Page 37 of Morel Dilemma

The queen shifted her weight on the boulder and gazed toward her guards. They remained a respectable distance away. After a thoughtful moment, her focus returned to Rylana.

“It is not our way to discuss our internal politics and… situations… with outsiders, but Layothlee hasn’t succeeded in locating Sylinesla. You are the only link to the one I believe is she.”

Rylana thought about mentioning that Sylin was more linked to the coffee shop but only twitched her fingers to invite the queen to continue. Jildarin might not be curious, but she was.

“When next you see her,” Fareesa said, “I would appreciate it if you told her that I would like to speak with her, even if only for a short time. I will have Captain Tassani ensure that she is not attacked if she deigns to meet with me. Now that I’ve arrived and learned about the situation, I’m attempting to get the local warrior elves to leave her be. Captain Tassani and some others have agreed—he, in particular, didn’t quite believe the line handed down from some of the elders here that Sylinesla represented a threat to me—but others… Let’s say merely that they agreed with their mouths but not their eyes. They are loyal to the leaders of the Shaldona line.”

Rylana made the continue gesture again, not sure where this was going.

“The Shaldona elves also have royal blood,” Jildarin told her, “and believe they are more suitable rulers for their people. One of their generals was an important leader during the war.”

“As he’ll tell everyone who will listen,” Fareesa said. “It’s his sister who would inherit the rule of our people, were I to pass without an heir. Now that I’m beyond my childbearing years, and the only babe I bore disappeared decades ago and has been believed to be dead all this time…” Fareesa extended her hand toward Rylana.

“Wait.” Rylana rocked back. “Are you saying Sylin is your daughter?”

“I have to meet her personally to be absolutely certain, but I believe so.”

“And, if so, she’s a princess?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t believe she’s teased me for years about coming from a wealthy family and being spoiled.”

Fareesa smiled faintly.

“She made fun of our castle’s gargoyles. She called them pompous. I never could tease her back, at least not about being spoiled, because she said she grew up in the forest, raised by wolves. Is that… a true story?” Rylana hadn’t doubted that Sylin had been orphaned, but she’d never been certain all the details of her childhood had been factual. “And, if so, how did she end up alone in the woods?”

“Arisla, the Shaldona sister that I mentioned, was more ambitious than most of her kin, even back then. She had been assuming, when I was slow to produce a child, that she would eventually rule the throne. When I had a babe, she was… displeased. And began scheming. And finally acted, intending to ensure that my daughter would not be around to rule after I died. She was content to wait for me to pass of natural causes, but she intended, after that, to return rule of the kingdom to her family. Starting with her.

“She had one of her loyal troops give me a drug that incapacitated me for some hours, and he had orders to slip in and kill Sylinesla while she was too young to fight back. That night, my daughter’s life would have ended, but my loyal maid stole Sylinesla from her room and took her… Well, that has long been a mystery. My people were able to determine that they’d left our great elven capital and traveled into the mountains, but, at some point, the maid was killed by bandits. Her body was eventually found. There was no sign of Sylinesla. My people searched for her for many days, and I also went out to look, but we ultimately deemed it likely that she’d died in the elements. She was only five years old at the time. But her body was also never found, and I hoped… It was a long time before I gave up hope that she’d survived.”

“That’s incredible.” Rylana was more stunned that Sylin was the elf queen’s daughter than that she’d survived in the woods as a kid. Her comrade was scrappy and tough and had magic about her, magic that might have helped her befriend that wolf pack.

“During the Ore War, we were aware of the elven assassin who often killed our people,” Fareesa continued with a frown, looking at Jildarin again, “but nobody knew her name, and the way she struck… she never revealed her face to any of our kind, perhaps not even to those she slew.”

“Huh.” Rylana debated whether Sylin’s name had been known outside of the unit. Maybe not. She hadn’t been an officer who’d gone with Rylana and Captain Maverick to the meetings with the leaders of the joint kingdoms. Mav had rarely even spoken of the fact that he had an assassin, instead keeping Sylin as a secret weapon.

“It wasn’t until she appeared here in Tranquility that two of our people, who happened to be near the docks when you arrived, spotted her. Since there is a strong resemblance—” Fareesa waved to her own face, “—and since magic can hint of bloodlines, they immediately believed they’d found the long-lost princess of the elven kingdom. One of those elves is faithful to my family, but the other is a Shaldona loyalist.”

“So, all this time, the elves who’ve been after Sylin haven’t been worried that she would assassinate you? They’ve just been after her because she’s your daughter and they preferred it when she was presumed dead?”

“Greatly preferred it, yes. After so many years, everyone had given up on the idea that Sylinesla might yet live, and the Shaldonas have been making plans for their rule. As I said, I always had the feeling that Arisla and her kin were willing to wait until I passed—since elves are long-lived, we are usually a patient people—but there was a poisoning attempt last year that it’s possible they were behind. They may have grown tired of waiting. And Sylinesla’s reappearance… Well, that is a further complication for them.”

“More than a complication, yes?” Jildarin asked. “She would rule after you.”

“You should have been making Sylin fancy mushroom dishes,” Rylana told him.

“I did invite her to taste one of my preparatory meals with you and the dwarf baker,” he said.

“Yeah, but only because you wanted an elven palate to experiment on, not because of your reverence for her royalness.”

“Experiment? Really. You were simply asked to rate dishes. You weren’t pinned down on a laboratory table while a scientist used gnomish contraptions to monitor your physiological responses.” Judging by Jildarin’s thoughtful gaze, he might like the idea of doing that.

Fareesa watched their exchange but not with any hint of humor. She didn’t appear impatient or irritated but as though her focus was on another matter. Understandable.

“Is Sylin really a threat to their plans?” Rylana asked. “Since she doesn’t even like elv— er. Since she’s been an enemy of your people, and killed elves in the war, she wouldn’t be accepted as a ruler, even if she had the right bloodline, right? She couldn’t be.”

Fareesa smiled faintly. “There are many who would object to her for those reasons. There are others who would respect her as a warrior, much the way dragons do of their worthy enemies, and they would believe her particularly capable if she truly did grow up on her own in the forest. Not just the forest. My maid’s body was discovered deep in the Skyfang Mountains where dangerous predators abound. In that area, even trained elven warriors rarely venture alone.”