The third elf is a water wielder with what feels like destruction magic. The thought tightens Tharios’s stomach.
Not that all destruction-wielding elves are evil. Father has three in his elite warrior band.
But destruction magic has been used for evil far more than the other affinities throughout elven history.
“Air magic,” a voice whispers.
“Air magic? A Westaria? Trysting with a human?” The disgust in the second elf’s voice is unmistakable. “I thought the infantile king took the fae slops as his pet.”
Anger burns within Tharios at their words.
Fae slops pet. He knew elves had called Mother that in the past, but to hear it with his own ears makes his blood boil.
Wisps of Lothlesi magic may flow through her veins, as it does all Mother’s kin, who have dwelled near the Lothlesi stronghold for generations.
But she’s an elf, wholly and completely. And the Lothlesi princess still slumbering at Tharios’s side deserves none of the slurs against her people, either.
It seems prejudice is still alive and well in Lostariel.
That they think Viala is human is probably for the best, though. Better they assume a kitten shares his bed rather than a sleeping tiger.
“This isn’t the king. Not that king, at least,” the first elf says. “A lot can change in three decades, though. This one has life magic, like the fae slops. And I sensed life magic probing us. He’s awake.”
“He must tryst with a human in secret because no elf would have him.”
That comment was definitely meant for Tharios’s ears. Are they trying to provoke him? Who are they, anyway? Elves who have no framework for the past three decades of Lostarien history?
But they called Father the King of Lostariel.
The sick feeling in Tharios’s stomach grows.
The missing elven rebels. The ones Mother and Father never weeded out of hiding following the battle where Father almost died. A dozen of them were never accounted for. Most were presumed dead.
That seems to be not entirely the case.
Why are they here now, though? And where have they been hiding for the past thirty years?
“Viala,” Tharios whispers in her ear in Lothlesian. “Stay quiet and don’t move. We aren’t alone.”
She stiffens against him.
“High-born rebels,” he continues. “I’m going to free your magic so you can protect yourself if you need to, but I should be able to take them alone.”
She barely nods, and he frees her flame.
“We hear you whispering to your human pet, Westaria.”
“What do you want?” Tharios asks in Elvish.
“To send a message to the King of Lostariel. Is that you, or does your father live? He seemed determined to get himself killed when last we met.”
“My father lives.”
“Pity. You tell him he may have cut off the branches of Lostarien order and sown chaos among our people, but we are elves. Our roots run deep, and elves never forget.”
Tharios sits up, searching the trees in the direction he senses the elves. “You hide like cowards. Show yourselves so I may see your faces.”
He’s met with laughter. “Nice try, halfling. Your father may be an imbecile with disgusting taste in women, but he’s powerful, and the apple clearly doesn’t fall far from the tree. On either count.”
Tharios sends air currents along the forest floor, seeing the woods with his magic rather than his eyes.
“Keep your air magic to yourself, Westaria. You’ve surrounded yourself with lesser elves and helpless humans for too long. I think you’ll find true elves to be more worthy opponents.”
“I doubt it,” Tharios mutters. “Found you.”
They hide just past the trees to the west, and he creates a whirlwind around them, twining vines with his air magic to bind them in place.
It only lasts for a few moments before his vines decay under the power of the elf with destruction magic, and he curses under his breath. His air magic still confines them, and they won’t be able to combat it, but he can’t contain them within his whirlwind indefinitely.
Well, he could. His air magic is near limitless. He’s never reached the end of it.
“Now what, halfling?” one elf yells as the ground beneath Tharios and Viala’s bed of moss starts to crumble. Tharios sets a sphere of air in motion around himself and Viala as a shield of sorts.
Before those soil wielders bury them alive.
“Tharios?” Viala whispers beside him.
“I don’t know what to do. Their destruction magic is stronger than my plant magic.”
“Can’t you incapacitate them with your life magic?”
“I took a vow when I joined the Healer’s Circle.”
“Just this once?”
He shakes his head.
Taking a deep breath, she groans before sitting up and mumbling something under her breath. She grabs his shirt as it flies by, caught up in his air currents, and slips it over her head.
“What are you doing?” he hisses.
“Putting on clothing. Unless you want me to do this without it.”
