Elven Fury (Agents of the Crown Book 4) Page 18

  “Jev!” Zenia rushed to his side and gripped his shoulder.

  Such pain filled Jev that he couldn’t reply, couldn’t do anything except gasp, “Wall,” and wish he could telepathically convey that the elf outside was the one applying magic to him. He was certain the warden inside was too busy to be the one responsible.

  Swords clashed, the warden leaving silver streaks in the air as he swept his blade to meet Lornysh’s again and again. Lornysh defended himself, his eyes set with determination, but he never took the role of aggressor. He wasn’t the deadly killer Jev was accustomed to.

  Zenia sprinted toward the window. Jev tried to rise to follow her, but blackness was creeping into his vision. Fear followed— Was it possible this magic would stop his heart and kill him?

  “Arrows!” he blurted, reminded that the elf on the wall had a bow. “Watch out… for them.”

  A horn blew in the courtyard. Jev hoped that meant the guards were awake and would fight off the elves.

  The pain around Jev’s chest stopped so abruptly he almost blacked out. He gasped in air, his entire body trembling.

  Zenia stood at the open window, that blue shield around her again as she thrust her arm outward, more magic flowing from her fingers. Jev hoped she was knocking that elf off the wall and all the way back to Taziira.

  He grabbed the table and pulled himself up. Lornysh cried out in pain as his enemy’s blade slipped through his defenses.

  The double doors to the library banged open, and a cadre of guards charged inside. The elf hesitated, then cursed and sprinted toward the open window.

  “Look out,” Jev rasped, afraid Zenia wouldn’t see him coming up behind her.

  She turned in time and flung the window shut. The warden swung his sword at her head.

  “No!” Jev yelled.

  The silvery sword halted in midair as it struck her shield, but her dragon tear’s visible barrier disappeared as the blade collided with it.

  Zenia stumbled back, fingers tightening around her gem and alarm flashing across her face.

  The guards fired at the elf. He turned around long enough to fling a canister identical to the one Jev had seen earlier. Then he sprang through the window, glass shattering.

  He disappeared into the courtyard below. The guards charged toward the window, almost knocking Zenia aside.

  Jev snatched up the canister and ran to another window. He jerked it open and flung the smoking projectile outside. Then he rushed to Zenia, worried she’d been hurt when her barrier fell.

  Next to them, the guards fired through the broken window, aiming downward, but then shifting their aim upward, as if the elf was scaling the wall to escape. Maybe he was.

  “Are you all right?” Jev wrapped his arm around Zenia.

  “Yes, but Lornysh.” She pointed back toward the doors.

  Lornysh lay crumpled on the floor, blood pooling on the tiles around him. Cursing, Jev ran to him, chagrined that he’d worried about Zenia first and hadn’t noticed his friend had been so badly injured. By the Air Dragon, what if the warden had finished his mission before fleeing? What if Lornysh was dead?

  Jev dropped to his knees, resting a hand on his friend’s shoulder. The amount of blood on the floor terrified him.

  “Lornysh, are you still… awake?” Jev spotted a dagger sticking out of Lornysh’s stomach.

  He cursed again and pulled his shirt over his head. He wadded it up and did his best to staunch the flow of the blood without disturbing the dagger. A trained healer would need to withdraw it.

  “I need a healer!” Jev hollered toward the hallway, fearing nobody would hear him.

  But the guards had stopped firing, and his voice rang out, the castle having gone disturbingly quiet.

  “Tell your king,” an accented voiced called from the courtyard, or perhaps the wall opposite the library windows, “that he harbors an assassin, a criminal, and an enemy to the Taziir. If he doesn’t send Lornysh the traitor out of your castle and your city by dawn, we will use our power to raze your kingdom to the ground.”

  “He’s going to do that with four people?” Zenia asked.

  “You have no right to be here, Vornzylar,” a feminine voice answered from somewhere below the library windows. Jev imagined the princess standing on the front steps of the castle and yelling up at the elf—or elves—on the wall. “Return to Taziira, by the king’s will. Leave this human land without doing more harm.”

