Page 1 of The Elven Spymaster's Thief

Chapter One

Avril

My master, the Warlord Grimore, was crazed. I surveyed the home of my target with a sinking stomach. Spymaster Whispier was notorious for knowing everything. Nothing remained safe from him and his minions. He commanded the largest host of shadow elves in all of the Eldarlan. Nothing was above or beneath his notice—well, except me. And I wanted to keep it that way. Being known by this elf was dangerous.

For most of my life, ever since my brother was trapped into the mastermind’s service, I had been avoiding the elf’s notice. I had kept myself beneath his notice for years by not speaking of things that he might wish to know, not moving in circles close to him, and avoiding any mission that had any possibility of brushing his purview. It proved a solid approach to keeping distance between us, until now.

Sadly, my will wasn’t completely my own, and my master wanted something of Whispier’s, something located close to his person. It was an item he kept with him at all times. As I regarded the sprawling palace before me, I struggled to calm the nerves twisting my gut. This was the point of no return. After this, the most powerful elf in the northern elven realm would know my work and have a reason to track me down.

Enough ruminating—I shook myself from my worries. This was not time for distraction. The glow of the magical lights floating about the expansive gardens surrounding the palace intensified in brightness as the last blaze of sunset faded from the western sky. It was time to move.

Pulling my magic hood, a recent gift from a grateful brownie, over my face, I blinked in the sudden darkness.

“Stealth,” I whispered.

My vision cleared as the spell quickly adjusted to the darkness. I glanced around, adapting to the vision change. Darkness brightened, and shadows revealed all their secrets. Among the plants, a shadow elf leaped from shadow to shade, blinking in and out of existence as he jumped from dark spot to dark spot on his journey around the palace.

I shivered. Being caught by a wraithwalking elf was death.

Finally, the sun was truly gone and the floating lights along the paths began to fade. I watched the palace. Surely that was a sign that the occupants were preparing for sleep. Fewer servants meant fewer chances of being caught.

Two hours later, the wraithwalking elf hadn’t returned. I slipped out of my hiding place and began making my way toward the balcony that my gathered intel indicated led to Whispier’s study. As I approached, I eyed the intricately carved columns framing the edifice and supporting the overhanging stone and metal. Covered with climbing ivy, they appeared deceptively easy to climb. I hesitated.

Edging the vines aside, I found exactly what I feared. Razor wire laced with detection spells draped beneath the camouflage. It would’ve sliced through my boots, cutting the bottoms of my feet to ribbons. I replaced the vines and retreated to the hedge across the path from the balcony.

Pressing my back into the leafy depths of a generous bush, I scanned the face of the building. As confident as I was in the look-away charm on my cloak, I didn’t have faith enough to rely on it alone to keep alert eyes from seeing me. Besides, I hadn’t tested it on elves yet. Until this very mission, I had never even ventured into the kingdom of Eldralan.

Elegantly arched windows of flawless glass reflected the dim glow of the floating lights, creating opaque surfaces and hiding the rooms beyond. The glittery sheen flickered subtly across some of the panes but not others.

The door beneath the balcony wasn’t spelled. Strange, but it wasn’t prohibitively so. I suspected it was at least locked. Also, elves were notorious for their overconfidence in their mystique. I didn’t wish to test that reputation. But one must do what one must.

I adjusted the hood's fit around my head and checked that my cloak still covered both of my shoulders as the brownie indicated it should for full protection. Rising from the depths of the bush, I slipped across the stone pavers to the door.

The lock, though sophisticated, was just that, a lock. No magic, no alarms, so nothing I couldn’t handle. Edging the door open a crack, I scoped out a potential hiding spot behind a great fern just inside the entrance and to the left. Slipping through, I eased the door closed while scanning the room, and then silently moved behind the covering foliage.

I peered through the feathery leaves of my hiding place in disgust. Plants, flowers, and vines crowded the walls. To top it all off, there was an entire tree planted in the center of the room. It wasn’t a small tree either. The branches completely obscured the ceiling, and to make it even odder, the fruit glowed.

Hushed footfalls of someone approaching snapped my attention to the open doorway across the room.

“Do you require anything else this evening, Master Whispier?” A tall elf, slender even for his species, dressed in a long tunic and leather leggings of medium gray, bowed to someone out of sight. I could just make out his profile and clothing through the opening into the main house.

“Send Casimir to me when he returns from his rounds. Then I shall retire for the evening,” a male voice replied from somewhere to the right of the door. “That is all.”

“Very well.” The elf in gray bowed before moving almost soundlessly off to the left.

Inwardly groaning at the prospect of waiting even longer for the household to settle in for the night, I listened. Master Whispier ascended the stairs to the second floor and then entered the room above me, the very room I needed to search first.

Scanning the room for a better hiding place, I found one behind a rather large berry bush to the right of the open door. Crouching there, I listened for movement above me.

For a supposedly light-footed elf, Master Whispier made quite a bit of noise. Time passed. Then, the movement of a wraithwalker passed through the glass wall behind me. One moment he was a whispy, dark form beneath the balcony and just visible through the unspelled windows. The next, he stood beneath the tree in the center of the room. Only the sudden cropping up of goosebumps on my flesh warned me.

I swallowed a gasp of surprise and froze. My heartbeat thundered so loudly in my ears I swore he must’ve heard it. Did elves have superior hearing as well as all their other blessed attributes? For a brief moment, I feared they did.

The shadow elf, an inky outline against the glow of the lights in the garden, hesitated. Tilting his opaque head, his black profile outlined against the fogged glass, he appeared to listen. My traitorous heartbeat grew louder and more frantic. I held my breath in an effort to slow it.

Then, as suddenly as he appeared, he was gone. The swift movement and soft whump of displaced air passed next to me, tickling the exposed skin between my sleeve and the glove of my left hand. The tingling traces of elf magic flickered against my cheek.

“Casimir,” Master Whispier said above my head. “Report.”

---