Ten years later.
“Kyren.” Something struck his shoulder.
He rolled away.
“Kyren.” Another shove.
“He’s dead,” Arkin announced.
“Good,” Kyren mumbled into the bedding.
Arkin paused.
“Dead things don’t answer.” “Talented corpse.” Neida climbed onto the bed.
“Move.” Kyren opened one eye.
“No.” “Then suffer.” Her fingers reached behind his pointed ears.
Kyren’s eyes opened fully.
“Don’t.” Neida smiled.
“Don’t what?” “Neida.” Her fingers touched the sensitive skin behind his ear.
Kyren shot upright.
“STOP!” Arkin collapsed against the wall laughing.
Darcell stood in the doorway with her lute held against her chest, watching with the tired resignation of someone who had witnessed the same stupidity too many times.
Kyren shoved black hair from his face.
The long strands fell past his jaw, their ends fading into blue.
“I hate everyone in this room.” Neida smiled.
“Morning.” “Especially you.” “Breakfast,” Darcell said.
“Not hungry.” “Eria said breakfast.” Kyren froze.
Arkin grinned.
“Now he’s hungry.” Kyren climbed from the bed.
“Cowardice is an underrated survival skill.” He made it downstairs and nearly reached the exit.
Eria appeared around the corner.
“Breakfast.” “Later.” “Now.” “Arkin’s waiting.” “Arkin can continue doing that.” Kyren stepped toward the door.
Eria caught the back of his clothes.
His feet briefly left the floor.
Kyren stared at her.
“This is kidnapping.” “Chair.” “I know my rights.” “Chair.” “Do I have rights?” “Fewer every second.” Kyren sat.
Riss was not home.
That was common.
Most days he guarded the outer sections of Delasai, where the forest’s influence weakened and the territories of other races began.
Roselle had already gone to work.
Work was the polite word.
Her degradation had eventually come, only delayed rather than erased, and most elves did not allow her to forget it.
A sharp sound came from outside.
Slap.
Kyren’s spoon stopped.
He turned toward the opening in the dwelling.
Yrhin, one of the older elves, stood over Roselle.
She had fallen to one knee.
A red mark spread across her cheek.
Nobody nearby intervened.
Kyren stood.
Eria placed her hand over his wrist.
“Don’t.” “He hit her.” “I saw.” “Then let go.” “Sit.” Kyren looked at her.
“Why does everyone keep saying that?” “Because you know what happens if you go outside.” “They beat her and somehow I’m the problem.” “I didn’t say that.” “Nobody ever has to.” His fingers tightened.
Eria did not release him.
After several seconds, Kyren sat.
He hated himself for doing it.
Forest elves were not considered fully adult until approximately their hundredth year.
Their natural lifespan ranged from around one thousand years to two and a half thousand.
Once, a century of childhood had been almost insignificant.
Few elves now lived long enough for those numbers to mean much.
War.
Vampires.
Jorogumo.
Famine.
Disease.
Border raids.
The average life in Delasai had fallen closer to five centuries.
Children were officially protected under laws introduced roughly a hundred years earlier.
Before those reforms, famine had forced families to abandon children because feeding them endangered stronger members of the tribe.
Injured elves were sometimes left behind.
The weakest ate last.
Sometimes not at all.
The elders still called those years the good old days.
Kyren had never understood why.
None of them could identify anything that had actually been good.
They remembered being younger and mistook that for the world being better.
The settlement expected Kyren to change everything.
Their golden child.
Their miracle.
Their proof that Delasai had not abandoned them.
Kyren hated the expectation.
He hated even more that many of the same elves who called him their hope treated him as something unnatural.
Later that day he escaped with Arkin.
They climbed Eranis, the greatest tree in their region of Delasai.
Its trunk was so vast that entire families lived inside sections of it without ever seeing one another.
Its upper branches climbed beyond much of the canopy.
Arkin slipped.
Kyren caught his wrist.
“I had it.” “You were falling.” “Controlled descent.” “Toward the ground.” “Pull me up.” “Say please.” “I’ll drag you down with me.” “Convincing.” Kyren pulled him onto the branch.
They climbed higher.
The village disappeared beneath layers of leaves.
At the crown, the world opened.
Twenty moons hung across the night sky.
Different sizes.
Different colors.
Each represented, according to old belief, one of the twenty principal races.
The dead supposedly travelled to the moon belonging to their race and waited there until another life began.
Some elves believed every word.
