Page 39 of Snowspelled
Lord Ihlmere swept one hand through the air in a furiously cutting gesture. “Cannot you see how we’ve been weakened? Human corruption and influence unboundedand—”
“Lord Ihlmere!” White light flared out from around the king’s skin as he took another gliding step forward. The rest of the elves moved with him in perfect, sinuous synchronicity. “We await your answer. Did you betray yourkingdom?”
“There is no betrayal in protecting it from enemies!” said Lord Ihlmere. “I sought only to bring us back to greatness!To—”
“The answer,” said the elven king in a clarion voice, “has beengiven.”
A sigh rippled through the elves behind him. Then the gathered elves glided outward until they formed a perfect circle around Lord Ihlmere, who stood like a trapped wolf, searching forescape.
The trolls closed in around them with earth-shaking steps, their great heads tilted and stony gazes fixed on the elf-lord who had betrayedthem.
I didn’t dare release the breath that I held in mychest.
“Lord Ihlmere,” said the king, “by our most ancient laws and rites, you are banished. You are lost to your brethren and to your land. The soil will not shelter you. The air will not sing to you. You are broken, root and branch, from ourtree.”
“You—she—!”
With a sudden surge, Lord Ihlmere broke through the elven circle. His beautiful face contorted in rage. He threw up one ice-white hand and pointed it straight atme.
Wrexham threw himself between us, his own arms rising and his lean form beautiful and deadly: my fiancé, determined to save me this time afterall.
But this time, he wasn’talone.
Every magician in the group lunged into place behind him without an instant’s hesitation...even scarlet-coated Mr. Sansom, the obnoxious young Luton, and young Miss Banks with her chin held high, hectic color in her cheeks, and her slim arms thrown up into exactly the right position. She’d been reading the books that I’d found for her, this pastweek.
Even together, the whole group wouldn’t be enough to stop him. But a warmth that had nothing to do with magic filled my chest as I looked at the protective wall they’d formed in front ofme:
My oldclassmates.
Mypeers.
My fellows inmagery.
And my very firststudent.
I might have lost my magic, but I hadn’t lost my place in their world afterall.
Then the closest troll—a troll I thought I recognized from my first day here—turned and lifted one foot high behind LordIhlmere.
A beam of white light flashed out from the elf’shands...
...And that massive foot stepped down on him with a bone-splittingCRUNCH.
I swallowed down bile as the white light vanished, quenched at the same moment as itsowner.
A sigh rippled through the company of elves. I heard retching noises from a few of the humans aroundme.
The elven king looked on calmly as the troll stepped back, leaving a crumpled white pile before him on the snowyground.
“Rest in peace, my old enemy,” the king said in ancientDensk.
Then he looked up with a cool, diplomaticsmile.
“Well,” he said to Lady Cosgrave in perfect Anglish. “Shall we begin ourceremony?”
15
The restof the ceremony passed without incident. As the clouds above us gradually parted and the snowfall outside our bubble slowed from a thick flurry to a mist, the representatives of the Boudiccate and the elven court traded and received their traditional greetings and reassurances in the sing-song tones of ancientritual.
