Page 20 of The Pastel Prince

He gurgled and sluggishly took to wing. Hands trembling, I gently unrolled the paper that Nin had carried. Beirach and Tezen gathered at my sides, one sitting on my left shoulder, the other with his hand on my right. The forest was alive all around us once more, yet I felt hollow inside as I read the reply.

We cannot allow this plague to leave the Verboten. Clerics will be dispatched in a tenday to cleanse the woods of this illness.

“Do they not understand that this is not a sickness but a dark mage running amok?” Beirach asked, his tone thick with anger, his fingers biting into my collarbone.

“They know that to be the case. I told them it was necrotic magicks in my last missive.” I let the paper fall from my fingers. Tezen caught it before it hit the ground.

“They know and they don’t care,” she snapped, reading over the cold reply after coming to rest on my shoulder.

“I’m sure that is not the case. They are elves, just as you and I are, Kenton,” Beirach weakly argued.

“No, they are not like us,” I reminded the archdruid. “I’m a wood elf.”

He sighed. “And I am only half elf.”

“Well, fuck this shit. We have tendays to find this asshole dark mage and kick his nuts up between his ears!” Tezen barked.

I looked up and over at Beirach. He seemed to be fixated on something deep in the woods. Methril and Atriel pushed through the dense undergrowth, reins dragging, looking as calm as a summer day. The horses stopped before us. Nin flittered down from the sky with a soft whoosh of strong wings, to reston the pommel of the brown gelding’s saddle. I stared at the animals, opened myself up to their emotions, and felt their resolve.

“A tenday,” I whispered, looking to Tezen on my shoulder before turning my gaze to Beirach at my side. Tall, strong, and handsome. “We haven’t much time then. My village is a half day ride from here. We should go now.”

“Are you able to ride? You expended a great deal of energy. Your skin is more subdued than usual,” Beirach commented, his worry evident.

“My skin has been subdued for years. A shade paler brooks no major worry. I will ride. Imustride.”

His eyes grew a dark blue as he studied me. Then he bent low to place a kiss to my cheek. The feel of his lips on my skin sent fingerlings of a hundred differing emotions racing through me.

“Then we shall ride,” he whispered before drawing back to gently push a braid from my face. “Great things have been accomplished in a tenday. We will find this malevolent being and we shall restore all the lost villages to rights.”

It seemed a mighty task for a threesome, but if Danubia could mold the elves from the rich mulch of the woods in one day, surely, we could save those same elves in ten.

With her blessings, of course. And so we rode hard, fording bubbling streams, slipping through dense woods that opened for us, for the trees knew the import of our journey.

I FELT THE LOSS BEFORE WE EVEN ENTEREDthe village or witnessed the first petrified chipmunk lying at the base of a tree.

The stillness. No playful shouts from children, no clang of hammer on steel at Brother Pirton’s forge, and no songs as men and women gathered water for the evening meals. The quiet brought tears to my eyes as we rode closer.

“We should tether the horses back several hundred steps,” I announced upon seeing that stone chipmunk. “The village is through that thicket of red maples. We should…we should hear them. The outlooks should have spotted us by now and had their arrows nocked. They should have called out a warning.”

Once the horses were tied to shady trees with Nin sleeping on a branch above their heads, we set off, my fingers skimming over the bark of every tree we passed, the hum of insects on the warm winds loud in the ominous quiet. I led the way, taking small steps as if slowing our progress would change the outcome.

The camp was deathly void of life other than a cluster of yellow butterflies engaged in a mating dance above a plot of rich red beets, their tops green and lush above the dirt. Bile roiled in my gut as I looked about. I spied a trio of young girls hiding behind a washtub filled with water, skin looking like granite that covered it.

“Mighty goddess, why have you let this happen?” I choked out as we moved into the village center. Each home we passed was eerily still. Each face locked into rictus. Adults shouting, children crying, dogs cowering, cats with backs arched. Pigs and goats frozen in their pens, chickens lying on their sides, eyes open and legs stiff. Sparrows laid on the ground where they had fallen from the trees. A fat squirrel clung to thick bark, its tail curled over its back, eyes round with fear.

“The temple,” Beirach hoarsely whispered, pointing past Tezen, who was slightly ahead of us, her wings blending in with the sound of the bees in the hives. Sister Telstra was the beekeeper. An old elf with a tongue that stung just as her prized honeybees. She was kneeling beside the hives, her mouth open and filled with bees resting on her stony tongue. I looked away, but no matter where I cast my gaze, I saw the faces of those I had known in my childhood. The domed shrine was in ruins. Part of the ceiling had caved in. The pillars were marked with scorch marks from spells. The fountain in the center spurted spring water into the air in a miserly fashion, the statue blasted into dust, the rich red gem gone.

My family was not to be seen, but I knew they would spread out across the village unless our people had been felled first, then they would have gathered here to protect the holy gem from whoever had done this.

“That is…my family…” I managed to choke, then dashed into the ruins of the temple, the interior a shambles of broken stone and statuary. My knees felt weakened as I dove at one large slab to move it from my father’s chest. “Father…” I keened as I reached out to touch his gray cheek. Beirach stilled my hand, clasping my wrist. “Letgo!” I yelled, struggling violently, but to no avail. The archdruid was stronger than I was even when I had not just depleted all of my magicks. He tugged me away from my father to my feet, and then steered me to the farside of the temple. I cursed the man richly as my eyes fell to my brothers, all locked in place, swords and lances raised, shields up, as they fought to defend Danubia’s holy place. My mother stood by the shattered statue of my patrilineal beast blasted into bits. Her hands were up, fingers out, eyes narrowed, her lovely face a cold mask of concentration and fear. I kicked and pummeled Beirach in a mad effort to reach her.

“You may not touch them, Kenton. I know it hurts, but we know not how this spell works,” Beirach gently reminded me as he led me past a broken urn. My ankle bumped it, and it rolled to the left, clattering next to a large portion of stone that had fallen from the roof. “There is evidence it may pass through touch, remember?”

I did, but at this moment I cared not.

“I’ve done a preliminary scouting of the perimeter of the village and found no danger,” Tezen announced as she raced into the temple. “Oh sweet Juniper,” she gasped upon seeing my family members. “What kind of devilish fiend would do this?!”

A moan, soft as a kitten, floated out from under the slab. We froze, Beirach and I, and listened to that sound.

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