Chapter One

Dawn .

EVEN HERE IN THE METICULOUS COURTYARD of Castle Willowspirit, the rising sun still had the power to awe.

This morn, it was a gentle greeting from the sun. A kiss of soft purples, the color of field flowers, mingling with a joyous pink like that of the interior of a rabbit’s ear. The colors soothed me as the tallest spire in the kingdom, the temple of Ihdos belltower, was painted with the tones of dawn. Thin clouds floated behind the temple spire lazily as if they had no great rush to leave. Soon the bells would begin to peal, calling all those in the vills of Renedith to kneel before their god. All aside from me.

Even now, the cocks were crowing on the other side of the high stone walls that separate the noble family Stillcloud from the masses, and sadly, the woodlands that are slowly receding as the vills grow.

Kneeling in the thick grass, my ass resting on my heels, I closed my eyes and could, just barely, pull up the fading memories of the Verboten woods. The lush smell of the bosk that my brothers and I had played in, the dappled sun speckling the ferns, and the songs of the various birds.

Songs of freedom, unlike the songs of the caged birds here in the courtyard. Ten years into my time spent in the resplendent home of the Stillcloud family, I still cannot abide the need to cage wild creatures. I never will. Yes, I have had the reasoning drummed into me by the gardeners, the cleaning staff, and Umeris Stillcloud himself, and yet it made little sense to me. But this is the path that the city elves have chosen and so, as a mere diplomatic guest at the behest of my goddess, my feelings about placing wild things into prisons fall on deaf yet elegantly pointed ears.

Sighing at the cruelty, I pushed the upsetting thoughts to the side and breathed deeply. The faintest smell of cultured silver poppies reached my nose. There was also the smell of the nearby midden. Aye, the stone walls may hide it from view, but there was no disguising the smell of the rotting household waste. Nor do the high walls silence the calls of the vendors strolling past on the west, hurrying to reach their stalls before prayers.

None of it is soothing, but I have learned to wash it away as the chambermaids do the mud tracked into the main hall. Eyes closed, back straight, hands resting on my brown robes, I sought the peace to meditate.

“Good morn, Kenton! I’ve brought you some of the honey cakes from the kitchen to break your fast,” the voice of my young ward rang out. The Stillcloud heir had yet to learn the fine art of speaking softly. I smiled to myself, opened my eyes, and glanced to the right to see Aelir standing beside me in his royal blue trousers, a white shirt, and grass-stained leather shoes. The morning sun made his golden hair glisten like the crown he was forced to wear at formal events. “They’re still warm and quite sticky.”

He held out a pilfered cake, light yellow and spongy, amber honey dripping through his fingers. Behind him, at perhaps ten paces, stood V’alor Silverfrond, his guard. The man in the copper-colored armor nodded at me. His posture relaxed here in the gardens. He was a rather stoic man, roughly my age, with short dark hair and a build honed from hours of training with sword and shield. I have seen V’alor strike like an asp when his charge is threatened or endangered. I would not think to run up to the heir of this vills unbidden. The last fool who had done so wound up at a healer with several cracked ribs and a broken nose. V’alor brooked no fools where his duties to Aelir were concerned. A guard of nobility has lightning reflexes and a sword sharp enough to cleave a man in twain. V’alor was the best of the best as the future of the vills rested in his care despite his age.

“Thank you,” I replied, plucking the treat from his hand. Aelir grinned, his chin coated with honey, and dropped to his knees beside me. “Your grandfather will be angry if Widow Poppy informs him that you’ve eaten before morning prayers.”

The smile on his lean face fell away. “I’m hungry. He made me go to my chambers last night without supper simply for not replying to dumb old Raewyn Frostleaf’s letter.” As was typical for a boy of ten, a pout overtook his face. The gentle wind blew through the garden, tinkling the wind chimes by the small fountain in the corner and tossing long strands of Aelir’s hair into the honey coating his face. He thumbed it away. “Why does he feel the need to make me speak to girls?”

