Page 22 of Storm to Victory
“I don’t mind sharing.” Fieran balanced the plate on his knee so that she could easily reach it.
“Well, you know, you and Merrik could share, and I could have a plate to myself.” Pip already missed the warmth of Fieran’s arm around her shoulders.
Fieran and Merrik shared a look, then both of them shook their heads emphatically, almost in sync. “No.”
“Fine. I’ll share with Fieran. If I have to.” She laughed and inspected the items piled on the plate. Merrik had picked out a good variety of items.
For this event, the elves seemed to be going all out in providing a taste of elven culture for their human allies, from the traditional elven entertainment to a selection of traditional elven desserts to the elven juices to drink. Many of the desserts involved things like berries, molasses, or honey that was sourced from Tarenhiel’s forests and woodland meadows. Since elvesused fires for cooking as little as possible, most of the treats featured pastries that only took minimal baking. Some, like the molasses twists, didn’t need baking at all.
Pip blinked, her throat unexpectedly tightening. This was a taste of home. Of the western rail terminal at the edge of Tarenhiel where she’d grown up. How she missed it. Missed her parents, even though she’d seen them only a handful of weeks ago.
Next to her, Mak shifted before he nudged her gently. When she looked up at him, his eyes were searching. As if he could read the sudden surge of homesickness twisting her chest.
She forced a smile and mouthedI’m fine.
And she was. She might be homesick, but she also didn’t want to be anywhere else.
Within a few minutes, the elven flutes finished with a flourish. The elven announcer stepped onto the stage and proclaimed the next ballad that would be performed.
Fieran stiffened, his hand pausing partway to his mouth with one of the desserts. On his other side, Merrik’s face washed even more pale.
The title of the ballad finally registered, and Pip gasped. “Why would they perform that one, of all stories? That hardly seems fitting as an entertainment for a morale boost.”
“What? What’s the ballad about?” Lije leaned around Merrik to better face them.
Rothilion’s expression had tightened. “It is a history that chronicles all the past warriors of the magic of the ancient kings. It tells of their great victories…and their deaths in battle.”
“Oh.Oh.” Lije’s eyes rounded.
Stickyfingers choked on his dessert and coughed. “Anothertragic ending? Multiple tragic endings? What is with elven stories?”
“Pip’s right. It does seem like an odd choice for a morale boost.” Lije eyed Fieran.
Rothilion sighed and shook his head. “We elves do not see it that way. This ballad is a stirring story of the warriors of old who made great sacrifices and won even greater victories. It is meant to encourage those watching to a similar sacrifice. But I agree that the choice is…regrettable, given the audience.”
On the stage, the dancers were whirling with blue ribbons like magic flowing around them as they portrayed the many warriors who lived before the fall of the elven empire. Within moments, all of them fell but one as they all died in the final battle that ended an empire.
Fieran stared, but he didn’t seem to be seeing the stage. “No warrior of the magic of the ancient kings has died of old age in millennia. Oddly enough, my dachasheni’s disease likely prolonged his life, since it kept him from battle, even if it killed him in the end. Even my dacha won’t have a long life by elven standards because of his elishina with my mama, even if he lives to old age.”
If.That little word, the one that acknowledged the frailty of life, hurt like a bullet wound in her chest. Warriors of the magic of the ancient kings seemed destined to die in battle.
Pip reached for his hand and squeezed his fingers. Stirring those watching to honor and sacrifice might be the purpose of this ballad, but for Fieran, it would be a reminder that his dacha could be killed.
On the other side of Fieran, Merrik’s face had gone as gray and bleak as Fieran’s had. He would be thinking of Adry. Of how she, too, had inherited the seemingly doomed destiny that the ballad before them was celebrating.
As had Fieran.
Pip swallowed, that ache clawing up her throat. She’d already come perilously close to losing him once already. Would he suffer the same end that so many of his ancestors had endured?
On the stage, the lone warrior of the magic of the ancient kings performed feats of acrobatics as the blue ribbons whirled around him in a storm. The ballad spoken by the narrator told of great victories, although Pip noticed a few changes from the last time she’d heard this ballad performed. This version was much more delicate in the way it handled the wars with the trolls, likely to avoid offending any trolls in the audience now that the two peoples had spent the past seventy years repairing their kinship.
“There is one crucial difference now compared to then.” Merrik gave a small wave toward the stage, where the dancer pretending to be the previous warrior of the magic of the ancient kings died after rending the Gulmorth Gorge to split Tarenhiel and Kostaria. When the others looked at Merrik, he tilted his head. “For many centuries, there has only ever been one warrior of the magic of the ancient kings at a time. Now there are five.”
“And they do not fight alone.” Rothilion turned to face Fieran, tipping his head in a nod that was almost a salute. “The whole of the Alliance is behind you.”
Pip held tight to Fieran’s hand, the sweets she’d eaten churning in her stomach.
Would Fieran, his sister, and his dacha survive the war? Or could victory only be achieved through a sacrificial death?