  “Your will is not the king’s will. We go where we please. We are free Taziir. Hear my words, human king, wherever you are cowering. You have until dawn!”

  Rifles fired outside. Jev shook his head, knowing the guards wouldn’t hit the wardens.

  Lornysh’s eyelids fluttered but then squeezed shut again, his lips curling in pain.

  “Lornysh,” Jev said. “Why in all the world were you using the flat of your blade?”

  Zenia came up to them but took one look at the blood and said, “I’ll get a healer.”

  “Thank you,” Jev said as she raced out of the library. “Hold on, Lornysh,” he whispered. “We’ll get you fixed up. You’re not leaving the city yet.”

  Jev thought of the warden’s threat but was certain Targyon wouldn’t give in to a bully or dump an injured friend onto the street outside the castle to fend for himself.

  The courtyard fell silent again. Jev had a feeling the elves had disappeared without being captured or seriously wounded. No, at least one had taken a knife in the back. Jev hoped that would slow the elf down for a while.

  “Amuzhara?” Lornysh whispered, his eyes opening, though they were pained and unfocused. “Is that you, Amuzhara?”

  “It’s Jev.” Fresh worry thrummed through his veins. “Are you with me, Lornysh? A healer is coming to help you.”

  “I thought it might be Amuzhara,” he whispered, sounding devastated that it wasn’t. His eyes closed again.

  Afraid that his friend neared death, Jev was relieved when one of the castle healers arrived with two assistants carrying a stretcher.

  “It’s an elf,” one of the assistants blurted.

  Jev stood up, bracing himself to argue for his friend’s right to aid.

  “Get him to my infirmary,” the healer said, waving her helper to silence.

  The man clenched his jaw.

  “Help her,” came Targyon’s stern voice from the corridor. He stood there with Zenia at his side.

  The assistant jumped and blurted, “Yes, Sire.”

  The trio shifted Lornysh onto the stretcher and carried him out. Targyon strode after them, as if he meant to personally see to it that Lornysh was cared for. Good.

  Jev started to follow them but paused when Zenia stepped forward to hug him.

  “He’ll be all right,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” Jev said, returning the hug and glad for her support. “Thank you for helping.”

  “I wish I could have done more.” She grimaced, and Jev had a feeling she had, for the first time, encountered people with power that was equal to or greater than that of her dragon tear.

  “We’d probably all be dead if you hadn’t done what you did,” he said.

  She didn’t appear comforted.

  12

  After Zenia washed and applied bandages to the small wounds she’d received from shards of glass flying when the elf leaped through the window, she went to the castle’s infirmary. Targyon, the princess, her two bodyguards, and Jev were all in there, standing back as the healer worked on Lornysh, her dragon tear glowing a soft yellow on her chest.

  Lornysh lay shirtless on a bed with his arms at his sides as one of the assistants finished tying a bandage around his abdomen. His pack and weapons leaned against the wall by a window. The shirt draped atop them was so saturated with blood that Zenia couldn’t imagine it ever being clean again.

  Jev looked at her when she walked in and lifted an arm in offering. He stood off to one side, not joining in whatever quiet conversation Targyon and Princess Yesleva were having. />
  Zenia joined him, leaning against his side as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Before coming up here, he’d put on a pistol belt with two holsters and an ammo pouch. Zenia never would have thought they would be in danger inside the castle walls, but now she knew better. And she knew how powerful their adversaries were. The more times she ran into these elf wardens, the more amazed she was that humans had survived for a month, much less ten years over on their continent. What idiot had thought it a good idea to make war on the Taziir?

  Targyon left the princess’s side—she looked tired and sad as she stood with her hands in the voluminous sleeves of the sage-colored robe she wore—and crouched beside the healer. He murmured a few words. Zenia didn’t hear them all but got the gist, that he was asking to be kept notified of changes. Then he rested a hand on Lornysh’s arm before standing and heading for the door.

  “I don’t think he’s going to be better by dawn,” Jev said quietly.

  “So long as he gets better,” Targyon said. “We’re not kicking him out.”