“Well, there are many reasons to speak to girls,” I replied, sliding to the grass and crossing my legs. My bare toes peeked out from the hem of my plain brown robes. Aelir rolled his gaze to the sky before taking a large bite of his honey cake. “Replying to the young lady’s missive shows you are courteous and conscientious. Important traits for the heir of this vills to possess.”

I pulled off a small bite of cake, dropped it into my mouth, and moaned in pleasure. Widow Poppy certainly knew how to bake. Her social graces could use work and her treatment of the castle cats infuriated me, but she was gifted in the kitchen.

“But she’s sooooooo boring! She never talks about swords or horses or archery. She just goes on about her handmaiden and sewing and earrings.” His face was comical in its disgust.

“Someday her letters will have more appeal,” I told him. His nose wrinkled as if he had just gotten a sniff of the pig farmer’s slurry. “Someday you’ll find her flowery words entrancing, her delicate handwriting engrossing, and the soft scent of pink rose water on the pages captivating.”

“No, I will not. I’m never going to get married. I’m going to rule Renedith like King Raloven rules the empire,” Aelir stated with all the assuredness of a boy of ten summers. I too had my life goals set at his age and then the goddess spoke to me and my childish plans were forever altered. He aspired to be like our monarch, also known as the Ivory King, since he sat upon a throne of purest white ivory crafted from deep-sea creatures that used to swim the seas around our island nation but were now, according to the scholars, long dead. Sailors told vastly different tales about giant fish with long white horns that speared vessels for the sheer joy of watching elves drown. I’d not spent much time on the sandy coasts or the seas, so I dared not say which account was correct. “No wives, no babies. I’ll play all day with my friends, drink ale, and partake in tournaments!”

The first ring of the morning worship bells filled the air.

“It is time to wash up and go to the temple,” V’alor called. Aelir heaved a mighty sigh before shoving the last bite of his honey cake into his face. The lad looked less like one of prestige and more like a street waif with his wild hair and messy face.

“You’re lucky you’re Rhaes , ” Aelir mumbled to me around his mouthful.

V’alor made a choked sound of discomfort but held his tongue. It wasn’t his place to correct Aelir. Only Umeris and the boy’s tutor could do that. The rest of us in the castle were to guide gently when the need arose. My role in particular was to impart a study of nature as only a druid could and hopefully teach the lad something about acceptance. A trait that, I felt, was incredibly important to a future leader of a massive vills.

“Yes, I am,” I answered, smiling at the young man who fell into step behind his guardian. V’alor led the boy away, leaving me to lick the honey from my fingers in peace and contemplate my luck. I knew the boy didn’t understand what he said. He would soon learn from the elders in the castle, but the darker side of that word, that he would learn from his grandfather. Umeris would be happy to explain that Rhaes meant “Strange Elf,” and it was used by most among the city elves as a slur. A slight to my green skin and white braided hair when most here, and across Melowynn, possessed skin as pale as goat’s milk and locks of chestnut, ebony, or safflower.

Strange. Different. Not like us.

The sweet taste of honey and cinnamon began to sour on my tongue. Feeling the sadness begin to creep into my heart, I shucked it aside, focusing instead on the feel of the new day’s warmth on my face. The touch of Danubia on my cheeks and eyelids reminded me of my job here. Although I knew not why the goddess had chosen me for this task, I would work diligently to fulfill her wishes. Memories clouded my thoughts.

Her lilting voice had flowed over me that morn as I waded into the bosk to rescue a blue-winged lark from a certain drowning in the bog. Stunned, and more than slightly terrified, I stood in the murky water, wet bird in hand, brackish water to my knobby knees when Danubia, in all her glory, walked atop the still water to stand before me. Tears flowed down my cheeks as I gazed up at her loving face, her skin the tone of the giggle leaf ferns where the pixies played.

“Have I been bad?” I had asked, shielding the sodden bird to my chest as if I would be able to protect the lark from a goddess. “Please do not…kill me.”

