The Queen's Opal: A Stone Bearers Novel (Book One) Page 2

  Tayvin knocked down everyone, so that wasn’t the problem. And Drynn loved his brother, so that wasn’t the problem, either. The problem was Drynn never liked what he was supposed to. He wouldn’t like fencing even if he could win.

  But if Tayvin ever learned that, he would likely turn and sigh with Andver and the rest of the elven youth who called Drynn a recluse and worse.

  Drynn could never let that happen.

  Tayvin continued in Drynn’s silence, reverting to his usual smile. “Aw, well, you have plenty of time to learn. Just try to get someone to practice with you when I leave.”

  Drynn nodded, but the only good thing about Tayvin leaving was Drynn could expect to get a break from the sport. Then Drynn could really be a recluse—no one to dismiss and defend his idiosyncrasies, pushing him to join the group. Just him with his books at last.

  Completely alone. Maybe there wasn’t anything good about Tayvin leaving.

  Tayvin shifted his feet. “Well?”

  Drynn stared at him blankly.

  “Drynn, now it’s your turn. I want some input! Go ahead and be cruel.”

  Tayvin had performed flawlessly as far as Drynn could tell, but his brother would never accept that. He strained to think of something. “Well, you were slower than usual, but you have been practicing all week so . . . so . . .” Drynn had to stop. Tayvin was one thing, but all the girls were listening now as well, waiting for their turn to talk to his brother.

  “So you think I should work on my stamina?” Tayvin finished for him. “Sure, I could start running or something.”

  “N-no, it wasn’t bad. It was just—”

  “If I ever get into a fight, I very much doubt it will stop just because I get tired. They talk of ten-day battles in the Drow War! I should be able to last one day if I expect to be worth my sword.” He bobbed his head. “Thank you, Drynn, it was a good point.”

  Drynn gave up, murmuring it was no trouble, but he wasn’t sure what battles Tayvin imagined himself fighting. The gray-skinned demons of the Drow War existed only in stories. Rangers carried blades and were respected as warriors, but they only shadowed the humans who entered the forest. They didn’t really fight. Not humans. Not drow. Not anyone.

  Fencing was pointless and so were the rangers. They got a lot of attention—flexing their muscles, parading around. Former rangers pointed to swords on their walls and spoke in dramatic detail of scraps that nearly—but never actually—happened. Obviously, they had never read a dorran or a human history if they thought any of it was that exciting. But Tayvin loved it and had trained his whole life to be part of it. So Drynn bit his tongue and tried to love it too.

  Maybe if he tried hard enough, someday it would finally be true.

  Tayvin found a place along the fence to stash his practice sword, his real blade strapped to his back. The maids swarmed him, and Tayvin bowed his head. “Sorry. I wish I had more time to visit with each of you, but Drynn and I have to go see our mother.” That was his favorite excuse when the maids got too eager. It sounded polite, and it was usually accurate.

  One maid nodded soberly for the group. “Say hello to Aunt Chrissi for us. We miss seeing her around.” The maids weren’t her true nieces, but Drynn’s mother saw it as her royal privilege as High Queen of Elba to adopt all the children in Titainia as her own.

  Tayvin nodded. “I will. She misses all of you, too.”

  “How’s she doing?” asked a maid visiting from another holt for the celebration.

  Their mother spent her time at home, her skin growing grayer and her eyes becoming duller each day. But all Tayvin said was, “No better, no worse,” with his mouth stretched into a firm line. He turned away from the girls before his usual smile reappeared. “Come on, Drynn. If we go now, maybe Mother will still be awake.”

  Tayvin didn’t need to tell him. Drynn had been ready to go for a while.

  Dusk fell as Drynn weaved through the trees after Tayvin. Campfires glowed in the distance, lighting the outdoor stage where a daughter of a visiting king sang the ballad of Lady Starrillaylee’s defeat over the drow. Families sat on branches and on the ground to listen. Elven dancers, songbirds, and a few forest sprites waited to rush out for the final chorus—it was the same thing every year.