  Jev nodded, probably not surprised by Targyon’s statement, but Zenia sensed relief from him. Maybe he had been a little worried that their king would decide it was too much of a risk to keep Lornysh here. Zenia hoped none of Targyon’s guards had been killed by the elves.

  She rubbed her face, hardly believing there had only been two of those wardens. There were at least two more out there somewhere, waiting to add their skills to the fight to destroy Lornysh. And what if there were even more than that? Her informant had seen four at the tower, but that didn’t mean more couldn’t be in the city.

  The princess walked out after Targyon, taking her bodyguards and leaving only Jev, Zenia, the healer, and her assistants in the room. Though her eyes were still closed, the healer murmured something to the assistants, and they also left.

  She looked over at Jev, her hair in a long gray braid that hung over one shoulder. She was the same woman who had tended to Lunis Drem a few weeks earlier. What was her name? Neena.

  “He will return to consciousness soon,” Neena told Jev. “I’ve sealed the internal organs that were punctured by the blade, but it will still take time for his body to heal. Not as long as a human body, I believe, but he’ll need to stay largely immobile for a few days. I gave him some pain potion—” she pointed to a dark brown glass bottle of Grodonol’s Pain-No-More on the bedside table, a dagger with a red X over it on the label, “—but you can give him more if he needs it. It’ll make him a little woozy, but that’s better than being in horrendous pain.”

  “Are you telling me all this because I’ve been volunteered to be his nurse?” Jev asked.

  “My assistants are afraid of him.” Neena smiled. “Most of the staff is on edge at the presence of the elf entourage, but a beautiful princess is somewhat less alarming to them than a surly elf warrior.”

  “How do you know he’s surly?”

  “He woke briefly when I removed the dagger. And he spoke.”

  “A dagger being pulled out of one’s gut does have a tendency to make one snippy,” Jev said.

  Zenia was amused that he was defending Lornysh’s surliness. She had spoken to the elf enough times to believe the adjective applied well, even without daggers and injuries involved.

  Neena rose to her feet, poured water from a pitcher into a glass on the bedside table, then headed for the door. “My room is just down the hall.” She pointed in the direction Targyon and the others had gone. “Second door there. Please come get me if he’s in pain or needs anything.”

  She yawned, no doubt drained from healing Lornysh. As Zenia well knew, the dragon tear held the power, but it was funneled through its human handler, and it was a tiring experience. She inadvertently mirrored the yawn, but she turned it into a smile when Jev looked at her.

  “It looks like you have a new roommate,” she observed.

  “There’s only one bed in my room.”

  “Then I hope you two grew very close during the war.”

  Jev’s mouth twisted. “Not that close.”

  Zenia patted him on the stomach. She was about to ask if he would mind if she went to bed—it had to be after midnight by now, and they still had an assignment, to find where those elves were staying. She doubted the two who had come to the castle had left address cards.

  “But he can have my bed,” Jev added. “I can sleep on the floor.”

  “Not under the window, I hope,” Zenia said. “That seems to be the preferred method of entry for elves.”

  Jev snorted. “I’ll have to talk to Targyon about bars for the windows. Magical elf-proof bars.”

  “Do such things exist?” Zenia had no trouble imagining those magical swords slicing through metal bars like butter.

  “Maybe Master Grindmor can make some. I sent word to her shop that Lornysh was injured. I think Cutter has been sleeping there. If he’s sleeping at all. She’s quite the slave driver. But he seems to like it.”

  “Maybe he’s sleeping on her floor under a window.”

  “Possibly. Dwarves think mattresses are too soft and squishy. A good slab of stone keeps one’s back healthy, Cutter tells me.”

  “Jev,” came a wan whisper from the bed.

  Jev released Zenia and stepped up to Lornysh’s side. “I’m glad you remember who I am, my friend. Earlier, you were calling me some woman’s name.”

  Lornysh sighed, his eyes barely open. “Amuzhara. She no longer lives.”

  “I’m glad I’m not her then.”

  “For a moment, I thought I might be going to join her in the Eternal Garden.”

  “You’re too young and surly to take up an afterlife of gardening.” Jev dragged over a stool and sat on it.

