FICTION
SARAH MANNHEIMER
Raquel Nixon, artist
SUN WISE
I
Sheera placed her hand on the trunk of the tree. Her soft, pale skin was a hard contrast against the dark scales of the old fir. There was a time when the pinaceae trees on this ridge were revered as Mother Trees. They provided shelter, warmth, and medicine for generations of elven tribes.
The pinaceae were sacred, and consumed root to tip should one fall. Moreover, elders told tales of cleaning their teeth with cedar bark, mixing binding brews from fir resin, crafting torchieres from sap and scrap cloth, and chewing pine pitch for days in search of wisdom and enlightenment.
She turned her eyes toward the forest canopy, blinked and exhaled a measured breath. The energy in the woods seemed to slow at her will. She could see each leaf twist in the warm air, each twig bend to the soft breeze, each butterfly flap and birdwing flutter. Bold colors leapt out at her from the forest’s deep palette. The sleek cyan of the mountain bluebird, sunlight glinting off the violet-silver feathers of a swallow, an eagle’s majestic crown of white. And their melodies! A yellow warbler hopped as it sang a summer song. A blood-red cardinal chirruped, calling to his mate.
As the birds ascended the treetops, pine needles fluttered down from above. Sheera could hear a soft thud as each one landed on the earth – no, she could feel it. Tiny tremors stirred beneath her feet as the needles tumbled to the forest floor. Her skin hummed with the rhythm of the forest’s insects, both above and below. Cicadas sang and beetles scurried. Worms burrowed and wasps buzzed. Her lungs worked in tandem with the trees. She inhaled as they exhaled, two sides of the same breath.
Sheera had felt the magical effects of sacred water before, but not like this. Never like this.
She reached for the bulging waterskin at her hip. It was plump with the water she had sourced from the hidden cave. Her own tribe’s sacred pond was rapidly depleting. The alchemists and midwives had been using scant amounts for years, hoping to conserve what was left of the magical essence. The entire Diendae tribe had been desperately rationing their lifeblood, but Sheera knew time was running out for her people. She also knew their rivals to the south, the Altienna, would soon meet the same fate.
She had left her bow behind, beside the cave pool, and although the White Stag had warned her not to return at night, she had never been in a land so exhilarating. The creature that had charged her from the underbrush, the mystical illuminated cave, the White Stag himself! Their very existence told Sheera everything. The place she had entered after going widdershins around a Mother Tree confirmed her wildest hopes. None of the Elven belonged here, hiding in plain sight on the human plane. It was the only explanation. The Elven had once been cast out of their realm. And she alone knew the way back in.
However, now was not the time for fantastical adventures. Not even her bow was worth risking the sacred water she carried at her hip. She turned around toward the clearing, leaned back on her heel and sprang forward. In a flash she was bounding through the forest with the grace of a white-tailed doe and the speed of a brown hare. She zig-zagged around dense underbrush and leapt atop moss-covered boulders that had tumbled into the valley over the millennia.
As she neared the spot on the path where Alcon and his team of young hunters had found the human device that morning, she quieted her breath and made light her footsteps. She used what was left of the magic in her blood to steady her heartbeat, to make her hearing precise and her eyesight keen. She breathed in through her nose, scanning for a whiff of anything coming her way. She caught a hint of a scent, carried on the wind, and headed her direction. Kaide. Her mouth curled up into half a smile. She had beaten him back to the meeting point. Had she finally become lighter on her feet than the Diendae tribe’s chosen son?
Sheera crouched in the bushes. Kaide’s scent became thicker as he grew ever closer. Her eyes darted around the clearing. She was ready to seize upon the first movement that crossed her sightline. But before she could pounce, Kaide appeared behind her. He grabbed her tunic by the scruff and yanked her off the path.
“Where have you been,” he demanded with a growl as he tossed Sheera onto a leaf pile. She looked up from the forest floor. Sunbeams illuminated Kaide from behind. He pulled a large pack off his back and set it gently on the ground behind him. He stretched his spine into an arch and rolled his head from side to side, cracking his neck to the left and right. One of his bright blue eyes was nearly swollen shut and dried blood had dripped and caked from his ear down along his strong, chiseled jawline.
“Did you get in another tussle with a bighorn ram?” Sheera said with a snicker.
“This isn’t funny!” he shouted. He reached out a hand to help her off the ground. In his frustration he pulled too hard and she collided with his chest. He held her there a moment and gently brushed her hair from her face. “I thought I lost you,” he confessed.
“Kaide,” she began, shrugging out of his grip, “I wasn’t lost. Ask Briera. I didn’t even go very far.”
Briera, the Diendae tribe’s chieftainess would back Sheera up, and Kaide would have no choice but to listen. Not only was Briera his commanding officer. She was also his sister.
“Sheera,” he said, his eyes pleading, “I’ve been looking for you for days. I assumed the worst.” “Days?” she asked with genuine confusion. “Are you feeling alright?”
“Do you really not know?” Kaide looked astonished. “Sheera, listen to me.” He clutched her shoulders. “Altienna attacked. They came to Diendae looking for something. They set fire to the living quarters and the school, pillaged the medicine tent. Briera and the Council of Women escaped toward Bear Cave with the younglings. The hunters are scattered along the southern ridge where most of the tribe remains in hiding.”
“What of my father?” Sheera asked suddenly, the words stuck in her throat.
“Injured, but alive. Took an arrow in the back.”
“They shot him in the back? As he fled!?” Sheera was horrified.
“We all fled,” Kaide said, his voice grave. “The attack came before the dawn, as we slept. Many escaped into the forest, but not all were so lucky. Those who remained rallied in the woods and returned to fight. But we were too late. The village was in ruin.” Kaide sniffed hard and turned away from her. “Huntmaster Alcon is dead, Sheera.”
Sheera shook her head from side to side, trying to dislodge the images from her mind. She pressed her fingers to her temples and closed her eyes. The forest floor spun beneath her. She stumbled back toward a tree trunk and slid down to the ground.
This isn’t real. It’s an effect of the sacred water and the magic. This is all a hallucination. The sacred water… Her eyes snapped open.
“Where is my father now?” she said.
“The human’s abandoned mine, where Amina and the other midwives care for the injured. It is our meeting point.”
Sheera jumped up, wrapped her hand tightly around the strap of her waterskin, and turned to leave.
“Wait,” Kaide said, grabbing her wrist. “It’s not safe.”
“I can help them,” she said. “I will explain later, but now I must go.”
“No,” he said. “Sit down.”
“Kaide, please, there’s no time,” she protested. “That’s an order.”
Sheera exhaled in a huff and sat down on the log next to Kaide. “I found something,” she said in a near whisper. She handed him the waterskin. He popped off the cork and peered inside. A liquid silver swirl danced through the darkness.
“Is this what I think it is?” Kaide asked astonished, sniffing at the opening.
“Yes,” Sheera replied quietly. “Now, drink.”
Kaide took a small sip and handed it back, his eyes widening.
She tore off a shred of her tunic and wetted the cloth. She pressed it gently to the cut on Kaide’s scalp. The gash began to shrink before her eyes. “I have enough sacred water to treat our injured. And I know where to find more. We can give the Altiennans what they came looking for and finally have peace.”
“Sacred water isn’t what they were looking for,” Kaide said, his eyes fixed on the ground. “What else could they possibly want?” Sheera asked.
“This.”
Kaide threw open the top of the large rucksack he had been carrying. Wrapped tightly in a wool blanket was a sleeping human child.
II
The human boy slept so soundly; Sheera feared he had expired. She leaned close, held her hand in front of his face, hoping to feel his breath on her skin.
“I gave him a sleeping draught,” Kaide said. “Sweetclover water and belladonna.” “Belladonna is dangerous, Kaide!” Sheera reeled. “You are certain he is taking breath?”
“You aren’t the tribe’s only student of tonics.” Kaide replied with a half-smile, something he reserved only for the moments when he bested Sheera.
She was still kneeling on the ground next to the child. His cheeks were tear-stained and smudged with dirt. His rosebud-pink mouth chapped with sun-scorch. His fine hair, matted with mud, fell across his forehead in clumps. Long lashes fringed his closed eyes. His tiny hand clung tightly to the fringe of the woolen blanket. Sheera inhaled, taking in the child’s scent. Remnants of human soaps, sweat, earth, and… blood. Her eyes shot upward and met Kaide’s.
“Is the child injured?” she asked.
“What you smell is elven blood. Altiennan blood. In the battle for the boy, I severed an artery in the one they call Jai.” Kaide mimicked a backhanded slicing motion.
“Grandson to the Chief Altiennan Elder?” Sheera said in horror. “They will consider that a declaration of war.”
“They’ve already declared war!” Kaide spat. “Jai is lucky I didn’t take his head as a souvenir.” Kaide blew out a deep breath, letting his shoulders slouch. “In truth, his head was rather large, and I didn’t want to be burdened with the extra weight.” He rubbed at his eyes. Sheera looked up and met his gaze. His pupils had become dilated, like a wildcat searching for light during the darkest hours. The magic had taken hold.
“Tell me what you see,” she asked him quietly.
“I see a path to the old mineshaft. To your father and the rest of our wounded. The way forward has been illuminated.” Kaide reached his hand in front of his face. He swiped at air. “What magic is this?”
“It is the sacred water,” Sheera began, uncertain how to explain. “It was sourced from a cave. A cave outside of our realm.” She waited for Kaide’s reaction.
“How?” Kaide’s voice was gruff, low, and immediate.
“I-I turned widddershins, around a pinaceae tree.” Sheera held her hands in front of her, defensively, as Kaide advanced. “It was unintentional,” she said. Her upturned hands met his broad chest.
“A Mother Tree?” He whispered with urgency. “Did you meet a stag?” “Yes.” Sheera returned his whisper, eyes wide.
“Come,” he began, suddenly nervous. “We must head to the mine. Our own need saving, and we have the means.” He gestured to the waterskin at Sheera’s side. “Nothing else matters.”
“And what of the human child?” Sheera asked. “Does he matter?”
Kaide knelt beside his woolen pack. He tucked the blanket around the sleeping child, just enough to create a hood, shielding the boy both from view and the elements. Then he hoisted the pack onto his shoulders. “Aye,” he sighed, “the child matters.”
Kaide’s eyes scanned from east to west across the valley. “We must move quickly,” he said, “before I lose the magic.” His face spun toward hers, eyes locking. “Try to keep up.”
He gave Sheera a classic smirk, bouncing his eyebrows slightly. Sheera scoffed, but something fluttered in her chest, his playfulness catching her off guard. Before she got a chance to respond,
Kaide sprang forward on the balls of his feet without so much as a stir of dust, darting into the thick of the forest, flying like a whisper through the woods.
Sheera focused with a sharp inhalation of breath and dashed after him. She leapt over fallen logs, hollowed by the forest’s eternal cycle of flourish and decay. She glided around brambles, thick with new growth. Tangled vines reached high into the canopy, choking out sunlight, but Sheera never lost Kaide’s trail. It was a test - all things were as a Diendaen - and she had been studying since the days before her memory.
Kaide had been born under a full wolf moon. It was a rare event indeed to witness the winter solstice coincide with the moon at its fullest. It was as though the winter stars aligned to welcome a Diendae son. Such extraordinary births are the origins of elven legend. This event, however, was made rarer still by the arrival of a second Diendae babe that same eve; one arriving two moons earlier than the midwives had charted.
