Tales of Fire and Ruin - Chapter 33: Chapter 33

While we were still within queen Idonia's earshot, Oleander answered my questions with a finger pressed to his lips. Then he slipped past me to take the lead while we traveled through his homeland. He effortlessly traversed overgrown passages and led me down dark, well-hidden tunnels. The kind you would miss if you didn't already know they were there. After a few moments I was already so disoriented I was convinced that even if the queen's soldiers showed up now, there was no way they or queen Idonia would be able to find us.
As Oleander and I went deeper into the heart of the Starcross woods, feelings of doubt started setting in. I second-guessed myself, questioning if I had been too rash in my need to do the right thing for the elves trapped in the mountains. I told the queen I wasn't acting as the Montbow heir today, but she could well ignore my words and punish my family, regardless.
Oleander had also already double-crossed me once. Who was to say he wasn't taking advantage of me having a weak spot for him to deceive me again? And if he was, in fact, lying, was I strong enough to strike him down and bring him back to the queen? I honestly didn't know.
While I brooded, Oleander brought me into another clearing. A field filled with fragrant yellow, orange, pink, and purple flowers. A large, weathered rock sat in the middle of the flowers, and six logs enclosed the field almost like a fairy circle.
Oleander halted. "Before we leave," he said, "there is more I need to tell you that was not meant for the queen's ears." He gestured at one of the logs. "Please, have a seat."
I chose a log which overlooked a babbling brook up ahead and sat. "This is not the part where you tell me you are actually planning on starting a war on Wildewall, is it?"
Oleander remained silent as he settled on the log beside mine with his gaze averted. His fingers were tightly wrapped around the queen's staff. The red gem glistered in the sunlight.
"Oleander?" I asked, unsure of myself now. "That was joke. I am here to rescue elves in the mountains, not to eradicate Wildewall or finish a war that started ages ago."
"I know," Oleander murmured. "But I will not lie to you. You must realise those dragons, or people, in the mountains we will save were—are the elven army."
I needed a moment to let Oleander's words sink in. "You're saying...they're an army of shapeshifting dragons who will get their mind back and no longer think like beasts if I help them?"
"Correct," Oleander replied. "The elves trapped in the Serpentine Mountains, like me, will realise ninety years have passed since the war. Ninety years during which they were made into a mockery by being the knighting trial for humans. Ninety years during which the humans killed their kin off one by one. Most will have lost a friend or a lover when they wake up, and needless to say, a few may have hard feelings about that."
"So, if we do this, we'd be unleashing an angry dragon shapeshifter army on Wildewall," I said. "Is that what you're saying? And you expected me to agree with that?"
"No, Laurence. That's not what I..." Oleander sighed, and started over. "That was what I intended to do when I first woke up in the valley and found out that many years had passed since the war. My brother and sisters were still trapped. I wanted to take the gem from the royal family, free my people, and burn the human lands to ashes. Starting with Wildewall."
I side-eyed Oleander. "And you don't anymore?"
"I don't," Oleander said. "Now I know we can live our lives in peace beyond these woods. Endris created a community where more elves can live. Some of those who weren't in our army could still be out there somewhere, in hiding, too. Perhaps it is for the better if we don't go to war at all."
"You only think it's better, or you intend to free the elves and take them back to the woods without starting a war?" I crossed my arms sternly.
Oleander's lips twitched. "Fine. I intend to free the elves and take them back to the woods without a war."
"And this army, angry about being kept prisoner for over ninety years, will listen to you and go home?" I pushed further.
Oleander stopped attempting to hide his smirk. "They should," he said. "Considering the gem will lose all its effect on us, and we can no longer become dragons if my plan works. We would not be able to take on Wildewall's army with our numbers."
I gaped at Oleander. Then I turned my gaze to the queen's staff with my hand pressed to my forehead. "This gem can make you change into a dragon, and that power can be taken away again as well? Just what is this thing?"
"I was getting to that part." Oleander's smile faded. "The part where it's important you're storm-touched."
"And here I was, thinking we were having a moment," I joked wryly. "I don't need another reminder you were only using my societal standing to arrange a free ride to Wildewall. Thanks."
