Twilight of the Elves by Zack Loran Clark & Nick Eliopulos

Author:Zack Loran Clark & Nick Eliopulos
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Disney Book Group
Published: 2018-12-07T16:00:00+00:00

Brock was shivering and miserable by the time Lotte was satisfied they’d put enough distance between them and the swarm. The light was fading, and a deeper chill was settling in for the night.

“Let’s rest for a while,” she said, peering at her compass in the low light. “Girls, gather some wood. Jett, get a fire going. Brock . . . pants would be good.”

“Oh, thank you,” he said, pulling off his pack.

Fel was somehow just as energetic as she’d been at the long day’s start. By the time Brock had laced up his trousers, she had already dropped a small pile of branches at Jett’s feet.

“Ah . . .” the dwarf said. “About my assignment . . .”

“Yes?” Lotte said curtly.

“Well, Zed normally does this bit. You know, with the . . .” He waggled his fingers at the pile of sticks.

Lotte huffed. “You kids rely entirely too much on magic. Fel, can you start the fire, please?”

“Yes! On it!” Fel said joyously, rushing back with another armful of branches. She set to work with flint she pulled from her belt.

“Why aren’t there more mages in the guild?” Liza asked.

“Frond does recruit them,” Lotte answered, dropping onto one of the small logs Liza had set in a circle around the pile of kindling. “But they tend not to last as long as the fighters.”

“No kidding,” Brock growled. He dabbed at his fresh cuts with a minty salve.

“It’s the healers we’ve really coveted, though. To have an actual healer in our ranks, on journeys with us, instead of having to carry the wounded back to town—it’s only been a month or two and Micah’s been a huge boon already.”

“What’s that mean? Boon?” Fel asked, stoking her small fire.

Brock, Liza, and Jett all spoke over one another in their rush to answer.

“Half-wit!”

“Menace!”

“Rock eater!”

“It means he’s been helpful,” Lotte insisted. “Imagine if we had ten of him.”

“There’s no reason to be cruel,” Brock said. He patted Liza’s shoulder, and she pretended to pull her hair out.

“Anyway,” Lotte said, passing around a small satchel of cured meat. “Maybe now that Pollux is in charge, we can use the draft to enlist more healers in the future. Even Frond didn’t care to cross the Luminous Mother.”

“Really?” Jett stroked his chin. “I didn’t think Frond was afraid of anybody.”

“I don’t know that it was fear, precisely,” Lotte said. “But Frond would do anything for the guild. Sometimes that means playing politics.”

“Right,” Brock said. “That Frond, so politically savvy.”

“It’s a fine art,” Lotte said pointedly. “Pushing back just enough. Knowing the difference between a line you can cross and one you can’t.”

Jett leaned over to Brock. “I think she’s talking about you,” he whispered loudly.

“I’m sorry, but . . .” Brock glanced to his left and right, looking for support from his friends, some sign they were thinking what he was thinking. They only looked back curiously. “Is no one else going to say it? You’re talking about the draft, about . . . abducting people from their lives.

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