  “Surly?”

  “The healer assured me of it.”

  “Mm.”

  “Want some pain potion? The healer said you could have another glug.”

  Lornysh’s lips twisted. “Is that why my head is fuzzy?”

  “Maybe. Or it could be that you lost a couple of gallons of blood on the floor.”

  “There is no need to be melodramatic. The average elven body contains only approximately five-point-three liters of blood in its entirety.”

  Zenia thought about slipping out and leaving the men to their banter, but Jev smiled over at her, rolled his eyes, and mouthed, “Surly.”

  “Your female is here,” Lornysh said. “I sense her dragon tear.”

  “Yes, she is,” Jev said. “If she and her dragon tear hadn’t helped, we might both be dead.”

  “I know.”

  Jev raised his eyebrows, as if he expected Lornysh to say something else, but he fell silent.

  “That was Elvish,” Jev told her. “It translates to he appreciates your help and he’s relieved you’re in my life.”

  “Ah,” she said. “That’s good to know since I don’t speak Elvish.”

  “I’m a good translator. Have no fear.” Jev looked at Lornysh, as if he hoped his friend would crack a smile.

  Zenia hadn’t seen him smile yet, whether he was injured or not, so it would have surprised her.

  “Amuzhara was the love of my life,” Lornysh said, his eyes closed.

  Jev’s eyebrows flew up. Zenia assumed that meant this was new information to him. Or perhaps that it was shocking that Lornysh was sharing it.

  “She was also Vornzylar’s twin sister,” Lornysh said. “They were very close.”

  Jev digested that a moment before asking, “What happened?”

  “There was a fire. The tree in which her house was built burned down, and she didn’t get out in time. She died.”

  “That’s awful,” Zenia whispered, then clasped a hand over her mouth. She hadn’t meant to butt into their conversation.

  “Vornzylar believes I did it. I did not. I adored her, even after she rejected me. I investigated all around the tree and questioned everyone, in case it wasn’t an accident. But several people saw the lightning strike that started the fire. It seems it was a fre
ak accident of nature. Or, for some unfathomable reason, the will of the gods.”

  The Taziir, Zenia recalled, believed in gods that lived in the natural world and dismissed the dragon founders as mere dragons that had died long ago.

  “Why did she reject you?” Jev asked.

  “For the same reason they all did.”

  Jev looked toward the bottle of painkiller, maybe wondering if another slug of the stuff would make his friend more likely to keep sharing. Zenia suspected the initial dose was the reason he was speaking now. Maybe he would have shared with Jev anyway, but she had a hard time believing Lornysh would, in his typical mind state, reveal anything of his past in front of her.

  “Princess Yesleva is my half-sister,” Lornysh said.

  Zenia frowned at the change in topic.

  Jev’s eyebrows flew up again. “Yesleva is King Yvelon’s daughter.”

  “Yes. And I am his son.”

  Jev’s jaw dropped.

  Lornysh opened his eyes, but not to look at either of them. He gazed at the ceiling and continued on in the tone one might use to recite a passage from a book. Or perhaps to recite a piece of history.

  “He was only Crown Prince Yvelon at the time I was born. After his wife died, he abandoned his duties for a time to mourn her. He walked the forests of Taziira for years and eventually crossed the sea and found one of the colonies of elves in Shangdalor, one believed to have been lost, but its inhabitants had merely chosen to adopt an insular existence and work on their art away from the politics of the Taziir nation.

  “There, on a small wooded island with a single mountain at its core, he found love again in the arms of an elf female. He talked her into returning to the mainland with him. Historians there researched her lineage and discovered she was a descendent of Simora, the bard and great warrior of our third century after founding. Simora was the firstborn to Emperor Hy-marishon, back when we were an empire and the rest of the races were little more than clans of people living in hide huts. The descendants of Hy-marishon were all thought to be long dead, so when it was learned that this woman—my mother—was of that line, our people decided that any offspring born to her and my father would have a greater right to rule than those born earlier to my father and his first wife. She had been his loyal love but had also been the equivalent of a commoner in your land.”