"That wasn't what I meant to say, Laurence," Oleander said with a dip of his head. "But it is relevant for my story, and how the elves in the mountains can be saved."
I didn't reply. I only looked at Oleander to indicate I was listening.
Oleander nodded at the gem on the staff, which he'd been keeping close to him ever since he took it from the queen. "Among the elves we called this gem the Changeling," he said. "An elven cult created it. Bleeders, or wither-touched, as you call them, were not only feared for their gift by humans. It was the same in the elven villages. They were often outsiders. Some of them left their villages willingly to live in their own communities. They wanted..." he faltered. "They needed blood sacrifices to create and power their Changeling, and seduced humans who wandered into the woods and elves alike in order to get what they needed."
"They killed all those people and precipitated a war to create this." I looked at the blood red gem in horror now.
If that was true, an artefact like this shouldn't exist. It definitely shouldn't have been kept in the royal treasure room in possession of people who never seemed to have realised how dangerous their heirloom was.
"I caught wind of its existence before the war with the humans broke out," Oleander said. "But I had never seen it with my own eyes until I entered Wildewall with you."
"You hadn't seen it before?" I let out a laugh. "Of course you haven't seen it. The war's over ninety years ago. That'd make you..." I trailed off, staring at Oleander slack-jawed.
Oleander raised an amused brow. "Have you been listening at all, Laurence? I told you the dragons have been there since the elven human war, and I was trapped too until you accidentally set me free. What does that tell you?"
"That you're over a hundred years old?" I pressed out. "But elves don't live longer than humans do."
"Yet, I don't feel like I have aged much since I was stuck in the mountains. The time between getting trapped and waking up to be myself again feels like the blink of an eye." Oleander shook his head. "Regardless, that's not what is important right now. During the war, a few of my clan set out to steal the Changeling from the cult. There were two plans. One was Sage's, which involved raising a barrier. Another involved traveling to the mountains where the dragons lived and use the strength of a god-touched to give us all the ability to become dragons and wield their might. So we could drive the humans and the cult out of our woods and be left alone once and for all."
"... And you chose the latter," I muttered. "But it went wrong."
A hint of sadness passed over Oleander's features. "It went wrong."
"What happened?"
"I don't know, Laurence. I was in the mountains with the rest of the army. We were to wait at the summit to be changed into dragon shifters by the Changeling. The god-touched waited for the gem to arrive at the base of the mountains. A secret rider would carry it. Only our elder and our general knew the details of both the god-touched and the rider. That is the last part I remember."
I nodded, trying to keep up. "So you can use the Changeling for both turning people into shifters and raising barriers? What does it do exactly?"
"That depends on you, as a person," Oleander said. "If I touch it, it is only a stone. If a god-touched like you touches it, it's a source of raw power that will adjust itself to you. Ever changing like the weather. I don't know what the effect of a storm-touched like you will be on the Changeling, and I don't know who the god-touched who trapped us in the mountains was. Only king Bertram probably knew, and maybe prince Malte. But the secret died with them."
I breathed in and out deeply. "So, you need me to touch it. That is why you took me away from Wildewall. You knew I'd still want to help you if I heard about the trapped elves."
"... I knew I would need a willing god-touched, yes, in order to break its current effect," Oleander conceded. "If you refused, I saw my chance in the human wither-touched Endris rescued. The ones driven out of the city and living beyond the woods, but not involved in the cult." Oleander sighed. "I'd also hoped the queen would never need to find out about your involvement, if you'd say yes."
I grimaced. "And I ruined that plan by agreeing to help you right in font of queen Idonia."
"Yes," Oleander said. "But that was my mistake. My anger got the best of me when faced with the human queen, and I should have dropped you off further away so you couldn't catch us talking."
"I see." I turned away from Oleander to hide my disappointment.
I knew he'd been using me, and even now he only took me from Wildewall as a tool. Still, my chest felt hollow. "The queen was here because you were angry. And I am here to wield the Changeling. Do I get the gist of it?"
Oleander's fingers brushed against an arrow wound on his shoulder. "Not entirely. I am not immortal. I needed a hostage, so the guards would no longer fire at me. The queen made for the best hostage so we could escape safely."