Sheera came onto this plane unexpectedly, in a gush of water and blood, the heels of her feet kicking free from her mother’s womb rather than the crown of her head. Her mother had not survived the bloody night, and Sheera, frail as a flyspeck, spent weeks teetering on the edge of this world and the next. Kaide’s own mother had acted as nursemaid, feeding Sheera from her breast and swaddling her within Kaide’s pelts for added heat. Sheera was born on Kaide’s heels, surviving in his warmth, chasing his light. And there she had steadily remained.
Now, Sheera’s eyes locked on every tell-tale marker of Kaide’s path, signs that would be lost on any other tracker. A snapped stem, a twisted twig, the slightest depression in the dirt. Sheera could see him, the shape his broad shoulders had left in the parting of leaves, the cuts his long legs had made through the underbrush. She sprinted after him for over nine lengths; what would have taken a human twelve thousand steps. Sheera saw Kaide ahead, peering over the cliff edge, focused on the abandoned mine below.
“The magic tells me to go forward,” he said without acknowledging her arrival, “straight down the ridge, and toward the hidden entrance.” Kaide had grown accustomed to his scathya, the elven word for shadow. He knelt on the cliff, “but my head tells me to expect an ambush, from there,” he pointed to the northern ridge. “Or there,” he gestured to the ravine’s opposite end. He had never before asked for Sheera’s advice, and in truth, he wasn’t asking now. Something in his eyes said he didn’t trust his own instincts. These last few unprecedented days had shaken him.
For the first time, Sheera could sense something new in Kaide - fear.
Before Sheera could weigh in, a flutter of birds from behind told them someone was on approach. Only another elf could be this far off the human trail. Kaide looked briefly over the edge of the ridge and stepped over the side. He landed deftly on a ledge below, skillfully balancing the extra weight in his pack. Sheera threw her moss-green cloak over her head and ducked into an impossibly small crouch, covering her scent within a tangle of wild spearmint.
“Kaide of Diendae!” a male shouted from the south.
Young. Altiennan. Sheera placed the tenor of his voice immediately.
Joran… Younger brother to Jai. No doubt seeking the human child. And revenge.
“I know you’re here,” Joran roared to the canopy. “I can smell my brother’s blood, still on your hands!”
Quarter length away … Sheera could feel the distance to his voice. Through her mind’s eye she envisioned the exact spot in the forest where the elf intruder stood. The air around him hummed and simmered with heat. She quieted her thoughts and stilled every fiber in her limbs. She waited for Joran to make his move.
The instant Joran jumped forward, Sheera pounced from her huddled stance. She intercepted him on the path. As their bodies collided, she drew her crescent blade. They tumbled forward, end over end, until coming to a stop at the cliff’s edge. Joran flat on his back, Sheera sitting on his chest, pressing her full weight into him, his head pinned by her knees, her knife at his throat. Sheera’s hair had tumbled loose from her braid. Her long auburn waves tickled Joran’s cheeks.
“Well, hello,” he said in a slippery, confident voice that matched his long, lean frame. “You must be Kaide’s wretched Diendaen scathya,” he smiled and cocked his head. “Forgive me for saying so, but you’re hardly the curse you’ve been made out to be.”
Sheera grunted and pressed her knife into his neck. A thin red line of blood popped to the surface of his skin. “P-please”, he stammered, “don’t take offense. I just mean if a beautiful elven woman like you, with fire in her eyes and thighs strong as bear traps, was always chasing after me, I would have stopped running long ago.” He exhaled a laugh, although Sheera couldn’t imagine what he found humorous about their current situation.
Sheera stared down at Joran, confused. Something stirred inside her. In the last ten seconds, this strange elf, whose grey-green eyes reminded Sheera of sunlight glinting off shale, had referred to her as both a beauty and a curse. No one had ever said anything so personal to her before.
Certainly not all at once.
“Don’t listen to him,” Kaide’s voice grunted beside her as he climbed back up the cliff, the child still strapped to his back. He hoisted himself back over the edge, sliding on his belly then pushing up to a full standing position. “Let him up,” he said to Sheera.
“He could be armed,” she cautioned, her legs still pinning him down with all the force she could muster.
“He’s shit with a blade,” Kaide said. “That silver tongue of his is the only dagger you’ve got to watch for.”
“Maybe I should cut it out then,” Sheera said, twisting her knife toward Joran’s mouth.
“Neither of us want that. Trust me,” he said, his eyes dancing. “You’d be doing a disservice to all womankind.” Sheera didn’t know what he meant, but a part of her wanted to know.
Kaide tapped Sheera on the shoulder and motioned for her to rise. She backed slowly off Joran. As she stood, he whispered up to her, “I miss you alread-,” until Kaide yanked him out of the moment by the front of his tunic. He pulled Joran skyward then planted him on his feet, hard. Joran dusted himself off and ran his long fingers through his dark hair.
The two elven men stood perfectly eye-to-eye. Kaide’s jaw was clenched, his gaze unflinching, set like stone. Joran returned the stare, tilting his chin and pursing his lips, laying down an unspoken challenge masquerading as playfulness. Both born in the winter of the same year, Joran was long-limbed, wiry, and lean, where Kaide was thick, broad-chested, and solid.
“I’m surprised to see the human is still alive.” It was Joran who spoke first. “Why take him out from under us if not to use him for yourself?” He cocked an eyebrow at Kaide, “Or are you waiting for big sister Briera to grant you permission?”
“The child is no longer your concern,” Kaide replied coolly, his hands tightening the straps across his chest. “Nor is my sister.”
“I have to disagree.” Joran stepped backward, pulling twin blades from their sheaths at his sides. “Thanks to your knifework, my brother will lose his arm without the sacred water that child provides. So, I will either take the child from you, or I’ll find your sister and take her arm as remuneration. A limb for a limb.”
“And what of my father?” Sheera demanded suddenly. “An elder with an arrow in his back! And our Huntmaster? He was killed when your tribe attacked mine as they slept.” She spat the last words. “An elf for an elf!” She held her blade high.
“The attack was unsanctioned,” Joran said quietly, standing down. “A rogue band of Altiennan went after the child. They did not have the Elder Council’s blessing. They believe the time of the prophecy is upon us.”
“Your excuses do not bring back our dead or heal our wounded,” Kaide’s voice grew grave. “And the child is not what you think,” he cautioned. “We’ve misunderstood the prophecy.”
Prophecy...? Sheera’s eyes darted toward Kaide. She narrowed her gaze, hoping to glean the information from Kaide’s eyes. What prophecy?
“I think I understand it as well as you do.” Joran’s voice had lowered into a growl. He spun one of the knives across his palm, caught the grip and held it tightly. Sheera could see his knuckles whiten, the blue veins and sinewy tendons popping under his ivory skin.
Kaide sighed, “Surely you don’t think you can best us both?” He motioned to Sheera who had already crouched into a lunge behind him. “You’ll meet a worse fate than your brother.”
“You have four stones of human weight strapped to your back, and your prize archer seems to be missing her bow,” he said, and shrugged. “I like my chances.”
Before the smirk left Joran’s face, Sheera had already left the ground. As she leapt toward Joran, she jerked hard on a hanging vine. The long, tightly wound stalk crashed to the forest floor, bringing a with it the thick branch of ancient birch. It landed behind Joran, blocking his path of retreat over the cliff. Sheera quickly knotted the vine into a bola and whipped it precisely around Joran’s wrists. The weighted ends tightened and squeezed as his knives clattered to the ground.
“She’s very handy,” Kaide said to Joran as he picked up the discarded knives.
“I’ll say.” Joran pulled against the wrist restraints which only seemed to grow tighter as he struggled.
“You would let him live?” Sheera asked, shocked by Kaide’s mercy.
“Aye,” Kaide replied with a sniff. “We will need him.”
“To what end?” Sheera demanded in a harsh whisper.
“To return the child.” Kaide readjusted his pack as the child stirred, like an animal in the throes of a dream.
III
Kaide led the way down the rocky ravine toward the mine. The magic was no longer with him, and they couldn’t spare more sacred water. Instead, he recreated the path from the memory of his mind’s eye. They skidded carefully down the steep embankment, grabbing at tree roots, and gripping the rock shelf for leverage, deerskin boots protecting their feet from the razor-sharp rock.
With his wrists still bound in the bola, Joran slid and stumbled awkwardly, leaving Sheera to spot him from behind. It was hard enough keeping herself upright, and nearly impossible to guide a much larger, much lankier elf down the side of a steep ravine.
“As much as I enjoy colliding with you every few feet, perhaps you could untie my hands?” Joran said, tripping into her arms again. “It would make things much easier for both of us.”
“I’ll think about it,” Sheera said with a shove, “if you tell me about the prophecy.”
“Surely you’ve heard of the wolf and the white stag? It is the stuff of elven lore!” Joran looked at her, incredulous. His eyes sparkled with amusement.
“Of course, I have,” Sheera lied. “I’m asking what you think it means.”
“So, you’ve not heard it then.” Joran smiled knowingly and Sheera blushed. For an elf with such ferocity, her innocence and naivete surprised him. “It is said that the way back to the elven realm, and away from the human plane, lies within the prophecy.” Joran cleared his throat and lowered his voice. The gray of his eyes grew darker as he whispered the words…
“A wolf will arrive on the darkest of nights
Turning widdershins 'round the Mother Tree
Spilling sacrificial, innocent blood
Before the white stag will set them free.”
Sheera felt the color drain from her face. Widdershins? The white stag? She looked toward Kaide, the human child still asleep on his back, his innocent eyes closed, his round face peaceful. And then Sheera knew.
Innocent blood… No!
They meant to kill the child to open the door to the elven realm. A door she had already walked through. She looked down at her hands. They were shaking. Her body began to shudder. Her teeth clacked together.
“Sheera,” Joran called to her, but her mind was far away. She thought of the mother tree, the ancient pinaceae that she had turned widdershins around, its rough bark and wide trunk. She thought of the white stag and the flowing silver pool of sacred water. But how had Sheera entered without a blood sacrifice? And where was the wolf? Perhaps Kaide was right. The prophecy was at best misleading, and at worst, apocryphal.
“Sheera!” Joran said again. His wrists were still tied, and he cupped her face in his hands.
“Do not touch her!” Kaide yelled suddenly. He tossed Joran aside like a sack of grain. He carefully propped Sheera up against the ravine. Rocks dug into her back, but she was following the stag’s voice, backward around the pinaceae, toward the mystical cave. Kaide pulled the waterskin from Sheera’s side, and tenderly tipped a few drops of sacred water onto her lips.
Joran’s eyes widened. “Is that what I think it is?” he asked, struggling to get a better look. When Kaide didn’t answer that question, Joran asked another. “Where did you get it?”
Kaide’s eyes did not stray from Sheera. He swiped his hand across her brow, whispering for her to wake.
Joran concluded the truth all on his own. “You’ve already found the elven realm.”
“I haven’t found anything,” Kaide said. Then he conceded, “Sheera did.”
Her eyes fluttered open. She licked her lips, tasting the drops of sacred water. Her mouth tingled with the magic. Pebbles and dirt skittered down the hill as Joran scrambled closer. The shape of him cut through the sunset.
“How?” Joran said from above her.
“I-I turned widdershins,” she started, embarrassed that both Joran and Kaide were peering over her. “I don’t know how it happened.” She sat up suddenly, brushing herself off.
“How did you get there? What did you see?” Joran asked, his tone demanding.
