Chapter 37: The Plea

Fel had never wanted so badly to hide a wound.

He pressed his left hand against his stomach and tried to close the fingers over the ring, but the light came through them anyway, pale and cold and faintly pulsing, and the blood kept running. It dripped from his wrist onto the polished root of the seat with a small, hissing patter. A thread of smoke curled up. In the silence of the Hall, every drop sounded like a bell.

Veyra was beside him before he could stop her. She had taken a roll of grey, silver-threaded gauze from her belt pouch and was winding it around his palm with quick, steady fingers, and her face, bent over his hand, had gone as blank and smooth as a stone.

“Hold still.”

“It doesn’t hurt.”

“I did not ask whether it hurt.” She tied the knot and sat back on her heels. The gauze darkened. It did not stop the glow. Light leaked through the weave like a lantern behind paper. “Keep it closed. Keep it covered. Do not let it touch the ground.”

“Why?”

She looked at the black pit in the stone where three drops had landed. It was still smoking.

“That is why.”

Seluine had returned to her seat. She sat very straight, with her long fingers folded in her lap and her golden-green eyes fixed on Fel’s bandaged hand, and the four other elders had sunk back into theirs like stones settling into mud. Nobody had spoken for some time. The fire in the bowl popped. Somewhere far below the Hall, a wind chime rang once.

“I will ask you again,” said Seluine, at last. “What did you do to your hand?”

“Nothing.”

“Felanor.”

“I swear. I didn’t do anything.” The words tumbled out of him now, the way water comes through a dam. “I had a scar. A round one. I got it when I was a baby, I think, I don’t remember how. It was always there. And then, a long time ago, in the city where I’m from, a merchant gave me this sword.” He nodded at the golden saber. “It bit me. It was like the blade went right into the scar and split it in two. It left a line, red and black, running straight through the middle. I thought that was the end of it. It was just a mark. It didn’t do anything.”

“And now it is a ring.”

“I don’t know why. It was gone when I woke up in the forest. Almost gone. A little pink line, like it had never been there.” He turned the bandaged hand over helplessly. “I didn’t touch it. I didn’t do anything. I don’t know.”

Seluine considered him for a long time.

“I believe you,” she said. It did not sound like comfort. “That is the difficulty.”

She leaned back. The antlers caught the firelight. “You told us of an empire. Tell us more. Tell us everything, from the beginning, as plainly as you can. We have a hall full of old ones and a long afternoon, and I would like to understand what has come to my door.”

So he told them.

It took the better part of two hours. He began with the Dichotomy, with its six great families and its two ruling dynasties, the Wyrnias and the TeneDentes, and the war between them that had never really ended. He told them about the Ortumocorvis Empire, its holy crows and its demon-eyed emperor, and the day the six titans had fallen and the Seven Nations of Sorrows had been conquered. He told them about the Citadel of Vows, three cities stacked on a hill like the layers of a cake. He told them about magic that was a bargain, spirits that could be compelled, artifacts with tiers and Beliefs and four Forms, and about the Sanctum of Claws, where children were trained as knives and numbered like cattle.

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He did not tell them about Tori. He did not think he could. But he said enough.

They listened without moving. Once, one of the elders, a man with a hooked nose and a crown of black antlers, opened his mouth to speak, and Seluine lifted a single finger, and he closed it again.

When Fel finished, nobody said anything at all.

It was a particular kind of silence. He knew it. He had heard it in the Gallows when a stranger walked into a tavern and began to talk with great confidence about a place nobody had ever heard of. It was the silence of polite, patient, thoroughly baffled people waiting for the story to turn into something they recognized.

“You don’t believe me,” said Fel.

“It is not a question of belief.” Seluine’s voice was gentle. “It is a question of understanding. You have named four kingdoms, three realms, two dynasties, an empire, a school, a war, six titans, and a religion of crows. I have lived two hundred and seventy winters, child. I have read every book in this valley and half the books in the lowlands. I have never heard of any of it.”

“But it’s the largest empire in the world.”

“Perhaps it is,” said the old woman, with immense courtesy, “in your world.”

The hooked-nose elder shifted. A woman with a silver braid whispered something to her neighbor. Somewhere behind Fel, Veyra sat down very slowly on a root, as if her legs had decided for her.

Fel dragged a hand through his hair. He felt, suddenly and horribly, like a boy shouting down a well.

“There was a nation,” he said. “To the west. Sphelorius. The Nation of Sorrows. It was the oldest kingdom in the world. All the magic came from there, and the curses, and…”

“Say that again.”

He stopped. Seluine had straightened in her seat. Her golden-green eyes had sharpened, and for the first time since he had walked into the Hall, she looked not careful but startled.

“Sphelorius,” said Fel. “It’s… it’s a name, I mean, it’s the name of the country, but…”

“It is a name,” said Seluine slowly. “Not of a country. Of a man.”

The silence was different now. It was a held breath.

“There are rumors from the north,” she said. “They come down with the traders. They have been coming for perhaps three years, thin at first, a story told in an inn. A man in the northern marches who has begun to gather followers. A preacher, some say. A general, say others. He speaks of the old blood and the old powers, and of a crown that was stolen. He has raised banners in the Ashen Hills. The king’s soldiers have lost two garrisons to him.” She paused. “The traders say that his people call him by a single name. They say it as if it were a prayer. Sphelorius.”

Fel’s mouth had gone dry.

It’s not possible, he thought. It’s a coincidence. It’s a name. There are a thousand names in the world.

But he remembered what Seluine had said, and he remembered the white sky, and the wrong, close, too-bright feel of the stars. He remembered a nation that had been called the oldest of all.

Oldest.

“I don’t understand,” he said, and his voice cracked. “I don’t understand any of this.”

“No,” said Seluine. “Nor do I.”

He rose. He could not help it. His legs had begun to shake, and the borrowed shirt hung off his shoulders, and the glowing bandage burned in the corner of his eye like a small cold star. He stood in the center of the circle of old ones, in the green light of the Hall, and for the first time since he had walked off the cliff, he did not try to pretend.

“I can’t use my sword,” he said.

They looked at him.

“The black one. The gold one. Either of them. They used to… they did things. They were mine. I could stop time with one. I could…” He broke off, laughing a little, wretchedly. “I tried to use them against a frog. They did nothing. They’re just metal now. I don’t know why. I don’t know what I did, or what I broke, or how I got here. I don’t know where here is. I can’t go home, because I don’t know which way home is. I don’t have anyone. I don’t have anything. I have a ring on my hand that bleeds and two swords that don’t work, and I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know I’m not your problem, I know you saved my life and I should be grateful and I am, but I don’t know what else to do.”

His voice dropped to a whisper.

“Please. I need help.”

The Hall was very still. The fire popped. A single leaf drifted down through the dome and landed on the floor beside his boot.

Then the old woman rose from her seat, and crossed the circle, and stood in front of him, and to his astonishment she put one long, dry hand against his cheek.

“Sit, child,” said Seluine. “You are shaking.”

He sat.

“We will talk again tomorrow.” She looked over his head. “Veyra, take him to Osha. Make sure he eats. Make sure he sleeps. And make sure,” she added, in a drier tone, “that he does not bleed on anything he is fond of.”