Others believed the moons were merely distant worlds and the afterlife was a story created because intelligent creatures could not tolerate the thought that one day consciousness simply stopped.
Kyren preferred the second explanation.
At least fear pretending to be hope irritated him less than certainty pretending to be knowledge.
Wind pulled at his black-and-blue hair.
Arkin leaned against the trunk.
“Kyren.” “Hm?” “Do you think there’s something waiting outside Delasai?” “Yes.” Arkin looked interested.
“What?” “Death.” “You’re unbearable.” “You asked.” “I’m serious.” Kyren looked toward the horizon.
“So am I.” Arkin was quiet for a moment.
“You still want to see it.” Kyren did not ask what he meant.
Outside.
Beyond the forest.
Beyond the places adults permitted children to know.
“Yes.” The answer came easily.
Kyren had changed during the last years.
His features had hardened.
So had the way he looked at others.
The settlement had contributed generously.
They called him strange.
Some called him a monster when they thought Roselle could not hear.
He had spent years sleeping in a tent so small that eventually his legs protruded from the entrance, while families with higher status occupied enormous chambers grown into living trees.
Other children mocked his eyes.
Adults stared at the blue fluid that emerged when he was cut.
Riss sometimes returned from border duty exhausted and furious.
Kyren learned to identify those evenings by the sound of his footsteps.
Heavy steps meant silence.
Sometimes silence was not enough.
Riss always had the same justification afterward.
I feed you.
Therefore discipline belonged to him.
Therefore pain was permitted.
When Kyren eventually became strong enough to defend himself, the village punished him for doing so.
The first time he struck back, several adults tied him to a tree.
They called what followed training.
Pain would make him stronger.
Fear would prepare him for the world.
If suffering automatically produced strength, Kyren thought, Delasai should have been populated entirely by gods.
Roselle remained the exception.
He called her Mom.
He knew they shared no blood.
The statement was more literal for Kyren than for most adopted children.
There was no red blood inside him at all.
Only blue fluid.
Roselle had never treated that as a reason to love him less.
A branch cracked below them.
Arkin immediately stopped talking.
Another crack.
Someone was climbing.
Badly.
Kyren leaned over the branch.
Purple hair appeared between the leaves.
“Help!” Kyren sighed.
“Aiko.” “I heard that.” “That was the intention.” She climbed another half metre.
Her foot slipped.
“Aaa—!” Kyren dropped to the lower branch and caught her ankle.
Aiko hung upside down.
“Could you hurry?” “I’m considering whether this is a useful lesson.” “KYREN.” He pulled her upward.
Aiko collapsed onto the branch beside Arkin.
Her hair was purple that month.
Special mixtures of herbs allowed her to alter its color approximately once every month, and she rarely kept the same shade twice in succession.
She was heavier than most girls their age despite eating surprisingly little.
Stress frequently destroyed her appetite entirely, and Delasai supplied enough stress for several lifetimes.
Her family hated that she spent time with Kyren and Arkin.
Aiko considered that their problem.
She caught her breath.
“What were you talking about?” Arkin answered immediately.
“Leaving Delasai.” Aiko stared.
“What?” “Running away.” “WHAT?” Kyren winced.
“Excellent.
Tell the entire forest.” Aiko lowered her voice.
“Are you both insane?” Arkin shrugged.
“Possibly.” “Do you know what’s outside?” “No.” “That’s the problem!” “That’s the reason.” “Vampires.” “Yes.” “Jorogumo.” “Probably.” “Creatures our hunters won’t even name.” “Interesting.” Aiko looked at Kyren.
“Say something sensible.” “You’re asking the wrong person.” “You’re actually considering this?” Kyren looked toward the horizon.
“I’ve been considering it longer than he has.” Aiko’s mouth opened.
Arkin pointed down toward the invisible village.
“What exactly are we staying for?
Another hundred years until the elders decide we’re adults enough to die for them?” “It’s our home.” “Is it?” “Yes.” “Roselle gets hit in public.” Aiko stopped.
“Kyren gets tied to trees for defending himself.” “That was—” “What?
Tradition?” Aiko looked away.
Arkin continued.
“They don’t have a plan.
They guard the border.
Elves die.
They replace them.
Then they tell us Delasai will save everyone eventually.” “The forest does protect us.” “From things outside.
Who protects us from the elves inside?” Aiko had no answer.
Arkin looked at Kyren.
“And Tyron is still alive.” Kyren’s expression changed.
“Don’t say his name.” “Why?” “Because if he’s alive, I don’t want mine in his mouth.”