“Not here,” Kaide interrupted, looking up at the clifftops, suddenly aware of how exposed they were. Kaide lifted Sheera to her feet. He turned to Joran, untied his wrists and said, “Don’t make me regret this.” Kaide walked toward the loose pile of boulders that obscured the old mine’s entrance. Sheera followed on shaky legs. Joran hesitated and looked up the ridge. He could run, find his way back to Altienna, or he could follow his Diendae rivals deep inside the mountain’s cracks and crags.
Sheera turned back and saw Joran looking at the ravine, conflicted. If she were in his shoes, her instincts would tell her to run home, fast and light, back to her tribe.
When Joran turned his head, Sheera’s amber eyes were fixed on him with intensity. He laughed with resignation, hung his head, and put one foot in front of the other until he reached her. When he looked up again her face had softened.
“You’re doing the right thing,” she said gently.
He only smiled and said, “After you.”
IV
The trio carefully made their way into the mine. They crept through the tight passages until the shaft opened into an underground clearing. What was once a small hub for the indoor mining trains had become a bunker for the injured and displaced members of the Diendae tribe.
Kaide was up ahead, speaking to Briera and Amina the midwife. He turned and gestured for Sheera to join them. She clutched her waterskin, gingerly stepping around the wounded. Mothers with children, elders, still in their sleeping tunics caked with blood and dirt. Sheera swallowed her grief and blinked back her tears. She scanned the small crowd for her father, but her eyes did not fall on him. She turned to look at Joran. His face slack and pale, sickened by the havoc his tribesmen had wrought on their peaceful neighbors. Briera saw them approach. Her eyes narrowed on Joran. She stepped forward and drew her blade.
“Joran of Altienna! You will answer for the crimes of your tribe!” Her shout echoed off the cave walls as she stomped toward them.
“Stop!” Sheera stepped between them.
“May I remind you who is Chieftainess of this tribe? You don’t give me orders, Sheera,” Briera said with teeth clenched. “Out of my way!” Briera advanced, and Sheera held up her arms to shield Joran from the blow.
“Briera! Sheath your blade!” A gruff voice boomed from across the cavern.
Father! A sob of relief escaped Sheera’s throat.
His back bent over a cane, bandages wrapped around his torso, Sherrod the Elder stepped from the shadows. He made his way slowly toward his daughter. To Briera he said, “Your people have seen enough violence. This is a place of healing.”
Briera clenched her jaw and nodded. She slid her blade in place and stepped aside.
“Daughter,” he said to Sheera, taking both her hands into his and squeezing. “I thought I lost you.” His eyes sparkled with tears of joy. “You’d better have a damn good reason for bringing him here,” he said, gesturing to Joran. Sherrod locked his arm in Sheera’s and shuffled ahead, waving his fingers for the others to follow.
They stood inside a small alcove. Sheera told the story of the Mother Tree, the stag, and the cavepool. She handed her waterskin to Amina, and after sharing with Sherrod, the midwife hastily began administering the sacred water to the injured.
“Sherrod, we need to discuss the prophecy,” Kaide said. “If Sheera is able to enter the realm without a blood sacrifice, then perhaps we don’t need the child.” He gestured to the boy, now free from the swaddled pack, asleep on a pile of soft pelts.
“Aye, perhaps,” said Sherrod, “but I won’t risk my own daughter.” He rubbed a hand along his jawline, itching at the white stubble. “We go forward as planned, using the child to enter the realm. Surely the humans won’t miss it.”
“He will be missed.” Joran spoke now from the alcove’s far edge. “His human mother will certainly grieve for him, as much as we would grieve any elfling.”
“How do you know?” Sheera asked.
“It was I who took him from her,” Joran said, and looked at Kaide.
“It’s true,” Kaide admitted. “During the last moon, Joran and I planned to take a child from Joran’s human acquaintance. Jai learned of the plan and came for me.” Kaide voice cracked as he thought of the injured Diendae, lying just outside earshot. “For all of us.”
Joran spoke next, choosing his words carefully. “There is a very small but vocal sect of Altiennans, my brother their leader. They plotted the attack on Diendae, a plan to retrieve the child. The elder council refused to sanction it,” Joran stressed. He bent down and spoke directly to Sherrod, “We seek peace. We want to return to our realm before the sacred ponds run dry, and we want you to join us as allies, not adversaries.”
“You dare say this as our own lay dying on the floor of this cave, hiding like animals from the rogue tribesmen that your council cannot control?!” Sherrod raised himself to full height, his voice escalating, the effects of the sacred water making him strong again, powerful again. “Kaide!” Sherrod shouted, “tonight you will take the child above ground, tie him to a Mother Tree, spill his blood and turn widdershins. You are the wolf, Kaide of Diendae! You will open the realm and free us from the curse of the human plane.”
“Father, no!” Sheera shouted in horror.
“Sheera.” Sherrod turned to his daughter. “You will remain here with Amina, caring for the injured. Briera will accompany Kaide to the Mother Tree. Once the realm is open, the Chieftainess will come for us. As for the Altiennan,” Sherrod said, and turned to Joran, eyeing him with disdain, “he will meet the same fate as Huntmaster Alcorn. An elf for an elf!”
Joran opened his mouth to protest, but Briera took a step toward him. “An elf for an elf,” she said with a menacing smile.
“Father,” Sheera pleaded. She ran in front of him and fell to her knees. “I made it inside the elven realm once. Let me try again. Please, spare the human and Joran. If I can open the realm there will be no need for bloodshed.”
“Blood has already been shed, my daughter.” Her father patted her on the head. “Bid Kaide farewell, and assure him you’ll be waiting upon his return. One day you’ll be wife to The Great Elven Wolf, Kaide of Diendae! For now, you must take your position as a caregiver. You are not a warrior, Sheera.” Sherrod touched her cheek and shuffled away. She was mortified, afraid to face her peers.
Wife of the Great Wolf? Kaide? Whom I loved as a brother for all my years? No.
Sheera spun to face Briera. “You will not hurt this child,” she said, her voice even. “And Joran is not your prisoner.” She reached over and linked her fingers with his, no one more surprised at this act than Sheera herself.
Briera snorted with laughter. “As I said, Sheera, you don’t give me orders.” Briera stepped between Sheera and Joran, shoving him away. Their arms stretched; fingers linked until the distance grew too great.
Kaide’s mouth hung slightly opened, surprised at Sheera’s sudden affection for Joran. He held up a hand. “I know what you’re going to say, but we cannot go against the Elder.”
“And you’ll bleed this poor child at my father’s command, even though he is weak with injury and drunk with sacred water?” Sheera gestured to the sleeping boy.
“It is why the child is here,” Kaide said, resigned. “The deed is upon me, Sheera. It is not something I asked for. But it is the only way.”
“Before today I would have agreed, but I have been to the elven realm, Kaide. The stag, he still speaks to me. I can hear him. I can see him.” Then she said something she never thought she would say, “My father is not the future of our tribe. The Diendaen Elders, the Altiennan Elders - they are not the future of elvenkind.” Sheera wrapped her hands around Kaide’s shoulders, making him listen. Her amber eyes stared into his, deep and crystalline blue. “If we are to lead, then they must follow.”
Kaide pulled her forward and held her to his chest, enveloping her with his arms. He buried his face in her hair and inhaled deeply, then squeezed shut his eyes and kissed the top of her head.
“You have never been my scathya.” He tucked her hair behind her ear, and whispered, “All along, you’ve been the wolf.”
V
Sheera didn’t have time to respond to Kaide’s gesture. She was already in motion. She bent near the child and tied one of the long fur pelts around her body like a sling. Sheera slid the sleeping child expertly into the pelt, securing him to her hip. The child stirred slightly, then pressed himself into Sheera’s chest. She threw her tunic over her head to further conceal the boy.
She turned to Kaide. “I will free Joran and the child.”
“And what shall I tell Briera?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Remember when Briera hid biting mites in your bedclothes? Or stuffed a nest of weevils into my woolen cap?” Sheera asked. “Perhaps it is time for our Chieftainess to take a long nap.”
Kaide pulled a small vial out of his pack. “Sweetclover water and belladonna,” he said, a smirk spreading across his face.
Back in the hub, the injured Diendae were on the mend, a testament to the power of the water. They were talking in hushed voices, eating bread crusts, sipping venison bone broth with wild herbs. The elixir had given them all a renewed vigor. Sheera spotted Briera, drinking from a wooden cup, Kaide standing next to her. His gaze cut across the crowded tunnel and locked on hers. He tipped his cup in her direction.
Sheera nodded in return and scanned the room until her eyes landed on Joran. His wrists still bound, he sat on the dirt, leaning his back against an ancient overturned minecart. She moved quickly through the crowd; the child hidden beneath her tunic. She joined Joran on the outskirts of the gathering. Sheera sidled down next to him and pulled a knife from her boot. She used the crescent blade to cut through Joran’s wrist cuffs before she led him into the shadows. She reached under her tunic and revealed the child.
“Take him to his mother,” Sheera said, transferring the boy into Joran’s arms. He looked toward Briera, sitting upright on her bedroll, fully clothed, chin resting on her chest, snoring comically. His eyes widened with shock and respect. Sheera continued, “If your tribe truly wants peace, lead them to the grandest pinaceae on the southern ridge. I will go widdershins when the moon is at its highest. When the realm opens, lead them inside.”
She knotted the sling tight around Joran and cocked her head toward the doorway, urging him to go. He nodded, then turned back to face her. “What exactly does it look like when a realm opens?” he said with half a grin. “I assume it won’t be subtle. Some type of light show, perhaps? Rainbows and fireworks?”
Sheera exhaled a small laugh, grateful for the break in tension. But before she could open her mouth to say as much, Joran leaned down and pressed his lips against hers. Shocked, Sheera’s eyes shot open, but in the next instant she surrendered, and she returned Joran’s kiss. In that quiet moment, his confidence and tenderness gave her respite. He emboldened and assured her. He quelled her fears. When he broke away she desperately wanted more.
“When the moon is at its highest,” he said caressing her face, repeating her instructions, strengthening her resolve. She watched him until his shadow disappeared down the mine’s dark, narrow corridor.
Sheera looked around the gaping room, hoping no one saw their embrace. The full stomachs and sacred water had changed the mood in the cavern. Close conversation, and even some soft laughter, was echoing underground. As her eyes scanned the gathering, they locked on Kaide’s, and Sheera knew he had seen everything. He turned his back, and began speaking quietly to Amina. Anything Sheera needed to say to Kaide could wait. She sought out someone else instead.
Sherrod sat on a rickety human chair, left behind a century ago. He was wrapped in a woolen blanket, his cane leaning against the chair’s rotting arm. The color had returned to his cheeks, and magic danced in his wizened eyes.
“Father,” Sheera said as she approached and knelt beside him.
“Ah, daughter,” he said, reaching down and stroking her hair, marveling at the deep reds and glittering golds in her long strands. “I can take a full breath for the first time since the attack.” A smile spread across his face. “Thank you,” he said. “The water of life returned me from the edge of death.”
“Don’t you want to know how I found the water, father?” Sheera asked, her curiosity genuine.
“I already know, my dear,” said Sherrod, his eyes glistening. “It is time I told you the truth.”
“What truth is that?” she asked.
“The truth about who you are. I can’t protect you any longer.” Sherrod took a long sip from his cup, leaned toward his daughter and said, “You, Sheera of Diendae, were born early, and under the wolf moon. It was you who turned widdershins 'round your mother in the womb, shedding her innocent blood.” Tears spilled over his sunken eyes. “Amina couldn’t save you both. Only one of you could live.” He sobbed into his gnarled hands. “I sacrificed her to save you.”