Danubia had smiled. Her arm rose, her hand opened, and the chimes of the wind erupted from the wooden beads and bangles on her wrists. Her long pointed ears held loops of birch and willow wood, her ankle-length hair was as white as the moons and worn in tight plaits as all in my clan did, the ends laying on the water’s surface. Tiny fish nibbled at the strands, making amusing popping sounds. Her robes shimmered with the colors of the rainbow, never settling on just one hue as they flowed around her dark green ankles.

You have not misbehaved in mine eyes, Kenton Amergin. I wish only to deliver unto you my directive. I swallowed loudly. Place the bird into my hand.

Of course I did as bidden with trembling hands. The bird sat shivering in her palm for a moment before its plumage dried with a warm wind that rustled its sapphire feathers as well as the leaves on the trees. The water swirled playfully, small ripples rolling over my knees for a second before calming. The lark took to wing, spiraling upward as it sang its song of thanks.

While I did not yet possess the years of learning required to speak with beasts and birds, I felt its joy. Then the glowing white eyes of Danubia moved from the lark to me. I felt small as she hovered above the bayou. All had grown still. No bullfrogs croaked, no bees buzzed, and only the notes of the rescued lark filled the air. I was sure I would be smote for some offense or another. I had snuck into the healer’s tent and taken one of his many pipes on a dare from my friends just a tenday ago. Confessing seemed prudent.

“I smoked only a small bit of the pine cone tobacco then vomited for a day,” I had blurted out, my vision blurred, my heart thundering in my chest. “I won’t do it again.”

Her voice was musical, slightly amused, and soft like the sound of the wind wuthering through the tree when she replied.

I do not come to lay punishment upon you, my child. That is for your parents to mete out. Listen to me well for what I say will have great import for the future of Melowynn.

I nodded, throat clogged with awe and fright.

Hasten thee, young argent to Renedith, invoke my name to Umeris, remind him of the vow to fair Gialar on her deathbed. Take the babe Aelir to your side, look upon him as a brother, temper the teachings of those who have left their ancestry behind. Cultivate acceptance, unity, and the ways of the woods in his breast. Do this, sixth son of Wilder Warden Dyffros and Priestess Jastra, and you shall shape the future of the elven kingdom.

“But that’s so far away,” I had whispered, grief-stricken at the thought of leaving my mother, father, and annoying older brothers for a city that I had only heard terrible things about. “My lessons…”

She touched my brow with a finger. My joints locked for a moment as divinity flowed through me. My sight burst into bright white stars. I came out of the state when I fell backward into the bog. Shaking the water and frog spit from my eyes, my tight braids soaking wet and lying on my face, I pushed them from my eyes to see…nothing. Danubia had left the bosk. The birds began to sing, the toads gurgled, and the bees resumed visiting the blooms atop the swamp grass.

Soaked to the bone, I torpidly returned to our village to tell my story, my only proof a small white dot in the center of my brow. Danubia’s fingerprint, all the adults had proclaimed. A dot that once stood out sharply but now was less readily to view. My skin had paled over my ten years here in the city as the elders had warned would happen. I now appeared washed-out, not wholly of the woods and not wholly of the city.

Many a night on my long journey here, I questioned Danubia’s request. I was a small boy then, just having seen my tenth summer, and about to travel thousands of miles with only my second eldest brother, Eldar, at my side.

None in my clan had questioned my vision, not even my parents, although my mother wept when I climbed up next to Eldar in a small wagon the day we left for the city. Father had nodded, proud of my courage as well as the fact that out of the hundreds in our camp, Danubia had chosen me for this mysterious mission. There had been so many smiling olive-toned faces waving goodbye that day. I’d cried as soon as we had cleared the last sight of my home. My brother gave me a sideways hug, unusual for my sibling but welcome.

The trip had taken many passings of the moons. Eldar and I had grown close, shared some laughs, some tears, and some adventures along the way. Out of all my brothers, Eldar was the one who wrote to me the most. I missed them all terribly.

Lingering always was the fact that our goddess, cast aside by the pale elves as we called our distant relatives, had plucked a timid boy out of the wilds to help forge bridges. What was so special about Aelir Stillcloud, I still had yet to discover, but he was a good boy, cheerful and filled with mirth, and we had become as brothers. Why I was truly here remained foggy. Changing the course of elven kind of was unclear while also being fearsome. How could I change something when I knew not what to change?