  Their mother used to insist they attend the closing ceremony of the Spring Celebration together, but their father hated being put on display like that. Most of the time, no one said much about their bloodline and titles, but once The Lady was mentioned, elders got misty-eyed and fell all over themselves to thank them for her sacrifice. The last time that happened, their father holed up in the library for days, and their mother reversed her position on the ceremony entirely, almost forbidding them from going anywhere near the stage on celebration days.

  Drynn couldn’t say he missed it much—the director sighing over the lack of female heirs to play The Lady, glaring at the princes like they had chosen their gender to spite him, then running around yelling at everyone. Impromptu visits from the forest sprites and scrufflings throwing things off schedule. The noise, the crowd, the fairy dust flying everywhere . . .

  Exhaustion swept in at the thought, leaving Drynn more than ready to call it an early night.

  They arrived at a large canopy tree encircled by a spiral staircase. As custom dictated, their father had designed the house during his engagement period, its simple structure decorated with intricate shapes and patterns carved into the wood. Tayvin looked at Drynn with a challenge in his eyes, and they raced up the staircase to the circular house above, taking the stairs two or three at a time.

  Tayvin reached the top just before Drynn. The sound of quill scratches and papers shuffling greeted them as they cleared the final steps, coming through the door on the floor into the main entry. “Father’s home,” Tayvin said, surprise in his tone. Their father often worked in the library late into the night, especially if he was avoiding the closing ceremonies.

  Drynn nodded, walking toward the tree’s inner trunk to put his bag down. Tayvin circled around the entry and drew back the curtain which partitioned off their parents’ room. Kneeling at a low-set table that served as a desk, High King Trilynthane-Falberain sorted through a mound of scrolls and parchment large enough to bury him. He wore the long robes of the council and his silvery red hair fell past his shoulders and straight down his back.

  “We’re home,” Tayvin said. “Where’s Mother?”

  Drynn peered past his brother. Their mother’s sleeping mat lay empty for the first time in more than a year.

  A moment passed. The king suspended his quill over the paper, unmoving. “She’s gone.”

  “Gone where?” Tayvin’s posture dropped. “She’s sick. She needs to—”

  “She’s dead.” Their father hadn’t even looked up, and the quill started moving again.

  CHAPTER 2

  DRYNN’S BAG SLIPPED from his fingers. He stared at the empty space on the floor mat that his mother should occupy, letting his father’s words reverberate in his head as senselessly as a lark’s warble. How could she have died? Sure, his mother was sick, but she was always sick. She slept most days, but waved her boys off with a smile, insisting they fit in one more adventure just for her.

  When Tayvin had earned his blade, he raced home to show her.

  When Drynn discovered something new in his books, he did the same.

  That morning had been like any other, a simple wave and a smile, and Drynn had been out the door. He should have done so many things differently, confessed a dozen small sins and found some final service to perform. He wasn’t even sure he had said he loved her before he left their tree today, at least not with any great detail or emotion.

  Tayvin’s hazel eyes circled the room as if looking for some evidence of her passing. But there wouldn’t be anything left. Elven bodies didn’t linger after death.

  “What, when? How? And when were you,” Tayvin pointed a finger dangerously close to the king’s face, “planning on telling us?”

 
The king stayed seated and shook his head, his dull tone unchanged, unchallenged. “Tayvinaldrill-Falberain, I have warned you about that temper.”

  “Of course I have a temper! What about you? How can you just sit there after—”

  Their father dropped his quill. “What do you think I could have done about it? Sickness cannot be fought off by silly things like swords, you know.”

  Tayvin went silent, moving his hands at his side to strangle some unseen foe. Then he scaled the inner staircase to the roof without a word. His footsteps pounded above them before Drynn could make himself move. Yelling or not, Drynn would rather be with Tayvin than alone with their father and their mother’s empty mat. He turned toward the stairs.

  “Aldrayndallen-Falberain.”

  His father’s voice. Drynn twisted around so quickly he stumbled over his forgotten bag. He shoved the bag to the side of the room with his foot, staring hard at the floor. “S-sire?” Drynn swallowed hard, but if his father noticed him fumbling, the king didn’t mention it for once.