Sheera put her hand over her mouth and stumbled backward. She felt as if her knees might buckle. Kaide appeared suddenly at her side. His presence gave her enough strength to remain on her feet.
“Father,” she finally said. “I am proud to be Diendae, and prouder still to be your daughter.” Sheera knelt and wrapped her hands around his. “You set me on this path, and now you must trust me to walk it.”
Sheera stood and turned to Kaide. “Gather the Diendae. We will fulfill the prophecy at midnight around the largest Mother Tree on the southern ridge.”
Kaide nodded, placed a hand on Sherrod’s shoulder, and left the alcove.
Kaide and Amina slowly gathered the tribe as the moon moved toward the midnight position. They huddled just inside the old mine, waiting at the entrance. As Sheera walked through, the crowd parted. Some clung to the wall, afraid of her power. Others reached out and laid their hands on her, hoping to touch the magic she held within. As she reached the threshold, she turned to look back at her father. He tore a piece of cloth from his tunic, wrapped it around the end of his walking stick, and lit the cloth with the flame from his lantern. He passed it to Kaide who handed the torch to Sheera. She blinked back her tears, nodded, and without a word of goodbye, slipped down the dark mine tunnel and into the night.
Her eyes scanned the southern ridge. The tallest pine stood at the very center. Its branches peeked above all others, nearly touching the stars. She scaled the ravine’s wall, pulling herself skyward on ancient roots and strong summer vines. As she approached the giant Mother Tree, the moonlight was swept away by cloud cover. Rather than waiting for her eyes to adjust, Sheera closed them, letting the magic guide her.
As she reached the tree, she pressed her hand to the bark and felt a familiar sensation in her fingertips. She walked gently, taking purposeful steps, slowly turning widdershins around the monstrous trunk. Before her foot reached the spot where she had started, she inhaled the earth and pine, and something else.
She turned her head sharply and found herself face to face with Jai of Altienna, Joran’s older brother. His left arm was a bandaged stump. His right hand shot up, tightening around Sheera’s neck, squeezing the breath from her throat.
“Give me the child,” Jai said through gritted teeth, squeezing tighter.
“I -I..” Sheera clawed at his hand, gasping. Her eyes bulged. She lifted her cold, extinguished torchier, and thumped it hard against his severed arm. Jai howled and stumbled backward. With a throaty rasp, she said, “I will give you nothing.” She drew the crescent blade from her boot. “What I will do,” she said, twisting the carved wooden grip into the crux of her hand, “is finish what Kaide started.” Sheera advanced, swiftly slicing her blade through the air between them.
Jai pushed himself up, letting his butchered arm hang at his side. He reached over his shoulder and pulled a thick wooden cudgel from his pack. The handle had been whittled to match his grip, the other end adorned with shards of human-made metal.
Sheera shuffled back, dodging behind the Mother Tree. Jai stomped toward her, swinging wildly, raining down a thick shower of dislodged bark and broken twig. He leapt toward Sheera, club raised overhead, ready to strike. She dove low, skidding around him, slicing across his abdominal muscles before bounding back to her feet. Jai shrieked like a wounded animal.
Clutching at his midsection, he fell backward against an outcrop of mossy rock. He gaped down at the blood oozing from between his fingers. Sheera stayed back and on her guard. Slowly, Jai’s breath waned. His eyes glassed over and his hand slumped down to the earth.
“May your spirit be forever tortured and tormented in the under realm.” Sheera spat and kicked dirt over Jai’s body. “An elf for an elf.”
She heard a low whistle from the east – Kaide. She turned her head his direction. She could just make out his shape in the shadows. The tribe was behind him, crouching among the thick groves. Another low whistle, this one from the west. It could only be Joran. She pursed her lips and whistled back, remembering Joran’s mouth pressed against hers.
She could hear a rustle behind her as Kaide led the Diendae her direction. She stepped over Jai’s lifeless legs and reached out for the Mother Tree. As her hand touched the bark, she could see Joran coming into view on the other side of the enormous trunk. The sling was empty. The child had been returned home. A spark danced in Joran’s eyes and she could almost feel his warmth. Her hand reached for his. Their fingers brushed.
Sheera was suddenly jerked backward. Jai, bloodied and dying, pulled himself up behind her. He had slipped the crescent blade from her boot, and he now held it flush against her throat. He stepped backward away from his brother. In a flash, Joran pulled his longsword. He leveled it against his forearm, circling the massive trunk, waiting for that infinitesimal opportunity to best his brother without injuring Sheera.
Jai held Sheera by the jaw so that his mouth was pressed against her ear. “Tell me, brother?” Jai said. “Will you kill me to keep the peace, even if it means murdering this innocent, albeit wretched, girl?” Jai sneered at Sheera, pressing the blade harder against her skin. A trickle of blood ran down her neck, disappearing beneath her tunic.
Joran’s pained expression gave him away. He could not harm her. He would not. As he begun to lower his blade, Sheera lunged forward. She grabbed the razor-sharp longsword with her bare hands and thrust it forward deep into the meat and muscle under her own collarbone. She screamed in agony. Joran stood mouth agape and wide-eyed. Then he did the only thing he could do. He pushed the blade in further.
Joran’s sword slid out from above Sheera’s shoulder blade directly into his brother’s chest. With one final push, Joran broke through his brother’s bone and pierced his heart. Jai’s blood and breath gurgled in his throat. His limbs went slack.
Joran exhaled. He pulled back on the blade just enough to let his brother’s body slump to the ground. He looked Sheera in the eye. The pain was pushing her toward unconsciousness, but he would not let her slip away. The odds were too great that she would never wake. “Sheera,” he said, shaking her. “Sheera!”
Kaide came crashing through the brush looking down in horror. He flung Joran backward against a neighboring tree trunk, knocking the breath from him. He looked over the longsword, still protruding from Sheera’s clavicle.
As Joran clambered to his feet, he said, “We’ll have to remove it.”
“I know,” Kaide concurred, his jaw set.
Amina appeared behind them, torn tunic cloth and a waterskin in hand. “I will hold her,” Kaide said to Joran. “You pull.”
“Perhaps I should hold her, while you pull?” Joran asked hopefully, one eyebrow raised.
“I’m not the one who stabbed her.” Kaide countered.
“Technically, she stabbed herself. I’m just as surprised as you are, really.” Joran shrugged.
Amina stepped up quickly beside Kaide. She gave Joran a once-over, then instructed him. “We will hold her. You pull.”
Joran nodded, and Kaide looked up, awaiting instructions.
“Now!” Amina commanded.
Joran pulled hard on the sword while Kaide held her down.
Sheera screamed while the blade was extracted.
Quickly, Amina and Kaide pressed the rags, soaked in sacred water, deep into Sheera’s wounds.
Her eyes fluttered and her body shook. The pain was searing. Sheera closed her eyes, letting the magic take her away. She sensed her father was nearby. She could feel it as he approached from deep in the woods, floating somehow, over the brush and detritus. She turned to face him, if only in her mind’s eye.
“Father,” she said, and blinked his direction, but it wasn’t Sherrod who stepped forward from the foggy forest. It was the stag, glowing an otherworldly white. He bowed his head her direction.
Sheera, I’m so glad you came back. You forgot your bow, child. No matter, he chuckled, his eyes dancing. You’ll have it soon enough. It is time to return.
“But the child,” she said, “The blood...”
The innocent blood you shed today was your own. Turn widdershins, Sheera, he urged. Turn.
Sheera blinked toward the stag. She reached for him as he retreated further from view. Soon all trace of him was gone. She could no longer feel his warmth, only the hard cold ground, and the pain emanating from her wounds. Her tunic was sticky with blood. “Where is my father?” she asked Kaide.
“He is no longer with us, Sheera.” Tears pooled in Kaide’s eyes, though he did not let them spill. “Sherrod drank the belladonna tonic.”
“No,” Sheera whispered.
“He left you this.” Kaide handed her a crumpled piece of parchment. A message was scrawled across it in her father’s hand.
The white stag can set them free.
Sheera pressed herself up from the forest floor. Kaide and Joran both reached down to help her regain her footing. Her hand reached toward the Mother Tree. She let herself fall against it, her blood smearing across the bark. She took one slow purposeful step. Then another. Turning widdershins as she walked, she could feel the elves behind her, both Diendae and Altienna, holding their collective breath.
As she completed the turn around the tree, she could feel the forest grow cooler, calmer, lighter, quieter. She looked ahead and recognized the entrance to the sacred cave, just beyond an overgrowth of thick brush. She could again smell every dew drop, taste pollen in the air, hear songs of every bird and the rustle of every leaf. She moved to step away from the Mother Tree and toward the cave. From a faraway place she heard Kaide scream her name. She turned back to see Joran reaching for her in the darkness. He was locked arm in arm with Kaide who held Briera upright against his shoulder, while Amina propped up her other side. Dozens of elves gathered behind them, all clutched together with fearful, yet hopeful, faces.
Sheera’s hand floated back toward Joran’s. They locked fingers as they had before. She pulled him toward her, but his weight - the weight of them all - was too much to bear. The magical elven realm pulled her one direction, while the fate of her elven brethren pulled her another. She cried out against the pain, her fingers slipping from Joran’s grasp.
“I call on the white stag to set us free!” Sheera screamed, unsure if Joran, Kaide, and the others could hear her at all, but certain the stag was listening. “I call on you, white stag! Set us free!”
The light and warmth from the magical realm surrounded her. She used the magic within her to harness the light from the sacred realm, to use its power to open the door for her tribesmen and women. Sheera howled, harnessing the golden magic. The light poured through her, through her eyes and mouth, through her open wounds, and through her fingertips.
Joran’s hands were burning but he refused to let her go.
With a final roar, she grasped his forearm and wrenched him toward her. Her legs collapsed and she felt a great weight topple onto her. She couldn’t move.
She couldn’t breathe. The world around Sheera went dark.
VI
Wake up, Sheera. Her father’s voice echoed in her ears. Wake up.
The air around her was cool, damp. Sheera could hear the trickle of water. Her eyes fluttered open. She focused her vision on Joran’s face and then turned her head to see Kaide looming over her with concern.
“Father?” she croaked, her voice scratchy, her throat raw.
“Try not to talk,” Amina said, gently. She dabbed at Sheera’s face with a wet cloth.
Kaide dipped a cup into the pool beside them and urged Sheera to sip.
Instead, Sheera sat up. She focused her eyes on the opening of the cave where sunlight streamed in, cutting across the shadows.
There was a figure in the doorway. Translucent yet solid, celestial yet earthly. The figure turned in profile. The white stag.
“Wait,” Sheera said. “Wait, Father. Please don’t go.” She reached toward the light.
Amina and Kaide exchanged worried glances.
Joran gripped her hand tighter.
You have returned the elves to the motherland, Sheera of Diendae. You have united the tribes. The great stag bowed his head. Long live the wolf.
Tears tumbled down Sheera’s face as her father turned to leave her. She knew she was powerless to stop him.
As he turned away from the cave’s entrance, Sheera saw another figure move beside him. A doe, golden and beautiful. Her enormous brown eyes exuded love, and her long, strong body radiated warmth. The doe nuzzled her face into the stag’s powerful neck. The stag closed his eyes and rubbed his head against hers. He turned to give Sheera one backward glance before he stomped, reared up, and leapt forward into the dense Elven Forest, the doe fast on his heels.
Sheera placed her hand on the trunk of the tree. Her soft, pale skin was a hard contrast against the dark scales of the old fir. There was a time when the pinaceae trees on this ridge were revered as Mother Trees. They provided shelter, warmth, and medicine for generations of elven tribes.