The gods were mysterious, their messages vague but filled with import. Perhaps I had been chosen because I was the youngest of six boys and therefore was the easiest of my familial line to send forth to the Stillcloud vills. Perhaps I might never know, for that was the way of the gods.

Still, even with the doubts and worries, I lifted my voice in prayer for she knew far more than I ever would…

“Gentle Danubia,

Hear my heart as it beats alongside the pulse of the world,

Lead me to the verdant fields, the cool woods, the splashing waters,

So that I may be closer to you in spirit, word, and deed.”

I lowered my forehead to the cool grass, my backside still on my heels. The feel and smell of soil and vegetation on my brow lifted me above the cityscape and into the blue sky where I was momentarily winging my way home.

The fantasy popped as the second bell for morning prayers rang out across the vills. Knowing that I would soon be chased from the garden by those who tended it so vigilantly, I rose and padded to one of four large cages filled with songbirds. The urge to fling open the doors was strong, but I had learned that lesson the hard way years ago. Sensing the sadness in the birds when I had first arrived, I raced through the garden, tossing open the cage doors, and shouting to the birds to fly.

The birdkeeper, a dour old elf named Rictus—a fitting name for his face always seemed locked in a death sneer—dragged me into the castle by my ear and threw me at the feet of Umeris Stillcloud. Punishment had been swift and severe. I’d been confined to my quarters near the rookery in the western tower for a month. Not a very auspicious beginning for the new forest elf companion to the wee Stillcloud heir. But I had learned. Locked up in that tower for a month with only a window and some books about proper decorum and behavior for castle staff, I devised a plan. I also became familiar with the surrounding lands.

Now, with ten years of self-learning and the touch of Danubia, I could cradle a living thing in my hands and lull it into a state of sleep. I had other powers as well, most feeble in comparison to what I should know by my twentieth summer, but since I had no instructor or scrolls to learn, I was doing what I could.

Rictus, a city elf who has never left the vills in his several hundred years, knew nothing of forest magicks. So, now, I would remove a bird, whisper a sleep spell, and it would fall to its side, appearing dead but only slumbering. Showing the birdkeeper the “dead” bird, I would then whisk it and myself to my room and wait. The bird would awaken and off it would fly out my window, free once more. Of course capturing the birds and the other wild creatures that the masses in Renedith enjoyed seeing behind bars meant that while I would free one a day, several dozen more were brought into the menagerie in the center of the vills. It was truly a losing battle, but I was doing what I could. Freeing a bird was easy. Moving into the menagerie to set loose a Coerul or a water bison was something vastly different.

Someday, though, perhaps with what I was imparting to Aelir, we could do away with the cages. It was a dream of mine. Perhaps that was why I was here. What other reason could there be for a tea-green wood prince with one-tenth of his druidic powers?

“Good morn, my friends,” I whispered, giving the walled-in green space a fast glance. Most of the city elves would be in morning vespers by now, so I opened the door of the birdcage holding the red and orange birds and slid my hand inside. I felt how happy the birds were to see me, for I usually sneaked seeds to them, but today was the day to free one from this cage.

Several sat on my hand but one hopped into my palm, a bird the color of a summer sunset. A mountain oriole, imported from the cold fir forests of the Witherhorn Mountains, a rocky range far north that the dwarves and yeti clans called home.

“Rest for a moment, small one,” I whispered. The bird blinked once, then fell to its side, tiny legs in the air. Cupping it in my hand, I closed the door, spun, lifted my day robes to my knees, and ran into the castle.

Up the servants’ stairs, past the vast kitchens, I darted. The smell of some sort of meat on the spit floated past my nose, making me grimace. I found it nigh impossible to feast upon the flesh of something that I was able to emotionally bond with. The elves of Renedith had no such upset. Just another way that I was an elf among elves, yet wholly alone.