  His father shuffled around at his desk. “I have something for you. Your mother wanted you to have it.” He stood, handing Drynn something from the mess of scrolls. A flash of green peeked through his father’s fingers—the Queen’s Opal. His mother’s opal. Drynn had no idea what his parents meant by giving it to him, but he wasn’t about to ask his father.

  He took it at once. “Thank you, sire.”

  The king nodded and looked off in another direction. At over three hundred years of age, Drynn’s father was no longer young, but he had always looked ancient to Drynn. His skin had tanned prematurely and the dark red hair Drynn had inherited was turning the silver color most elves escaped for another hundred years at least.

  And when the king spoke, it was always stiff, dry, and slow.

  “I will speak with your aunt about looking after you now that Chrissastella-Falberain has passed,” his father said. “If you need someone else to talk to, I’m sure you will have more volunteers than you can handle among the other women in the holt.”

  “Thank you, sire.” Drynn would never talk to the other women, but hopefully, his quick compliance would end the discussion.

  The High King looked back toward his desk. “Good. I must continue dealing with the woes of Ambernone. They want to extend their farmland again. We have told them many times already that it is impossible to keep holts hidden if we keep extending them. They will want a formal vote next, but they will get the same answer.” His eyes slowly found Drynn again. “You are dismissed, Aldrayndallen-Falberain.”

  Drynn bobbed his head in a slight bow and walked away.

  As he climbed the stairs to the roof, Drynn stared at the opal in his hands.

  His fingers ran the thin golden chain until they caught on the lattice work engraved to resemble leaves and vines surrounding the stone. But it was the stone which called all his attention, the stone he knew so well. The colors swirled with an inner light, glowing as if it had a life of its own. As it had belonged to the High Queens for generations, Drynn’s earliest memory was staring up at his mother and feeling lost in the spiraling shades of green.

  It was like falling into another world entirely—a long forgotten place of magic and mystery that called to him in a great beacon of light.

  He ripped his eyes away. His stomach turned with sudden disorientation.

  Tayvin gripped the roof’s railing, looking into the trees as Drynn closed the gap between them and stood at his side. Drynn covered the opal with one hand and slid it toward him. “Here.”

  Tayvin blinked. “Where did you get this?”

  “Father gave it to me. He said that Mother wanted me to have it, but—”

  “If they gave it to you, then you should keep it.” Tayvin pushed his hand back.

  “B-but I can’t. It’s the Queen’s Opal, and your wife will become the next queen.” The female blood heirs of Lady Starrillaylee were supposed to wear the opal and rule, but saving it for the future bride of the High Prince only made sense until Tayvin or Drynn had a daughter. Just like their mother had worn it after taking the title of High Queen from her marriage to their father.

  Tayvin nodded, but his eyes were still far away. “Maybe.”

  “Tayvin?”

  He sighed, frowning at the holt below them. Elves surrounded the outdoor stage and arena to sing and dance in celebration, unaware of the happenings at the home of their queen.

  How could Tayvin even stand to watch them?

  “I can’t do it, Drynn,” Tayvin said. “I can’t sit by and do nothing anymore. I don’t want to be king if it means I have to become like Father.”

  Drynn shrank back. Growing up, Drynn had watched Tayvin do everything he could to please their father. The boys saw the sword on their wall, a remnant of their father’s former service as a ranger, and Tayvin determined he would do the same. If there was ever a problem in the holt, Tayvin took charge. He organized whole events and impressed everyone with his service, but their father never said a word about it. Their father hardly talked to them at all.

  Now Drynn had made it worse. He had the opal, tangible proof of their father’s disregard as he passed Tayvin over. Drynn wanted to fix it somehow, but nothing came to him.

  “What can we do? You know what Father said . . .” Drynn stopped. Was he really agreeing with his father? True, swords couldn’t have done anything to help their mother; Drynn often thought the rangers were useless, but he would never have said it aloud. He couldn’t.