"The queen and I were both a means to an end. Again," I said flatly.
Oleander frowned. "Yes, and you already knew that," he muttered. "You were merely a man who was attracted to the way I looked, and a man with the social power to take me where I needed to go." Oleander's frown grew deeper. "I acted helpless. I changed into your exact type, and that was how it was supposed to be."
"And after you had your ride, you were going to kill me to dispose of the loose ends," I bit. "And we ended up with a very different kind of 'stabbing' that night instead. I am well aware. Why are we revisiting this?"
"Because I said I'd changed my mind and was going to do it after the ball." Oleander's eyes flashed with a sudden, intense anger. "But that's not true. I stood over you with the knife. I had the chance to end it. I even had a chance to take the gem inside the palace. But I couldn't shift, because you, like a bumbling idiot who thought he was in love with me, refused to step away."
Oleander's jaw clenched. He glared up at me. "Ninety years. It took ninety years before one of us accidentally escaped the gem's grasp because an incompetent archer, you, missed his shot. I was alone with no allies in the enemy's land, and I needed to enter the den of the lion to save all of us. I needed to escape alive with the gem. That was all that mattered."
"That is still all that matters, isn't it?" I retorted sarcastically, gesturing at myself. "It's why I'm still here."
Oleander hissed something in a language I didn't understand. "How are you this daft all the time? I didn't kill the guards at the castle to spare you. I did not shapeshift inside the palace to ensure the walls would not collapse on you as well. And it makes no sense."
I was at a loss for words at Oleander's outburst. I just stared at him with parted lips, swallowed, and then finally managed to form words. "What do you mean with it makes no sense?"
There was a storm in Oleander's eyes at my question. "I had only one task. One thing I need to do for my people," he snapped. "The notion that I would jeopardise any part of it for a bumbling, daft human lordling who would even believe me if I said the grass was blue is preposterous."
"Exactly like me risking my family and my country by helping a man who has already betrayed me once is preposterous," I retaliated. "There is a possibility I can never return to Wildewall after this, and I don't know if the queen will be fair to my family now that I have committed treason."
"The queen won't do them harm," Oleander stated. "She and all her priests have declared the Montbow house heroes in front of the entire city. If they take that back immediately and publicly denounce your house, they will destabilise their court further. It's a risk they won't take after they found an elf in their beloved city. Especially not an elf who changed into a dragon and escaped with an heirloom. If your sister is clever, she will avoid assassins and head home. Tell me. Is Gisela clever, Laurence?"
"More than anyone I know," I admitted.
"Then she came to the same conclusion I did and is already on her way out of the city. Likewise, there is no time to waste for us either. Let's go."
"No."
Oleander blinked. "What?"
"First, take back what you said in the dungeons."
Oleander stared at me.
"Take it back," I repeated. "I was not only a ride to you, and you meant what you just said about not killing me, about not killing guards, and about not shapeshifting in the palace to spare me. I'm not moving otherwise."
Oleander grimaced. "Laurence," he started slowly, "what if I am closer to an assassin than I am to a sheltered lover, content to wait for you in your bedroom? I played a role. I am not what you want. Even if I do take it back."
I took in Oleander's battered and blue face, the sharpness in his gaze, and his unevenly chopped off hair. He was undeniably different now, but his mask of innocence and amnesia didn't hide as much as he perhaps had thought.
"I never wanted a sheltered lover," I said. "The times I most admired you, you stood up for the half-elven man in the city or you refused back down and even poisoned yourself with Bleeding Ivy to prove your antidote works. You amazed me every time you scaled walls I didn't even think could be scaled to enter my bedroom. Your cute face and body helped, I will admit that. But what I liked most about you was your determination, your fire, and what I thought was your desire to also protect me in your own way. And those, as it turns out, were real."
Oleander pressed his lips together. He looked like he'd rather swallow a mouthful of Bleeding Ivy than speak. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Oleander spoke. "Fine," he spat. "I take it back."
Jumping to his feet, Oleander walked away from me without awaiting my response. "We have wasted enough time. The queen's men are on their way. We need to leave these woods immediately."