Page 20 of Elven Throne

Zida managed to keep her eyes open for longer than a few seconds when she turned her head toward Rebecca’s face again. Her breath no longer rattling, the wheezing gone. Tears shimmered in her beady black eyes, which now, Rebecca noticed with renewed awe, were lit brighter than their previously natural-black state by hundreds of specks of starlight-white that didn’t fade.

“Thank you,” the healer whispered.

Rebecca swallowed and found her voice. “I probably owed you one. Or five.”

Huffing out a laugh, the old woman relaxed fully against the Bloodshadow Elf with one arm still wrapped protectively around her and closed her eyes with a long sigh.

The eerie silence after that seemed to last forever until Bor shattered it with a heavy grunt from above.

Rebecca looked up to meet his gaze, surprised to find the old giveldi looking so deeply pained and concerned. She hadn’t thought anything could make him look at her quite like this. Clearly, she’d been wrong.

His scarred face twisted in apprehension. “Is she…”

“I’m not dead, you old roach, if that’s what you’re asking,” Zida groused, her eyes still closed. “Ishouldbe. Maybe even wanted to be. Butthisone has a knack for screwing up all my hard work.”

A hoarse bark of raspy laughter erupted from Bor before he leaned away from the edge of the crater, settling both hands atop his staff and leaning on it fully for support.

“As the Roth-Da’al commands,” he grumbled, sounding like his old, brusque, curmudgeonly self again.

But the gleam in his eyes told a different story.

Bor was relieved to find Zida still in one piece. If this had been anyone else, Rebecca would have said his emotions stopped there. But on him, it was hard not to see how thrilled he was by the knowledge.

Even if “As the Roth-Da’al commands” was the most praise and gratitude she would get from the old giveldi right now. Maybe ever.

It was enough.

Then Rebecca realized what else it meant. Not just Bor’s gruff appreciation he barely showed now that the worst was over.

It also meantheknew as well, just as much as Zida did.

That only a Bloodshadow Elf with the power of her lineage—a power that hadn’t existed in hundreds of generations, maybe thousands—could pull ashi’ilof the daraku back from the brink the way Rebecca had pulled back the healer.

Even without seeing the proof of it, Zida resting in Rebecca’s arms at the bottom of the crater, he would still have known everything. He’d seen it. All of it.

Zida, Bor, and maybe Earl, if he’d been paying close enough attention, had had a front-row seat to what Rebecca had done. They’d been the only ones close enough to bear witness to her Bloodshadow magic used for so many different things at the end of this battle.

To protect Zida. To redistribute the damage of the healer’s explosive power. To shield all of Shade battling for their own lives.

And to heal both herself and the daraku right here in the aftermath.

Bor might not have reached the edge of the crater in time to watch that healing from start to finish, but he certainly saw the effects of it now.

Of course he recognized what Rebecca was after that. He and Zida had lived full lives, both in Xahar’áhsh and on Earth. Another old-worlder with more than enough knowledge and experience to recognize the legends when they came true in his own reality.

Even if he didn’t understand exactly what Rebecca was the way Zida did, he knew plenty now. More than enough to understand that Rebecca Knox was far more than who and what she’d claimed since first joining Shade.

That knowledge in the wrong hands was disastrous. Even in the right hands, it was remarkably dangerous for Rebecca and everyone else involved.

Bor didn’t seem to hold any of it against her now, though. Maybe he wouldn’t, after seeing Zida had survived.

It left one more potential loose end for Rebecca. One more possible threat to her own survival, left in another pair of hands that weren’t her own.

Right now, she couldn’t worry about what Bor might or might not do with this new knowledge. She’d saved the healer’s life. She’d saved all their lives.

Nothing else mattered.

For now, at least.

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