Wren Ashvale's Arc

Chapter 8 of 8

The vows still hung in the shrine air when Wren and Alora rode back to the castle. Wren kept his hand on the rail and watched the treeline. Dax never came. That was the trouble. The man had watched the wedding and walked off into the swamp, unbeaten in his own mind. At the castle gate a servant caught Wren's sleeve. Word had come from Elmwood, she said. The beaten lord was there. He was telling the people the marriage was a fraud, and they were listening. Wren found Elderwen Starwhisper in the throne room. The elder fae stood small beneath the high elmwood beams, flowers still in her silver hair, but her face had gone hard. She had called the truth-sprite before this court once and broken Dax with it. Now she frowned at a scrap of bark a messenger had carried in. "He claims you forced the rite," she said. "That the princess never chose. Elmwood believes a lord of their own blood over a foreign man." She looked up at Wren. "A lie spreads faster than a marriage." "Then send the truth after it," Wren said. Alora stepped forward. "I go to Elmwood. I say it myself." "Words against words," Wren said. "He has done that before. We need proof they cannot argue with." He turned to Elderwen. "The sprite. Bring it to Elmwood. Let it read us both in front of the people he stirred." Elderwen's mouth thinned. "If it names you false, you die there. No court will save you." "It won't," Alora said. She did not raise her voice. "He is honest. The sprite knows it." They rode to Elmwood by dusk. The square was full and angry. Dax stood on the well steps in his clean white coat, wildflowers pushing up between the paving stones under his boots. He was mid-speech, one hand raised, and the crowd hung on it. Then he saw Wren, and the hand fell. Elderwen set the court sprite on the well's edge. The small creature stretched its bright wings and turned its keen eyes on the crowd. Its scales caught the last light. "It glows near an honest heart," Elderwen told them all. "It dims near a false one. Ask what you like." "Did I force the princess?" Wren said. "No," said Alora. "I chose him." The sprite flared bright between them, a clean white light. The crowd drew back. Elderwen pointed it at Dax. "Now speak, lord." Dax's mouth opened. The sprite dimmed to nothing at his feet. He said one word and it went darker still. The crowd saw. A murmur rose, then turned. Hands reached for him. Dax looked at Wren, and there was no plan left in his face, only hate. He fled the square on foot into the marsh. The people of Elmwood did not follow him. They turned to Alora instead and bowed. The lie was dead. But Dax was loose in the swamp again, exposed, ruined, and with nothing left to lose.