The pinaceae were sacred, and consumed root to tip should one fall. Moreover, elders told tales of cleaning their teeth with cedar bark, mixing binding brews from fir resin, crafting torchieres from sap and scrap cloth, and chewing pine pitch for days in search of wisdom and enlightenment.
She turned her eyes toward the forest canopy, blinked and exhaled a measured breath. The energy in the woods seemed to slow at her will. She could see each leaf twist in the warm air, each twig bend to the soft breeze, each butterfly flap and birdwing flutter. Bold colors leapt out at her from the forest’s deep palette. The sleek cyan of the mountain bluebird, sunlight glinting off the violet-silver feathers of a swallow, an eagle’s majestic crown of white. And their melodies! A yellow warbler hopped as it sang a summer song. A blood-red cardinal chirruped, calling to his mate.
As the birds ascended the treetops, pine needles fluttered down from above. Sheera could hear a soft thud as each one landed on the earth – no, she could feel it. Tiny tremors stirred beneath her feet as the needles tumbled to the forest floor. Her skin hummed with the rhythm of the forest’s insects, both above and below. Cicadas sang and beetles scurried. Worms burrowed and wasps buzzed. Her lungs worked in tandem with the trees. She inhaled as they exhaled, two sides of the same breath.
Sheera had felt the magical effects of sacred water before, but not like this. Never like this.
She reached for the bulging waterskin at her hip. It was plump with the water she had sourced from the hidden cave. Her own tribe’s sacred pond was rapidly depleting. The alchemists and midwives had been using scant amounts for years, hoping to conserve what was left of the magical essence. The entire Diendae tribe had been desperately rationing their lifeblood, but Sheera knew time was running out for her people. She also knew their rivals to the south, the Altienna, would soon meet the same fate.
She had left her bow behind, beside the cave pool, and although the White Stag had warned her not to return at night, she had never been in a land so exhilarating. The creature that had charged her from the underbrush, the mystical illuminated cave, the White Stag himself! Their very existence told Sheera everything. The place she had entered after going widdershins around a Mother Tree confirmed her wildest hopes. None of the Elven belonged here, hiding in plain sight on the human plane. It was the only explanation. The Elven had once been cast out of their realm. And she alone knew the way back in.
However, now was not the time for fantastical adventures. Not even her bow was worth risking the sacred water she carried at her hip. She turned around toward the clearing, leaned back on her heel and sprang forward. In a flash she was bounding through the forest with the grace of a white-tailed doe and the speed of a brown hare. She zig-zagged around dense underbrush and leapt atop moss-covered boulders that had tumbled into the valley over the millennia.
As she neared the spot on the path where Alcon and his team of young hunters had found the human device that morning, she quieted her breath and made light her footsteps. She used what was left of the magic in her blood to steady her heartbeat, to make her hearing precise and her eyesight keen. She breathed in through her nose, scanning for a whiff of anything coming her way. She caught a hint of a scent, carried on the wind, and headed her direction. Kaide. Her mouth curled up into half a smile. She had beaten him back to the meeting point. Had she finally become lighter on her feet than the Diendae tribe’s chosen son?
Sheera crouched in the bushes. Kaide’s scent became thicker as he grew ever closer. Her eyes darted around the clearing. She was ready to seize upon the first movement that crossed her sightline. But before she could pounce, Kaide appeared behind her. He grabbed her tunic by the scruff and yanked her off the path.
“Where have you been,” he demanded with a growl as he tossed Sheera onto a leaf pile. She looked up from the forest floor. Sunbeams illuminated Kaide from behind. He pulled a large pack off his back and set it gently on the ground behind him. He stretched his spine into an arch and rolled his head from side to side, cracking his neck to the left and right. One of his bright blue eyes was nearly swollen shut and dried blood had dripped and caked from his ear down along his strong, chiseled jawline.
“Did you get in another tussle with a bighorn ram?” Sheera said with a snicker.
“This isn’t funny!” he shouted. He reached out a hand to help her off the ground. In his frustration he pulled too hard and she collided with his chest. He held her there a moment and gently brushed her hair from her face. “I thought I lost you,” he confessed.
“Kaide,” she began, shrugging out of his grip, “I wasn’t lost. Ask Briera. I didn’t even go very far.”
Briera, the Diendae tribe’s chieftainess would back Sheera up, and Kaide would have no choice but to listen. Not only was Briera his commanding officer. She was also his sister.
“Sheera,” he said, his eyes pleading, “I’ve been looking for you for days. I assumed the worst.” “Days?” she asked with genuine confusion. “Are you feeling alright?”
“Do you really not know?” Kaide looked astonished. “Sheera, listen to me.” He clutched her shoulders. “Altienna attacked. They came to Diendae looking for something. They set fire to the living quarters and the school, pillaged the medicine tent. Briera and the Council of Women escaped toward Bear Cave with the younglings. The hunters are scattered along the southern ridge where most of the tribe remains in hiding.”
“What of my father?” Sheera asked suddenly, the words stuck in her throat.
“Injured, but alive. Took an arrow in the back.”
“They shot him in the back? As he fled!?” Sheera was horrified.
“We all fled,” Kaide said, his voice grave. “The attack came before the dawn, as we slept. Many escaped into the forest, but not all were so lucky. Those who remained rallied in the woods and returned to fight. But we were too late. The village was in ruin.” Kaide sniffed hard and turned away from her. “Huntmaster Alcon is dead, Sheera.”
Sheera shook her head from side to side, trying to dislodge the images from her mind. She pressed her fingers to her temples and closed her eyes. The forest floor spun beneath her. She stumbled back toward a tree trunk and slid down to the ground.
This isn’t real. It’s an effect of the sacred water and the magic. This is all a hallucination. The sacred water… Her eyes snapped open.
“Where is my father now?” she said.
“The human’s abandoned mine, where Amina and the other midwives care for the injured. It is our meeting point.”
Sheera jumped up, wrapped her hand tightly around the strap of her waterskin, and turned to leave.
“Wait,” Kaide said, grabbing her wrist. “It’s not safe.”
“I can help them,” she said. “I will explain later, but now I must go.”
“No,” he said. “Sit down.”
“Kaide, please, there’s no time,” she protested. “That’s an order.”
Sheera exhaled in a huff and sat down on the log next to Kaide. “I found something,” she said in a near whisper. She handed him the waterskin. He popped off the cork and peered inside. A liquid silver swirl danced through the darkness.
“Is this what I think it is?” Kaide asked astonished, sniffing at the opening.
“Yes,” Sheera replied quietly. “Now, drink.”
Kaide took a small sip and handed it back, his eyes widening.
She tore off a shred of her tunic and wetted the cloth. She pressed it gently to the cut on Kaide’s scalp. The gash began to shrink before her eyes. “I have enough sacred water to treat our injured. And I know where to find more. We can give the Altiennans what they came looking for and finally have peace.”
“Sacred water isn’t what they were looking for,” Kaide said, his eyes fixed on the ground. “What else could they possibly want?” Sheera asked.
“This.”
Kaide threw open the top of the large rucksack he had been carrying. Wrapped tightly in a wool blanket was a sleeping human child.
II
The human boy slept so soundly; Sheera feared he had expired. She leaned close, held her hand in front of his face, hoping to feel his breath on her skin.
“I gave him a sleeping draught,” Kaide said. “Sweetclover water and belladonna.” “Belladonna is dangerous, Kaide!” Sheera reeled. “You are certain he is taking breath?”
“You aren’t the tribe’s only student of tonics.” Kaide replied with a half-smile, something he reserved only for the moments when he bested Sheera.
She was still kneeling on the ground next to the child. His cheeks were tear-stained and smudged with dirt. His rosebud-pink mouth chapped with sun-scorch. His fine hair, matted with mud, fell across his forehead in clumps. Long lashes fringed his closed eyes. His tiny hand clung tightly to the fringe of the woolen blanket. Sheera inhaled, taking in the child’s scent. Remnants of human soaps, sweat, earth, and… blood. Her eyes shot upward and met Kaide’s.
“Is the child injured?” she asked.
“What you smell is elven blood. Altiennan blood. In the battle for the boy, I severed an artery in the one they call Jai.” Kaide mimicked a backhanded slicing motion.
“Grandson to the Chief Altiennan Elder?” Sheera said in horror. “They will consider that a declaration of war.”
“They’ve already declared war!” Kaide spat. “Jai is lucky I didn’t take his head as a souvenir.” Kaide blew out a deep breath, letting his shoulders slouch. “In truth, his head was rather large, and I didn’t want to be burdened with the extra weight.” He rubbed at his eyes. Sheera looked up and met his gaze. His pupils had become dilated, like a wildcat searching for light during the darkest hours. The magic had taken hold.
“Tell me what you see,” she asked him quietly.
“I see a path to the old mineshaft. To your father and the rest of our wounded. The way forward has been illuminated.” Kaide reached his hand in front of his face. He swiped at air. “What magic is this?”
“It is the sacred water,” Sheera began, uncertain how to explain. “It was sourced from a cave. A cave outside of our realm.” She waited for Kaide’s reaction.
“How?” Kaide’s voice was gruff, low, and immediate.
“I-I turned widddershins, around a pinaceae tree.” Sheera held her hands in front of her, defensively, as Kaide advanced. “It was unintentional,” she said. Her upturned hands met his broad chest.
“A Mother Tree?” He whispered with urgency. “Did you meet a stag?” “Yes.” Sheera returned his whisper, eyes wide.
“Come,” he began, suddenly nervous. “We must head to the mine. Our own need saving, and we have the means.” He gestured to the waterskin at Sheera’s side. “Nothing else matters.”
“And what of the human child?” Sheera asked. “Does he matter?”
Kaide knelt beside his woolen pack. He tucked the blanket around the sleeping child, just enough to create a hood, shielding the boy both from view and the elements. Then he hoisted the pack onto his shoulders. “Aye,” he sighed, “the child matters.”
Kaide’s eyes scanned from east to west across the valley. “We must move quickly,” he said, “before I lose the magic.” His face spun toward hers, eyes locking. “Try to keep up.”
He gave Sheera a classic smirk, bouncing his eyebrows slightly. Sheera scoffed, but something fluttered in her chest, his playfulness catching her off guard. Before she got a chance to respond,
Kaide sprang forward on the balls of his feet without so much as a stir of dust, darting into the thick of the forest, flying like a whisper through the woods.
Sheera focused with a sharp inhalation of breath and dashed after him. She leapt over fallen logs, hollowed by the forest’s eternal cycle of flourish and decay. She glided around brambles, thick with new growth. Tangled vines reached high into the canopy, choking out sunlight, but Sheera never lost Kaide’s trail. It was a test - all things were as a Diendaen - and she had been studying since the days before her memory.
Kaide had been born under a full wolf moon. It was a rare event indeed to witness the winter solstice coincide with the moon at its fullest. It was as though the winter stars aligned to welcome a Diendae son. Such extraordinary births are the origins of elven legend. This event, however, was made rarer still by the arrival of a second Diendae babe that same eve; one arriving two moons earlier than the midwives had charted.
Sheera came onto this plane unexpectedly, in a gush of water and blood, the heels of her feet kicking free from her mother’s womb rather than the crown of her head. Her mother had not survived the bloody night, and Sheera, frail as a flyspeck, spent weeks teetering on the edge of this world and the next. Kaide’s own mother had acted as nursemaid, feeding Sheera from her breast and swaddling her within Kaide’s pelts for added heat. Sheera was born on Kaide’s heels, surviving in his warmth, chasing his light. And there she had steadily remained.