“That’s not—Viala, no. You don’t—”
She glares at him from the corner of her eye, and he stops talking.
“Is that your human pet?” one of the high borns asks. “If you mean to tempt us with her, don’t bother.”
“I’m considering sucking the air from their lungs,” Tharios growls to Viala.
“You won’t use your life magic to incapacitate them, but you’ll do that?”
“I made no vows about my air magic.”
“Well, go ahead.”
He stares at her. “I wasn’t serious.”
“Your heart is soft, Tharios. A strength and a weakness. Right now, a weakness.” She turns toward the rebels. “I fear you miscalculated, gentlemen. My binding partner may have scruples about damaging you. I assure you I do not. And I am no human.”
The ropes of blue light that shoot from her extended hands seem to terrify her as much as they do Tharios. Hopefully, she doesn’t set the whole Wildthorne Woods on fire.
But he lets her magic pass through his makeshift shield and doesn’t interfere. He’d be a fool to refuse her help now.
A cry of pain cuts through the whirlwind, and Viala winces. “I think I broke one of them.”
“Viala!”
“A rib. Or an arm. He lives.”
“Contain them. Don’t kill them.”
“I am trying. I’ve never done this before, elf prince.”
Before he can respond, Stardust gallops from the woods straight into the whirlwind, and Tharios gasps.
“Stardust, no!”
Tharios rushes to his feet, but Viala calls him back. “Do not sacrifice yourself for a unicorn, future king.”
That gives him pause.
But he won’t sacrifice Stardust for these rebels, either.
He drops his whirlwind, preparing to erect a wall of plants between the unicorn and the high borns long enough to pull Stardust away from the danger, but when the dust settles, the rebels are crudely tied together by Viala’s magic ropes, and blood drips from the tip of Stardust’s horn.
Whistling wind.
The rebels’ hearts still beat, though one grows faint. The life wielder. A puncture wound in his right shoulder seeps blood.
“Let the injured one go,” Tharios cries to Viala as he runs toward them.
“I don’t know how!”
“Then let them all go.”
“What? Tharios, no!”
“Do it. Now!”
She curses in Lothlesian before untangling the rebels from her magic ropes.
And like the disloyal cowards they are, the two uninjured elves stumble to their feet and take off into the woods, leaving their wounded companion behind.
Tharios drops to his knees beside the elf, marshaling his life magic to stop the bleeding and disinfect the wound. It’s deep, and Tharios glances over his shoulder at Stardust’s horn. She must have rammed the rebel hard.
Viala does her best to calm Stardust as Tharios works to keep the elf from bleeding out.
Father will wish to question him. And Mother.
Tharios curses again. Mother’s magic is still healing. This is the last thing they need right now.
And someone needs to take this fugitive to Darlei. If they ride into Feressa with an elven prisoner, that will surely alarm the humans.
But Elowyn needs Tharios. He can’t just leave. Overnight was one thing, but back to Darlei? He’ll have to tell Father.
Assuming the elf lives.
“Can you send a message?” Tharios calls back to Viala.
“To whom? I still haven’t mastered talking to anyone but my own people. I can’t—”
“It’s all right. I’ll try.”
“You’ll try? How?”
“I can steal words on the wind. Perhaps I can send them. If you have a better idea, I’d love to hear it. We can’t ride into Feressa with a wounded elf and a bloody unicorn.”
He glances back at her again as she worries her lip and shifts in the chilly air, goosebumps pebbling her bare legs. Perhaps they should have left some of their clothes on as they trysted last night. It never crossed his mind that anyone would wander into this part of the woods so near the border.
“I’ll try,” she says. “Who do you want me to contact? Your father?”
He groans. “No, but I think we’ll have to. I wish Corivos were here.”
Father’s First among warriors remained in Darlei, though. Someone needed to stay behind.
“Whoever I speak to won’t be able to respond,” Viala reminds him. “We’ll have no way of knowing it worked.”
They don’t have time to waste waiting for Corivos to perhaps receive a message.
“Talk to Father. And tell him where we are.”
Viala nods and steps into the middle of the clearing, a determined look on her face. Turning, Tharios focuses his attention on trying to save the elf who might be the key to preventing another rebellion before it starts.
Fates save them all if he dies, taking whatever information they might have pried out of him from this life when he goes.