Widow Poppy yelled at me to slow myself as I dashed by the open doorway of her domain. Several young elves called out to me to run faster, which probably got them a spoon to the ass from the head cook. I passed the pantries at full speed.

The stones of the keep were cool under my bare feet as I ran for the archway leading to the western tower. It had taken me two full passings of the crescent moon to be able to find my way about this massive keep. Castle Willowspirit was formidable as the three keeps of the three noble families all were. This one boasted twenty bed chambers, four solariums, two music and feasting chambers, a grand hall, and a wine cellar that Umeris seemed to be as proud of as his substantial guard numbers. There was also a small chapel where the family went to pray if the weather was bad or Umeris was suffering from the podagra that plagued him. The library in the eastern wing was a thing of beauty and prestige. The city elves worshipped logic, intelligence, and wisdom, so each keep had a bookroom that rivaled the one in the castle of the king in the capital of Calaer.

Twin towers overlooked the vills, giving us a spectacular view while also serving as a watch space for the guards who patrolled the outer and inner baileys. Flags and banners of deepest red—the color of the Stillcloud name—flew high atop each tower. Many said they envied my position here in the castle. I never went hungry or grew cold. I had warm robes, good shoes, a bath to myself, and a library at my disposal which was more than many who toiled in the farms that fed the vills, I knew, and many times I felt guilty for complaining to my family in my weekly letters about my situation. While I was surviving here, I felt I was not truly living, but my duty to my goddess, my family, and my ward Aelir would keep me here.

The bird held gently in my cupped hands was stirring when I reached my room. Huffing from the climb of the spiral stairs, I padded past the rookery, one of the few places aside from the gardens where I felt at peace, and scurried into my room. Using my hip to close the door, I strode to the window with haste, leaned my elbows on the cold gray stone, and opened my hands.

Dark eyes blinked at me.

“Get yourself righted,” I said to the creature. It moved to stand, wobbly at first, then with more awareness as my magicks wore away. “I know you are far from home, but if you fly north perhaps someday, with Danubia’s blessings, you shall find the mountains once more.”

The bird chirped once. I sensed that he understood. Then he took to the air, his wings carrying him northward. I leaned on the windowsill, eyes on the bird until I could no longer see him. Feeling blessed to be doing the goddesses work in whatever small ways I could, I let my sight roam. North, in the direction the oriole flew, lay the mountains far from view. I’d never visited the craggy, snow-covered peaks but had seen a few dwarven and yeti delegates at the yearly feasts held at the capital. I’d traveled as Aelir’s companion several times, my green skin pulling some uncomfortable looks from the upper echelon.

To the south lay the capital city that sat along the shore of the Silvural Sea.

To the west were the settlements of Kanazem and Ballybar. Scattered bands of humans were given permission to live there. Most resided near the Galasdes Gulf and many of them fished the wild waters that held the Black Sand Isles and where the Sandrayans lived in seclusion.

After the wars and the illnesses that the humans seemed to harbor, it was surprising that any would be found in Melowynn, but Aelir’s father and mother had been compassionate people. They’d petitioned hard for humans to live within our borders. It had taken many years, but the king had relented, with many provisos and medical checks. I could relate in some ways. While my skin and hair set me apart, I was still elven, just a much poorer, improperly religiously educated, and incredibly distant relation. The humans were not much cared for and thought to be a mere step above animals.

I’d not had much interaction with humans but found that I much preferred to spend time with the beasts of the forest than many of the entitled, elitist elves that looked down their pasty, long noses at those not like them. Mayhap the humans would be like the creatures of the woods, friendly and misunderstood…

The creaking of my door pulled me from my musings. One of the castle guards stood in the wooden frame, their red half cape signifying she was one of Umeris’s personal guards.

“The Grand Advisor would see you in the southern solarium now,” the woman informed me, giving my room a fast, disapproving look before backing out and closing the door with a snap. No reply was required.

When Umeris Stillcloud, Grand Advisor to King Raloven and Ruler of the Vills of Renedith, bid you to be in the southern solarium now, you went immediately.

And so I ran like the wild elf they all assumed I was.