Now, Sheera’s eyes locked on every tell-tale marker of Kaide’s path, signs that would be lost on any other tracker. A snapped stem, a twisted twig, the slightest depression in the dirt. Sheera could see him, the shape his broad shoulders had left in the parting of leaves, the cuts his long legs had made through the underbrush. She sprinted after him for over nine lengths; what would have taken a human twelve thousand steps. Sheera saw Kaide ahead, peering over the cliff edge, focused on the abandoned mine below.
“The magic tells me to go forward,” he said without acknowledging her arrival, “straight down the ridge, and toward the hidden entrance.” Kaide had grown accustomed to his scathya, the elven word for shadow. He knelt on the cliff, “but my head tells me to expect an ambush, from there,” he pointed to the northern ridge. “Or there,” he gestured to the ravine’s opposite end. He had never before asked for Sheera’s advice, and in truth, he wasn’t asking now. Something in his eyes said he didn’t trust his own instincts. These last few unprecedented days had shaken him.
For the first time, Sheera could sense something new in Kaide - fear.
Before Sheera could weigh in, a flutter of birds from behind told them someone was on approach. Only another elf could be this far off the human trail. Kaide looked briefly over the edge of the ridge and stepped over the side. He landed deftly on a ledge below, skillfully balancing the extra weight in his pack. Sheera threw her moss-green cloak over her head and ducked into an impossibly small crouch, covering her scent within a tangle of wild spearmint.
“Kaide of Diendae!” a male shouted from the south.
Young. Altiennan. Sheera placed the tenor of his voice immediately.
Joran… Younger brother to Jai. No doubt seeking the human child. And revenge.
“I know you’re here,” Joran roared to the canopy. “I can smell my brother’s blood, still on your hands!”
Quarter length away … Sheera could feel the distance to his voice. Through her mind’s eye she envisioned the exact spot in the forest where the elf intruder stood. The air around him hummed and simmered with heat. She quieted her thoughts and stilled every fiber in her limbs. She waited for Joran to make his move.
The instant Joran jumped forward, Sheera pounced from her huddled stance. She intercepted him on the path. As their bodies collided, she drew her crescent blade. They tumbled forward, end over end, until coming to a stop at the cliff’s edge. Joran flat on his back, Sheera sitting on his chest, pressing her full weight into him, his head pinned by her knees, her knife at his throat. Sheera’s hair had tumbled loose from her braid. Her long auburn waves tickled Joran’s cheeks.
“Well, hello,” he said in a slippery, confident voice that matched his long, lean frame. “You must be Kaide’s wretched Diendaen scathya,” he smiled and cocked his head. “Forgive me for saying so, but you’re hardly the curse you’ve been made out to be.”
Sheera grunted and pressed her knife into his neck. A thin red line of blood popped to the surface of his skin. “P-please”, he stammered, “don’t take offense. I just mean if a beautiful elven woman like you, with fire in her eyes and thighs strong as bear traps, was always chasing after me, I would have stopped running long ago.” He exhaled a laugh, although Sheera couldn’t imagine what he found humorous about their current situation.
Sheera stared down at Joran, confused. Something stirred inside her. In the last ten seconds, this strange elf, whose grey-green eyes reminded Sheera of sunlight glinting off shale, had referred to her as both a beauty and a curse. No one had ever said anything so personal to her before.
Certainly not all at once.
“Don’t listen to him,” Kaide’s voice grunted beside her as he climbed back up the cliff, the child still strapped to his back. He hoisted himself back over the edge, sliding on his belly then pushing up to a full standing position. “Let him up,” he said to Sheera.
“He could be armed,” she cautioned, her legs still pinning him down with all the force she could muster.
“He’s shit with a blade,” Kaide said. “That silver tongue of his is the only dagger you’ve got to watch for.”
“Maybe I should cut it out then,” Sheera said, twisting her knife toward Joran’s mouth.
“Neither of us want that. Trust me,” he said, his eyes dancing. “You’d be doing a disservice to all womankind.” Sheera didn’t know what he meant, but a part of her wanted to know.
Kaide tapped Sheera on the shoulder and motioned for her to rise. She backed slowly off Joran. As she stood, he whispered up to her, “I miss you alread-,” until Kaide yanked him out of the moment by the front of his tunic. He pulled Joran skyward then planted him on his feet, hard. Joran dusted himself off and ran his long fingers through his dark hair.
The two elven men stood perfectly eye-to-eye. Kaide’s jaw was clenched, his gaze unflinching, set like stone. Joran returned the stare, tilting his chin and pursing his lips, laying down an unspoken challenge masquerading as playfulness. Both born in the winter of the same year, Joran was long-limbed, wiry, and lean, where Kaide was thick, broad-chested, and solid.
“I’m surprised to see the human is still alive.” It was Joran who spoke first. “Why take him out from under us if not to use him for yourself?” He cocked an eyebrow at Kaide, “Or are you waiting for big sister Briera to grant you permission?”
“The child is no longer your concern,” Kaide replied coolly, his hands tightening the straps across his chest. “Nor is my sister.”
“I have to disagree.” Joran stepped backward, pulling twin blades from their sheaths at his sides. “Thanks to your knifework, my brother will lose his arm without the sacred water that child provides. So, I will either take the child from you, or I’ll find your sister and take her arm as remuneration. A limb for a limb.”
“And what of my father?” Sheera demanded suddenly. “An elder with an arrow in his back! And our Huntmaster? He was killed when your tribe attacked mine as they slept.” She spat the last words. “An elf for an elf!” She held her blade high.
“The attack was unsanctioned,” Joran said quietly, standing down. “A rogue band of Altiennan went after the child. They did not have the Elder Council’s blessing. They believe the time of the prophecy is upon us.”
“Your excuses do not bring back our dead or heal our wounded,” Kaide’s voice grew grave. “And the child is not what you think,” he cautioned. “We’ve misunderstood the prophecy.”
Prophecy...? Sheera’s eyes darted toward Kaide. She narrowed her gaze, hoping to glean the information from Kaide’s eyes. What prophecy?
“I think I understand it as well as you do.” Joran’s voice had lowered into a growl. He spun one of the knives across his palm, caught the grip and held it tightly. Sheera could see his knuckles whiten, the blue veins and sinewy tendons popping under his ivory skin.
Kaide sighed, “Surely you don’t think you can best us both?” He motioned to Sheera who had already crouched into a lunge behind him. “You’ll meet a worse fate than your brother.”
“You have four stones of human weight strapped to your back, and your prize archer seems to be missing her bow,” he said, and shrugged. “I like my chances.”
Before the smirk left Joran’s face, Sheera had already left the ground. As she leapt toward Joran, she jerked hard on a hanging vine. The long, tightly wound stalk crashed to the forest floor, bringing a with it the thick branch of ancient birch. It landed behind Joran, blocking his path of retreat over the cliff. Sheera quickly knotted the vine into a bola and whipped it precisely around Joran’s wrists. The weighted ends tightened and squeezed as his knives clattered to the ground.
“She’s very handy,” Kaide said to Joran as he picked up the discarded knives.
“I’ll say.” Joran pulled against the wrist restraints which only seemed to grow tighter as he struggled.
“You would let him live?” Sheera asked, shocked by Kaide’s mercy.
“Aye,” Kaide replied with a sniff. “We will need him.”
“To what end?” Sheera demanded in a harsh whisper.
“To return the child.” Kaide readjusted his pack as the child stirred, like an animal in the throes of a dream.
III
Kaide led the way down the rocky ravine toward the mine. The magic was no longer with him, and they couldn’t spare more sacred water. Instead, he recreated the path from the memory of his mind’s eye. They skidded carefully down the steep embankment, grabbing at tree roots, and gripping the rock shelf for leverage, deerskin boots protecting their feet from the razor-sharp rock.
With his wrists still bound in the bola, Joran slid and stumbled awkwardly, leaving Sheera to spot him from behind. It was hard enough keeping herself upright, and nearly impossible to guide a much larger, much lankier elf down the side of a steep ravine.
“As much as I enjoy colliding with you every few feet, perhaps you could untie my hands?” Joran said, tripping into her arms again. “It would make things much easier for both of us.”
“I’ll think about it,” Sheera said with a shove, “if you tell me about the prophecy.”
“Surely you’ve heard of the wolf and the white stag? It is the stuff of elven lore!” Joran looked at her, incredulous. His eyes sparkled with amusement.
“Of course, I have,” Sheera lied. “I’m asking what you think it means.”
“So, you’ve not heard it then.” Joran smiled knowingly and Sheera blushed. For an elf with such ferocity, her innocence and naivete surprised him. “It is said that the way back to the elven realm, and away from the human plane, lies within the prophecy.” Joran cleared his throat and lowered his voice. The gray of his eyes grew darker as he whispered the words…
“A wolf will arrive on the darkest of nights
Turning widdershins 'round the Mother Tree
Spilling sacrificial, innocent blood
Before the white stag will set them free.”
Sheera felt the color drain from her face. Widdershins? The white stag? She looked toward Kaide, the human child still asleep on his back, his innocent eyes closed, his round face peaceful. And then Sheera knew.
Innocent blood… No!
They meant to kill the child to open the door to the elven realm. A door she had already walked through. She looked down at her hands. They were shaking. Her body began to shudder. Her teeth clacked together.
“Sheera,” Joran called to her, but her mind was far away. She thought of the mother tree, the ancient pinaceae that she had turned widdershins around, its rough bark and wide trunk. She thought of the white stag and the flowing silver pool of sacred water. But how had Sheera entered without a blood sacrifice? And where was the wolf? Perhaps Kaide was right. The prophecy was at best misleading, and at worst, apocryphal.
“Sheera!” Joran said again. His wrists were still tied, and he cupped her face in his hands.
“Do not touch her!” Kaide yelled suddenly. He tossed Joran aside like a sack of grain. He carefully propped Sheera up against the ravine. Rocks dug into her back, but she was following the stag’s voice, backward around the pinaceae, toward the mystical cave. Kaide pulled the waterskin from Sheera’s side, and tenderly tipped a few drops of sacred water onto her lips.
Joran’s eyes widened. “Is that what I think it is?” he asked, struggling to get a better look. When Kaide didn’t answer that question, Joran asked another. “Where did you get it?”
Kaide’s eyes did not stray from Sheera. He swiped his hand across her brow, whispering for her to wake.
Joran concluded the truth all on his own. “You’ve already found the elven realm.”
“I haven’t found anything,” Kaide said. Then he conceded, “Sheera did.”
Her eyes fluttered open. She licked her lips, tasting the drops of sacred water. Her mouth tingled with the magic. Pebbles and dirt skittered down the hill as Joran scrambled closer. The shape of him cut through the sunset.
“How?” Joran said from above her.
“I-I turned widdershins,” she started, embarrassed that both Joran and Kaide were peering over her. “I don’t know how it happened.” She sat up suddenly, brushing herself off.
“How did you get there? What did you see?” Joran asked, his tone demanding.
“Not here,” Kaide interrupted, looking up at the clifftops, suddenly aware of how exposed they were. Kaide lifted Sheera to her feet. He turned to Joran, untied his wrists and said, “Don’t make me regret this.” Kaide walked toward the loose pile of boulders that obscured the old mine’s entrance. Sheera followed on shaky legs. Joran hesitated and looked up the ridge. He could run, find his way back to Altienna, or he could follow his Diendae rivals deep inside the mountain’s cracks and crags.