  Drynn and his father might stare at the same books and dusty old scrolls, shunning the outside world at times, but Drynn had been searching for a cure. Just not as urgently as he would have if he had seen death as a real possibility, not as urgently as he should have. All his research might be useless now, but he loved Tayvin and he loved his mother.

  Drynn wasn’t like their father. He couldn’t be.

  “I don’t think I can fight a sickness with a sword, Drynn, but I need to do something.” A vibration ran through the wooden railing as Tayvin’s grip tightened. “Some of the other rangers were talking when I got my sword. They said just before you were born, several others had the same sickness as Mother and died all at once. No one figured it out. So now our mother is dead, and who’s to say it won’t keep happening, same as last time?”

  Drynn tried to recall the incident from the thousands of historic records he had sifted through over the years. He couldn’t remember anything like that, but it didn’t change matters. Their mother was dead. Her body had faded to dust, never to be seen again, as all elven bodies did if they died before they heard their call home to Falberain—the land of their ancestors. Drynn had often wondered what happened to an elven spirit if they died before that journey could be made, but he had never thought he would have to worry about such a fate for his own mother.

  Drynn shook his head, trying not to think of all the possibilities. “If it happens again . . .” Maybe there was a reason to keep looking through his books. Maybe Tayvin would help. “Elves were healers once—that’s what the humans call it when they help someone else heal who can’t do it themselves. The humans have ‘healers,’ and when we lived together, we had them too. I was trying to figure out what they did, but the records are so vague—”

  “So why can’t we do it now? If we knew it once, why don’t we now?”

  “Most elves never get sick. Everyone who knew how to heal others returned to Falberain centuries ago. And the stuff in the library—it’s mostly references, not instructions.” Drynn felt stupid for explaining. Tayvin knew this. Everyone did. The only time Drynn had even heard about sickness besides his mother’s illness, was in reference to animals in the forest, never the elves themselves.

  Tayvin nodded, still looking out into the trees. “But we healed the humans?”

  Drynn’s eyes narrowed. Usually, when he talked about books, especially the long-winded histories, Tayvin’s eyes glazed over, and Drynn doubted he heard him at all. “Well, yeah. The humans t
aught us. See, humans get sick all the time, so they—”

  “Then why don’t we ask them?”

  Drynn smiled, but more from surprise than actual amusement. It wasn’t the time for jokes.

  “No, I’m serious,” Tayvin said. “If the books don’t say anything, then we should go to the source. If the humans taught us once, why shouldn’t they be able to do it again?”

  “Tayvin, you’re a ranger. You’re supposed to enforce the treaty and keep the humans away from the holts. If you tried something like that . . .” Drynn shook his head. The idea was so absurd he had no idea what would happen. “Father would be furious. The whole council—”

  “Let him be furious!” Tayvin tore his hands away from the banister. “We started the rangers because the humans broke that treaty the day it was forged. Why should we still have to keep it?”

  Drynn took an involuntary step back, waiting for Tayvin’s mood to settle. Tayvin breathed in, long and slow, and blinked a few more times. He moved to the center of the roof, leaning against the tree’s trunk as he sat down. When he started again, he whispered and stared at the floor.

  “Look at me. I’m the elder brother. I’m supposed to be comforting you. I don’t like feeling helpless and I will not feel that way again.” Tayvin’s hazel eyes flashed as he finally looked up.

  Drynn dropped next to him. No matter how mad Tayvin’s plan sounded, Drynn didn’t want to argue with his brother on top of everything else.

  If Drynn just gave him time, Tayvin was sure to forget about it all on his own.

  “What do we know about humans?” Drynn asked. “Would they even want to help?”

  As far as Drynn could tell, humans liked adventures and went on all sorts of heroic quests, but had no respect for anything natural or spiritual—the forest, the goddess, and Falberain. They had funny rounded ears half the size of an elf’s, leaving them almost deaf, and they were practically blind as well. Sickness plagued them all the time; they became disfigured and wrinkled with age instead of merely having their skin tan and darken as the elven elders did. Such a poorly conceived race should have died out long ago, but they flourished in numbers that vastly exceeded the elves.