“Why couldn’tyoujust fly us over the border?” I call over the wind, nodding my head toward those tightly tucked wings of his.
“Why ride a horse when you can just run?” He raises a brow, watching me out of the corner of his eye. “No druid has this kind of speed or stamina.”
“How disappointing,” I throw back.
He blinks, then scoffs, rolling his eyes and grinning broadly. But it worked.
“Don’t worry about my virility, Rune. I’m more than capable of ravishing little old you.” His eyes finally spark in that bright violet I’ve been hoping for.
I grin, holding out hope things are returning to normal between us.
He nods to his right, eyes still latched to mine. His wyvern drops off, diving below to the foothills. I release a held breath as mine follows the steep plunge.
Our wyverns branch off into a cyclical dive, and every buffet of her wings has me trapped between terror and thrill. I rise out of my saddle, but the leather strap holds firm. We loop around a circle of uneven cairns. As we inch lower, a delegation of elves standing in the center comes into view.
Draven is the first to land, Commander Soto a moment after, and the rest of us soon follow, my wyvern skidding a bit on impact, more awkward on the ground than in the sky.Draven easily slides off his mount in one movement, landing quickly on his feet, and approaches the elf at the forefront of their group.
Each one of them is as lithe and lovely as the next. Their hair is longer than Draven’s, down to their waists, shimmering veils of silk. They have no wings or antlers, but their ears and fangs are as pointed as the druids’. Their copper armor over emerald cloth strikes me as decorative. Perhaps they do not need much protection. Or maybe they’re arrogant.
Beware the elves of earth, whose power seeps in stone, while misfortune brings them mirth, your desires leave you prone.My father’s rhyme trickles into my thoughts.
Draven said they can warp wants and influence the mind. Their cool gazes make me uncomfortable.
The emissary in the lead bows in greeting, though the rest do not.
I glower at them. Who the hells do they think they are?
Fable sidles up to me. She lingers, arms crossed, and hisses to me, “Pull up your hood, your hair makes you stick out.”
“I could say the same of you.” Her hair is so light blond it’s nearly silver, and certainly memorably bright. I’m surprised when she chuckles. But we quiet, monitoring the elves and Draven.
“Your Royal Highness, we are pleased to greet you and lead you to the palace.” The emissary looks to Draven’s chest instead of meeting him in the eye. “However, we are not supposed to bring soldiers into His Majesty’s Grand Palace.”
“These are my royal and personal guards,” Draven says dismissively. “They go where I go.”
“Of course, Your Highness.” But the emissary swallows, his hands skittish. “May we offer our mounts? They will traverse the area better once we arrive—”
“I’ve seen your mounts. I’ll keep to my own, thank you,” Draven says.
“Of course.” The emissary moves to one of the jutting cairns, placing a long-fingered hand against its surface.
A blue light skitters across it, casting runes over the stone. A loud churning fills my ears, like heavy rocks scraped against each other. I look down. Runes shimmer at our feet in that same bright blue, and then the stone platform rotates, slowly at first, but then gathers speed. I stagger and bump against Fable. She puts a hand on my shoulder, holding me upright, blue light forming a circle around the dais. The platform drops, sinking below the ground at a steady speed, and the light of the dais grows until it’s all I see.
I grit my teeth, nausea churning in my stomach, legs shaking. The spinning slows, lessening into nothing as the blue light shrinks away. We’ve been transported somewhere entirely different, standing on an outcropping in a large cavern system that spans hundreds of feet above and below us.
Sunlight streaks through the openings, illuminating the stalactites and branching into different cavern systems. Below us is a second world, green and overflowing with great trees connected by vines, and separated from us by misty little clouds. The kingdom of Alfheim is beautiful, singular in its design.
Elves fly on the backs of creatures I’ve never seen before, spinning through the small spaces between stalactites. A few riderless creatures land on the platform beside our emissaries, and our wyverns hiss.
Whatever these things are, they look like enormous bats, with dark fur and fox-like noses, their ears oversized, wings more heavily veined. They cling low to the ground, and the elves lie flat across their backs, hugging to their fur.
The druids give the creatures a bit of space.
“Draven,” I ask quietly, “whatarethose?”
“They’re bakka.” He lowers his voice. “And frankly a shitty ride.”
The emissaries click their tongues, and the creatures take flight. The spinning way the beasts fly must be exactly why Draven denied them, even if the wyverns seem too large to follow through the odd holes chiseled in the rocks and stalactites.