Sheera turned back and saw Joran looking at the ravine, conflicted. If she were in his shoes, her instincts would tell her to run home, fast and light, back to her tribe.
When Joran turned his head, Sheera’s amber eyes were fixed on him with intensity. He laughed with resignation, hung his head, and put one foot in front of the other until he reached her. When he looked up again her face had softened.
“You’re doing the right thing,” she said gently.
He only smiled and said, “After you.”
IV
The trio carefully made their way into the mine. They crept through the tight passages until the shaft opened into an underground clearing. What was once a small hub for the indoor mining trains had become a bunker for the injured and displaced members of the Diendae tribe.
Kaide was up ahead, speaking to Briera and Amina the midwife. He turned and gestured for Sheera to join them. She clutched her waterskin, gingerly stepping around the wounded. Mothers with children, elders, still in their sleeping tunics caked with blood and dirt. Sheera swallowed her grief and blinked back her tears. She scanned the small crowd for her father, but her eyes did not fall on him. She turned to look at Joran. His face slack and pale, sickened by the havoc his tribesmen had wrought on their peaceful neighbors. Briera saw them approach. Her eyes narrowed on Joran. She stepped forward and drew her blade.
“Joran of Altienna! You will answer for the crimes of your tribe!” Her shout echoed off the cave walls as she stomped toward them.
“Stop!” Sheera stepped between them.
“May I remind you who is Chieftainess of this tribe? You don’t give me orders, Sheera,” Briera said with teeth clenched. “Out of my way!” Briera advanced, and Sheera held up her arms to shield Joran from the blow.
“Briera! Sheath your blade!” A gruff voice boomed from across the cavern.
Father! A sob of relief escaped Sheera’s throat.
His back bent over a cane, bandages wrapped around his torso, Sherrod the Elder stepped from the shadows. He made his way slowly toward his daughter. To Briera he said, “Your people have seen enough violence. This is a place of healing.”
Briera clenched her jaw and nodded. She slid her blade in place and stepped aside.
“Daughter,” he said to Sheera, taking both her hands into his and squeezing. “I thought I lost you.” His eyes sparkled with tears of joy. “You’d better have a damn good reason for bringing him here,” he said, gesturing to Joran. Sherrod locked his arm in Sheera’s and shuffled ahead, waving his fingers for the others to follow.
They stood inside a small alcove. Sheera told the story of the Mother Tree, the stag, and the cavepool. She handed her waterskin to Amina, and after sharing with Sherrod, the midwife hastily began administering the sacred water to the injured.
“Sherrod, we need to discuss the prophecy,” Kaide said. “If Sheera is able to enter the realm without a blood sacrifice, then perhaps we don’t need the child.” He gestured to the boy, now free from the swaddled pack, asleep on a pile of soft pelts.
“Aye, perhaps,” said Sherrod, “but I won’t risk my own daughter.” He rubbed a hand along his jawline, itching at the white stubble. “We go forward as planned, using the child to enter the realm. Surely the humans won’t miss it.”
“He will be missed.” Joran spoke now from the alcove’s far edge. “His human mother will certainly grieve for him, as much as we would grieve any elfling.”
“How do you know?” Sheera asked.
“It was I who took him from her,” Joran said, and looked at Kaide.
“It’s true,” Kaide admitted. “During the last moon, Joran and I planned to take a child from Joran’s human acquaintance. Jai learned of the plan and came for me.” Kaide voice cracked as he thought of the injured Diendae, lying just outside earshot. “For all of us.”
Joran spoke next, choosing his words carefully. “There is a very small but vocal sect of Altiennans, my brother their leader. They plotted the attack on Diendae, a plan to retrieve the child. The elder council refused to sanction it,” Joran stressed. He bent down and spoke directly to Sherrod, “We seek peace. We want to return to our realm before the sacred ponds run dry, and we want you to join us as allies, not adversaries.”
“You dare say this as our own lay dying on the floor of this cave, hiding like animals from the rogue tribesmen that your council cannot control?!” Sherrod raised himself to full height, his voice escalating, the effects of the sacred water making him strong again, powerful again. “Kaide!” Sherrod shouted, “tonight you will take the child above ground, tie him to a Mother Tree, spill his blood and turn widdershins. You are the wolf, Kaide of Diendae! You will open the realm and free us from the curse of the human plane.”
“Father, no!” Sheera shouted in horror.
“Sheera.” Sherrod turned to his daughter. “You will remain here with Amina, caring for the injured. Briera will accompany Kaide to the Mother Tree. Once the realm is open, the Chieftainess will come for us. As for the Altiennan,” Sherrod said, and turned to Joran, eyeing him with disdain, “he will meet the same fate as Huntmaster Alcorn. An elf for an elf!”
Joran opened his mouth to protest, but Briera took a step toward him. “An elf for an elf,” she said with a menacing smile.
“Father,” Sheera pleaded. She ran in front of him and fell to her knees. “I made it inside the elven realm once. Let me try again. Please, spare the human and Joran. If I can open the realm there will be no need for bloodshed.”
“Blood has already been shed, my daughter.” Her father patted her on the head. “Bid Kaide farewell, and assure him you’ll be waiting upon his return. One day you’ll be wife to The Great Elven Wolf, Kaide of Diendae! For now, you must take your position as a caregiver. You are not a warrior, Sheera.” Sherrod touched her cheek and shuffled away. She was mortified, afraid to face her peers.
Wife of the Great Wolf? Kaide? Whom I loved as a brother for all my years? No.
Sheera spun to face Briera. “You will not hurt this child,” she said, her voice even. “And Joran is not your prisoner.” She reached over and linked her fingers with his, no one more surprised at this act than Sheera herself.
Briera snorted with laughter. “As I said, Sheera, you don’t give me orders.” Briera stepped between Sheera and Joran, shoving him away. Their arms stretched; fingers linked until the distance grew too great.
Kaide’s mouth hung slightly opened, surprised at Sheera’s sudden affection for Joran. He held up a hand. “I know what you’re going to say, but we cannot go against the Elder.”
“And you’ll bleed this poor child at my father’s command, even though he is weak with injury and drunk with sacred water?” Sheera gestured to the sleeping boy.
“It is why the child is here,” Kaide said, resigned. “The deed is upon me, Sheera. It is not something I asked for. But it is the only way.”
“Before today I would have agreed, but I have been to the elven realm, Kaide. The stag, he still speaks to me. I can hear him. I can see him.” Then she said something she never thought she would say, “My father is not the future of our tribe. The Diendaen Elders, the Altiennan Elders - they are not the future of elvenkind.” Sheera wrapped her hands around Kaide’s shoulders, making him listen. Her amber eyes stared into his, deep and crystalline blue. “If we are to lead, then they must follow.”
Kaide pulled her forward and held her to his chest, enveloping her with his arms. He buried his face in her hair and inhaled deeply, then squeezed shut his eyes and kissed the top of her head.
“You have never been my scathya.” He tucked her hair behind her ear, and whispered, “All along, you’ve been the wolf.”
V
Sheera didn’t have time to respond to Kaide’s gesture. She was already in motion. She bent near the child and tied one of the long fur pelts around her body like a sling. Sheera slid the sleeping child expertly into the pelt, securing him to her hip. The child stirred slightly, then pressed himself into Sheera’s chest. She threw her tunic over her head to further conceal the boy.
She turned to Kaide. “I will free Joran and the child.”
“And what shall I tell Briera?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Remember when Briera hid biting mites in your bedclothes? Or stuffed a nest of weevils into my woolen cap?” Sheera asked. “Perhaps it is time for our Chieftainess to take a long nap.”
Kaide pulled a small vial out of his pack. “Sweetclover water and belladonna,” he said, a smirk spreading across his face.
Back in the hub, the injured Diendae were on the mend, a testament to the power of the water. They were talking in hushed voices, eating bread crusts, sipping venison bone broth with wild herbs. The elixir had given them all a renewed vigor. Sheera spotted Briera, drinking from a wooden cup, Kaide standing next to her. His gaze cut across the crowded tunnel and locked on hers. He tipped his cup in her direction.
Sheera nodded in return and scanned the room until her eyes landed on Joran. His wrists still bound, he sat on the dirt, leaning his back against an ancient overturned minecart. She moved quickly through the crowd; the child hidden beneath her tunic. She joined Joran on the outskirts of the gathering. Sheera sidled down next to him and pulled a knife from her boot. She used the crescent blade to cut through Joran’s wrist cuffs before she led him into the shadows. She reached under her tunic and revealed the child.
“Take him to his mother,” Sheera said, transferring the boy into Joran’s arms. He looked toward Briera, sitting upright on her bedroll, fully clothed, chin resting on her chest, snoring comically. His eyes widened with shock and respect. Sheera continued, “If your tribe truly wants peace, lead them to the grandest pinaceae on the southern ridge. I will go widdershins when the moon is at its highest. When the realm opens, lead them inside.”
She knotted the sling tight around Joran and cocked her head toward the doorway, urging him to go. He nodded, then turned back to face her. “What exactly does it look like when a realm opens?” he said with half a grin. “I assume it won’t be subtle. Some type of light show, perhaps? Rainbows and fireworks?”
Sheera exhaled a small laugh, grateful for the break in tension. But before she could open her mouth to say as much, Joran leaned down and pressed his lips against hers. Shocked, Sheera’s eyes shot open, but in the next instant she surrendered, and she returned Joran’s kiss. In that quiet moment, his confidence and tenderness gave her respite. He emboldened and assured her. He quelled her fears. When he broke away she desperately wanted more.
“When the moon is at its highest,” he said caressing her face, repeating her instructions, strengthening her resolve. She watched him until his shadow disappeared down the mine’s dark, narrow corridor.
Sheera looked around the gaping room, hoping no one saw their embrace. The full stomachs and sacred water had changed the mood in the cavern. Close conversation, and even some soft laughter, was echoing underground. As her eyes scanned the gathering, they locked on Kaide’s, and Sheera knew he had seen everything. He turned his back, and began speaking quietly to Amina. Anything Sheera needed to say to Kaide could wait. She sought out someone else instead.
Sherrod sat on a rickety human chair, left behind a century ago. He was wrapped in a woolen blanket, his cane leaning against the chair’s rotting arm. The color had returned to his cheeks, and magic danced in his wizened eyes.
“Father,” Sheera said as she approached and knelt beside him.
“Ah, daughter,” he said, reaching down and stroking her hair, marveling at the deep reds and glittering golds in her long strands. “I can take a full breath for the first time since the attack.” A smile spread across his face. “Thank you,” he said. “The water of life returned me from the edge of death.”
“Don’t you want to know how I found the water, father?” Sheera asked, her curiosity genuine.
“I already know, my dear,” said Sherrod, his eyes glistening. “It is time I told you the truth.”
“What truth is that?” she asked.
“The truth about who you are. I can’t protect you any longer.” Sherrod took a long sip from his cup, leaned toward his daughter and said, “You, Sheera of Diendae, were born early, and under the wolf moon. It was you who turned widdershins 'round your mother in the womb, shedding her innocent blood.” Tears spilled over his sunken eyes. “Amina couldn’t save you both. Only one of you could live.” He sobbed into his gnarled hands. “I sacrificed her to save you.”
Sheera put her hand over her mouth and stumbled backward. She felt as if her knees might buckle. Kaide appeared suddenly at her side. His presence gave her enough strength to remain on her feet.
“Father,” she finally said. “I am proud to be Diendae, and prouder still to be your daughter.” Sheera knelt and wrapped her hands around his. “You set me on this path, and now you must trust me to walk it.”
