Bloodfire Quest (The Dark Legacy of Shannara, #2)(51)

The Ard Rhys and Redden Ohmsford were still inside the Forbidding. Oriantha was still there, as well, hunting for them.

Farshaun Req and the Rover Austrum had returned to Bakrabru.

All the others were dead and gone.

She kept coming back to it. How many had there been? How many were lost? She tried counting the Trolls of the Druid Guard and could not seem to remember how many had gone with the Ard Rhys. She had never been told the number of Rovers. Then there was the Speakman, three Druids—four, counting Bombax—along with those Trolls who had died at Paranor …

She trailed off abruptly, awash in anger and dismay. What was this getting her? Thinking of the dead did nothing to help the living. Thinking of the dead was self-indulgent and pointless.

She rose, threw on her robe, then slipped from the bedroom. Once downstairs, she disdained tea for a glass of ale and carried it outside onto the porch where she sat with it and looked out on the new day. It was early still, and the cottages nearest hers were quiet. One or two Elves passed by on the roadway, but none of them turned to look or tried to speak to her. She was a ghost, she thought. She was a wraith come out of the night, and perhaps they thought she should go back into it again. Perhaps they wished her gone forever. Or perhaps they no longer even knew who she was.

Perhaps she didn’t know, either.

She finished the glass of ale and sat there, thinking through what she must do next. It was clear enough. She would go with Arling to see their grandfather and Uncle Ellich and tell them what was happening to the Forbidding. She would warn them, and together they would try to find a way to prevent the inevitable from coming to pass. She would have done so immediately on her return, but Arling had insisted that she sleep first, that she rest and then clean herself up before going to the King. How she presented herself would count for something with the old man. Going as she was might give him a heart attack.

So she had reluctantly agreed, seeing the wisdom in her sister’s suggestion, noting as she did that there was something changed about Arling, something fundamental and compelling.

Arling seemed calmer, more assured than when she had left.

She seemed more grown up.

Seersha appeared suddenly, hair wild and tousled, her face a scarred and bruised mask surrounding the black patch that covered her right eye. Her crooked smile was grim and somehow reassuring.

“I slept well,” she offered quietly, sitting next to Aphen. She was carrying her own glass of ale and a fresh one for her friend. “You?”

“Well enough. But now I’m awake and thinking about everything.”

“Welcome to the new day.” Seersha handed her the second glass of ale and toasted her. “At least we have a chance to make something useful of it, which is good.”

Aphenglow brushed back her hair, which had grown long enough by now that it was as flyaway as Seersha’s. “There’s that. I wish I had a better plan for it.”

The Dwarf shrugged. “At least we know what needs doing. That’s a reasonable start.”

Aphenglow wasn’t sure that either statement was true, but she nodded agreeably. “It’s the number of things that need doing that troubles me. There are so many of them and so few of us. How do we make up for that?”

They were quiet for a time, thinking of their dead friends and pondering the fate of Khyber Elessedil. The entire Druid Fourth Order, save the two of them, was gone. Destroyed. Paranor might still be theirs, but it had become an empty shell.

“Good morning.”

Mirai Leah came through the door and sat down beside them. She looked as beat up as they did, but her smile was bright and welcoming. She was washed and dressed and looked ready for the day. She carried tea rather than ale and sipped at it gingerly.

“You look rested,” Seersha observed. “Falling off airships must agree with you.”

“Escaping impossibly dangerous situations agrees with me,” the Highland girl replied. “But I am already thinking about going back to look for Redden and the others, so maybe the fall damaged me after all.”

The Dwarf nodded. “I’m thinking about it, too. Perhaps we suffer from the same affliction.”

Aphenglow said nothing, sipping at the cold ale. She wasn’t considering going into the Forbidding because that wasn’t where she needed to go. Not if she was to help Arling, and by now she had pretty much resigned herself to focusing entirely on that goal. Not just because it was Arling, although that was reason enough, but also because if the Forbidding were to be sealed and the Four Lands made safe, then helping her sister resolve the dilemma of how to renew the Ellcrys had assumed paramount importance.

“I might try some of that tea,” she said.

She rose and went back inside, found the kettle of brewed tea, and poured herself a cup. She inhaled the hot fumes, the steam filling her breathing passages and clearing her head. Better than the ale, she thought.

When she went back outside, she found Arlingfant waiting.

Her sister looked pleased. “I went to Uncle Ellich and asked him to arrange for us to speak privately with Grandfather. An audience has been set for midday. Uncle Ellich will meet us outside the palace when it is time.”

Aphen was caught off guard. Arling had already done what she had intended to do. When had Arling last shown initiative of that sort?

Arling seemed to sense that she might have overstepped herself. “I just thought it would help. You needed to rest, and I didn’t want Grandfather to think we were ignoring him.”