Elfborn: The Quest

Vestican Approach

"You're not winning any friends with that sort of talk, Brice," Heather pointed out tightly as Brice's words made several of the knights look at him with dark expressions despite the discipline needed to stay in formation.

"And we want to make friends with these people?" Brice shrugged, as if answering his own flat question. It now appeared he was regretting his hasty decision to leave their small Elfborn company to side with Eje. That, or he was just being caustic again, something more and more familiar in his recent behavior and manner.

"Just making an observation, that's all, Heather. Besides, out of all of these people, I would think that you would appreciate my comments more than most, being a heathen Ekossan and everything."

"That's right, smart boy," Heather snapped flatly as Brice's comment drew several more dark looks from the Raphaelites that surrounded them. "Just announce it to the world! And make it that much harder for me to get by in this place."

Again Brice's only answer was a shrug. That, and a bitter smirk that touched his thin lips as he looked away to stare at the walls of the approaching Vestican.

"Now I know why he irritated Jase so badly," Heather hissed and Kira smiled wryly, looking up as the young Ekossan woman sagged onto the bench beside her. "At first he was just quiet, him and Ollie always talking. But now ... ever since we passed through those storms on the Meridian he's been ..."

"Different?" Kira softly finished for her comrade and Heather bobbed a quick nod.

"Aye. Almost as if he's two different people." She glanced over at the slender young man, now the only male survivor of their tiny company with Jase lost during the assassins' attack. "I just hope it's temporary."

It was Kira's turn to shrug, albeit mentally. Temporary or not, they wouldn't be able to do anything about it. By Panoni's own words, they were going to be spending a great deal of time together and in the company of the Jebusin Invigilators as they tried to learn exactly what the Elfborn were. 'As if that'll help,' she mused darkly, once again staring at the carriage floor, her mind whirling wildly. 'We ourselves don't even know what we're supposed to be doing with the rest of our lives. We had hoped that the library in the Vestican would yield some answers, but if we're going to be under constant guard, I can't see how that's going to be possible.'

Kira grimaced abruptly, barely resisting the impulse to first sigh then rub her suddenly aching face with her hands. Growing up alone on a big western Luthon farm taught her a great many things and her treatment at the hands of the Dark Companions had forced her to shed her shy, soft-spoken ways as she attempted to both understand and deal with her rapidly changing situation. She had always been a woman of action.

However, things were now changing too fast for her to deal with. First, the loss of who was likely the most powerful Elfborn of them all, Lash, dead at the hands of Mordekai. And, right on the heels of that came Garrett's escape. Kira had no doubt that the young Ekossan had died from exposure in the cold waters of the Hybernus Straits.

The escape from Nor Avilon and its triumph quickly turned to ash when the enemy struck once again, this time stealing Max, Naneen and Ollie from them. And while Kira had learned through the dream walking that they still lived, it was a great blow as their small company was once again reduced in size.

Briefly she had entertained the idea that, once they had resumed their trek to Romis, the remaining members of the company would draw even closer together, growing confident in their dependence on one another. But such bonding never materialized as Gillian grew aloof, thinking herself superior to the rest of them. Jase grew bitter, wounded in his soul from the loss of Max, who he had come to know as a good friend, and Brice had become sarcastic and hurtful. Something within the young man from Kolston now twisted him into this bitter creature that sat in the front of the carriage, distant and withdrawn once he stopped speaking.