“Stop him!” someone shouted, still far away.
No one nearby moved, I had a few more minutes.
“Come with me, leave this desolate place. I know it is your home, all you’ve ever known, but we all know that staying here is a death sentence. Come to Seial and fight in the rebellion against the elves. A new queen has emerged, an elf, who is not an elf, a queen who truly cares for her people, who wants equality and freedom for all races. If you don’t believe me, then come and listen to her, hear her words. Then you’ll believe.”
People were moving at the fringes of the crowd. My time drew short.
“This queen will fight her own kind to free not only the races of Seial from oppression, but all races, you included. Her fight is just, and she needs your help. And if she wins, if we all win, then there will be a place for you in the lush lands of Seial, where you can live in peace and never have to worry about war again!”
I got a few cheers at that… but not as many as I’d hoped. When I looked into the crowd, what I saw instead was the exhaustion of having fought their whole lives and me only offering them yet another fight.
People were closing in, nearing the stage. I had one last chance to sway these folks.
“The dwarves, our liberators and masters are on side with Izzy, this new queen.” That was mostly a lie. A few dwarves were, but most didn’t seem interested in fighting. Still, many here respected the dwarves, saw them as liberators of our kind, helping us in our ages-old fight against the fire giants.
“Fight with them, but more importantly… fightbesidethem as equals. For if we win this fight, we will have no more masters. We will be truly free! Fight with me. Fight with this new queen who seeks equality for all. Fight withall the races striving for freedom, and we’ll have a chance to claim that freedom once and for all!”
Yup, time to go, several generals and their toadies were about to take me into custody.
I nodded to the dragon who’d escorted me here and he grabbed me and shifted back to Seial.
My job was done. I’d sown the seeds of dissent, of freedom. By this time tomorrow one of two things would happen. Enough of the army would mutiny and overthrow the current generals… or all thoughts of freedom would be quashed.
Honestly, I wasn’t hopeful. I figured we had a fifty-fifty chance.
“Go back?” the dragon asked, not one for many words.
I nodded and gave different coordinates for my return. I’d stay the night in Urval and sneak into the military camp tomorrow to see which way things had swayed. Until then… I was overdue to visit my mother.
A trip I was both looking forward to… and dreading.
The dragon returned me to Urval in a dark alley, deep in the warrens of Baelzerus. They left once again, agreeing to meet me back here tomorrow, and I slipped away through the shadows to the small house I’d grown up in.
As soon as I entered, I was assaulted with sights, sounds, and smells from my childhood. The scent hit me first, even before I’d opened the door, eleg stew with my mother’s signature mix of herbs wafted out to greet me. Nothing said home like eleg stew. Elegs were a small deer-like beast here in Urval. Their meat was tough and stringy, but when boiled with the right herbs it became as tender as a lover’s kiss.
And even as I took in the familiar front room of the house, the sound of my mother humming also took me back to my early years. She always hummed, well, she had beforemy father had passed. It had taken many years for the pain of that loss to dissipate enough for her to hum again. The sound drew my gaze to the left, the kitchen, where my mother swayed gently to the tune she hummed, stirring the pot on the stove. When she saw me, she smiled wide.
“Amar!” She was the only one who called me that. Another callback to my childhood. “You’re home. It’s so good to see you!”
As she bustled out to greet me, I took in the view. Nothing had changed. The front room remained a picture from days past. The kitchen to the left, then a small dining area, then a small sitting area to the right. Three doors in the far wall led to a bathroom and two small bedrooms. It wasn’t much, but it was home.
Then she wrapped me in a warm hug and my tensions eased. Only a mother’s embrace could release so much stress from me. I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed her right back.
“Hello, Mother.”
“You’re just in time for lunch! Come, sit, tell me everything, where you’ve been, what you’ve been… doing…” Her words trailed off as she stood back to look at me. She saw something in my eyes that stilled her tongue.
“Oh… my,” she whispered.
Might as well get this over with. “I… I’m in love,” I breathed.
My mother’s lips went tight, tears coming to her eyes. “Oh, Amar, no… I’m so sorry! This is terrible.”
There it was. For many races, finding one’s true love was a reason to celebrate, but among concubi… not so much.
“Come sit,” she said, ushering me to the table and helping me sit as if I were an invalid. “Tell me everything. Perhaps it’s not too late to break it off.”
I sighed as I sat, and she took a chair next to me, facing me, my hands in hers, her dark eyes filled with compassion and regret.