Sheera stood and turned to Kaide. “Gather the Diendae. We will fulfill the prophecy at midnight around the largest Mother Tree on the southern ridge.”
Kaide nodded, placed a hand on Sherrod’s shoulder, and left the alcove.
Kaide and Amina slowly gathered the tribe as the moon moved toward the midnight position. They huddled just inside the old mine, waiting at the entrance. As Sheera walked through, the crowd parted. Some clung to the wall, afraid of her power. Others reached out and laid their hands on her, hoping to touch the magic she held within. As she reached the threshold, she turned to look back at her father. He tore a piece of cloth from his tunic, wrapped it around the end of his walking stick, and lit the cloth with the flame from his lantern. He passed it to Kaide who handed the torch to Sheera. She blinked back her tears, nodded, and without a word of goodbye, slipped down the dark mine tunnel and into the night.
Her eyes scanned the southern ridge. The tallest pine stood at the very center. Its branches peeked above all others, nearly touching the stars. She scaled the ravine’s wall, pulling herself skyward on ancient roots and strong summer vines. As she approached the giant Mother Tree, the moonlight was swept away by cloud cover. Rather than waiting for her eyes to adjust, Sheera closed them, letting the magic guide her.
As she reached the tree, she pressed her hand to the bark and felt a familiar sensation in her fingertips. She walked gently, taking purposeful steps, slowly turning widdershins around the monstrous trunk. Before her foot reached the spot where she had started, she inhaled the earth and pine, and something else.
She turned her head sharply and found herself face to face with Jai of Altienna, Joran’s older brother. His left arm was a bandaged stump. His right hand shot up, tightening around Sheera’s neck, squeezing the breath from her throat.
“Give me the child,” Jai said through gritted teeth, squeezing tighter.
“I -I..” Sheera clawed at his hand, gasping. Her eyes bulged. She lifted her cold, extinguished torchier, and thumped it hard against his severed arm. Jai howled and stumbled backward. With a throaty rasp, she said, “I will give you nothing.” She drew the crescent blade from her boot. “What I will do,” she said, twisting the carved wooden grip into the crux of her hand, “is finish what Kaide started.” Sheera advanced, swiftly slicing her blade through the air between them.
Jai pushed himself up, letting his butchered arm hang at his side. He reached over his shoulder and pulled a thick wooden cudgel from his pack. The handle had been whittled to match his grip, the other end adorned with shards of human-made metal.
Sheera shuffled back, dodging behind the Mother Tree. Jai stomped toward her, swinging wildly, raining down a thick shower of dislodged bark and broken twig. He leapt toward Sheera, club raised overhead, ready to strike. She dove low, skidding around him, slicing across his abdominal muscles before bounding back to her feet. Jai shrieked like a wounded animal.
Clutching at his midsection, he fell backward against an outcrop of mossy rock. He gaped down at the blood oozing from between his fingers. Sheera stayed back and on her guard. Slowly, Jai’s breath waned. His eyes glassed over and his hand slumped down to the earth.
“May your spirit be forever tortured and tormented in the under realm.” Sheera spat and kicked dirt over Jai’s body. “An elf for an elf.”
She heard a low whistle from the east – Kaide. She turned her head his direction. She could just make out his shape in the shadows. The tribe was behind him, crouching among the thick groves. Another low whistle, this one from the west. It could only be Joran. She pursed her lips and whistled back, remembering Joran’s mouth pressed against hers.
She could hear a rustle behind her as Kaide led the Diendae her direction. She stepped over Jai’s lifeless legs and reached out for the Mother Tree. As her hand touched the bark, she could see Joran coming into view on the other side of the enormous trunk. The sling was empty. The child had been returned home. A spark danced in Joran’s eyes and she could almost feel his warmth. Her hand reached for his. Their fingers brushed.
Sheera was suddenly jerked backward. Jai, bloodied and dying, pulled himself up behind her. He had slipped the crescent blade from her boot, and he now held it flush against her throat. He stepped backward away from his brother. In a flash, Joran pulled his longsword. He leveled it against his forearm, circling the massive trunk, waiting for that infinitesimal opportunity to best his brother without injuring Sheera.
Jai held Sheera by the jaw so that his mouth was pressed against her ear. “Tell me, brother?” Jai said. “Will you kill me to keep the peace, even if it means murdering this innocent, albeit wretched, girl?” Jai sneered at Sheera, pressing the blade harder against her skin. A trickle of blood ran down her neck, disappearing beneath her tunic.
Joran’s pained expression gave him away. He could not harm her. He would not. As he begun to lower his blade, Sheera lunged forward. She grabbed the razor-sharp longsword with her bare hands and thrust it forward deep into the meat and muscle under her own collarbone. She screamed in agony. Joran stood mouth agape and wide-eyed. Then he did the only thing he could do. He pushed the blade in further.
Joran’s sword slid out from above Sheera’s shoulder blade directly into his brother’s chest. With one final push, Joran broke through his brother’s bone and pierced his heart. Jai’s blood and breath gurgled in his throat. His limbs went slack.
Joran exhaled. He pulled back on the blade just enough to let his brother’s body slump to the ground. He looked Sheera in the eye. The pain was pushing her toward unconsciousness, but he would not let her slip away. The odds were too great that she would never wake. “Sheera,” he said, shaking her. “Sheera!”
Kaide came crashing through the brush looking down in horror. He flung Joran backward against a neighboring tree trunk, knocking the breath from him. He looked over the longsword, still protruding from Sheera’s clavicle.
As Joran clambered to his feet, he said, “We’ll have to remove it.”
“I know,” Kaide concurred, his jaw set.
Amina appeared behind them, torn tunic cloth and a waterskin in hand. “I will hold her,” Kaide said to Joran. “You pull.”
“Perhaps I should hold her, while you pull?” Joran asked hopefully, one eyebrow raised.
“I’m not the one who stabbed her.” Kaide countered.
“Technically, she stabbed herself. I’m just as surprised as you are, really.” Joran shrugged.
Amina stepped up quickly beside Kaide. She gave Joran a once-over, then instructed him. “We will hold her. You pull.”
Joran nodded, and Kaide looked up, awaiting instructions.
“Now!” Amina commanded.
Joran pulled hard on the sword while Kaide held her down.
Sheera screamed while the blade was extracted.
Quickly, Amina and Kaide pressed the rags, soaked in sacred water, deep into Sheera’s wounds.
Her eyes fluttered and her body shook. The pain was searing. Sheera closed her eyes, letting the magic take her away. She sensed her father was nearby. She could feel it as he approached from deep in the woods, floating somehow, over the brush and detritus. She turned to face him, if only in her mind’s eye.
“Father,” she said, and blinked his direction, but it wasn’t Sherrod who stepped forward from the foggy forest. It was the stag, glowing an otherworldly white. He bowed his head her direction.
Sheera, I’m so glad you came back. You forgot your bow, child. No matter, he chuckled, his eyes dancing. You’ll have it soon enough. It is time to return.
“But the child,” she said, “The blood...”
The innocent blood you shed today was your own. Turn widdershins, Sheera, he urged. Turn.
Sheera blinked toward the stag. She reached for him as he retreated further from view. Soon all trace of him was gone. She could no longer feel his warmth, only the hard cold ground, and the pain emanating from her wounds. Her tunic was sticky with blood. “Where is my father?” she asked Kaide.
“He is no longer with us, Sheera.” Tears pooled in Kaide’s eyes, though he did not let them spill. “Sherrod drank the belladonna tonic.”
“No,” Sheera whispered.
“He left you this.” Kaide handed her a crumpled piece of parchment. A message was scrawled across it in her father’s hand.
The white stag can set them free.
Sheera pressed herself up from the forest floor. Kaide and Joran both reached down to help her regain her footing. Her hand reached toward the Mother Tree. She let herself fall against it, her blood smearing across the bark. She took one slow purposeful step. Then another. Turning widdershins as she walked, she could feel the elves behind her, both Diendae and Altienna, holding their collective breath.
As she completed the turn around the tree, she could feel the forest grow cooler, calmer, lighter, quieter. She looked ahead and recognized the entrance to the sacred cave, just beyond an overgrowth of thick brush. She could again smell every dew drop, taste pollen in the air, hear songs of every bird and the rustle of every leaf. She moved to step away from the Mother Tree and toward the cave. From a faraway place she heard Kaide scream her name. She turned back to see Joran reaching for her in the darkness. He was locked arm in arm with Kaide who held Briera upright against his shoulder, while Amina propped up her other side. Dozens of elves gathered behind them, all clutched together with fearful, yet hopeful, faces.
Sheera’s hand floated back toward Joran’s. They locked fingers as they had before. She pulled him toward her, but his weight - the weight of them all - was too much to bear. The magical elven realm pulled her one direction, while the fate of her elven brethren pulled her another. She cried out against the pain, her fingers slipping from Joran’s grasp.
“I call on the white stag to set us free!” Sheera screamed, unsure if Joran, Kaide, and the others could hear her at all, but certain the stag was listening. “I call on you, white stag! Set us free!”
The light and warmth from the magical realm surrounded her. She used the magic within her to harness the light from the sacred realm, to use its power to open the door for her tribesmen and women. Sheera howled, harnessing the golden magic. The light poured through her, through her eyes and mouth, through her open wounds, and through her fingertips.
Joran’s hands were burning but he refused to let her go.
With a final roar, she grasped his forearm and wrenched him toward her. Her legs collapsed and she felt a great weight topple onto her. She couldn’t move.
She couldn’t breathe. The world around Sheera went dark.
VI
Wake up, Sheera. Her father’s voice echoed in her ears. Wake up.
The air around her was cool, damp. Sheera could hear the trickle of water. Her eyes fluttered open. She focused her vision on Joran’s face and then turned her head to see Kaide looming over her with concern.
“Father?” she croaked, her voice scratchy, her throat raw.
“Try not to talk,” Amina said, gently. She dabbed at Sheera’s face with a wet cloth.
Kaide dipped a cup into the pool beside them and urged Sheera to sip.
Instead, Sheera sat up. She focused her eyes on the opening of the cave where sunlight streamed in, cutting across the shadows.
There was a figure in the doorway. Translucent yet solid, celestial yet earthly. The figure turned in profile. The white stag.
“Wait,” Sheera said. “Wait, Father. Please don’t go.” She reached toward the light.
Amina and Kaide exchanged worried glances.
Joran gripped her hand tighter.
You have returned the elves to the motherland, Sheera of Diendae. You have united the tribes. The great stag bowed his head. Long live the wolf.
Tears tumbled down Sheera’s face as her father turned to leave her. She knew she was powerless to stop him.
As he turned away from the cave’s entrance, Sheera saw another figure move beside him. A doe, golden and beautiful. Her enormous brown eyes exuded love, and her long, strong body radiated warmth. The doe nuzzled her face into the stag’s powerful neck. The stag closed his eyes and rubbed his head against hers. He turned to give Sheera one backward glance before he stomped, reared up, and leapt forward into the dense Elven Forest, the doe fast on his heels.
Sarah Mannheimer worked for over a decade in the publishing industry as both an editor and an agent. She studied creative writing at the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop and is a member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. She currently lives in Iowa City with her family.
Artist Raquel Nixon is an artist and Illustrator based in Ogden Utah. Working primarily with pen and ink, watercolor, marker, and digital media, she creates art to emphasize her own emotions, interests, and ideas. An admirer of so many art forms and a creative at heart, she draws inspiration from all sorts of media and aims to recreate and establish her own artistic perspective on that which inspires her.