He regarded her with interest but without the warmth he had showed the last time they had met. Nor did it escape her notice that the elf duke had not welcomed her, merely acknowledged her presence.
She licked her lips. “My Lord, we need your help in finding Wiz.”
Aelric arched a silver brow. “An elf helping mortals? An odd notion, Lady.”
“It has been known to happen.”
He gestured languidly. “So it has, when it is sufficiently amusing. I fail to see the amusement here.”
That was the end of it then, Moira acknowledged as a cold lump congealed in her stomach. When Wiz and Moira had first met Aelric, she had told him that elves acted for their own reasons and no mortal was ever likely to untangle them. Standing here in the moonlight with the elf duke she began to appreciate how true that was.
Moira took a deep breath and gathered all her courage. “Lord, forgive me for mentioning this, but is it not true that your honor is involved as well? Wiz did disappear while travelling from your hold.”
Aelric gave her a look that made her go weak in the knees. For a horrible instant she thought she had offended the elf.
“My honor is my own concern,” he said coldly, “and not a matter for discussion with mortals. I know who kidnapped him and at the proper time they will feel the weight of my displeasure.”
“But you will not help us find Wiz.”
Again the chilling, haughty gaze. “Child, do you presume to instruct me?”
“No, Lord.”
“Then guard your tongue more carefully.” Duke Aelric softened slightly. “Besides, I cannot find him.”
He smiled frostily. “That surprises you? It surprises me as well—and tells me that others besides mortals had a hand in this.” He motioned fluidly, as if brushing away a fly. “However that is my concern, not yours.”
“But you know who kidnapped him?”
“That too is my concern. Little one, among the ever-living revenge is artifice most carefully constructed and sprung only at the proper moment. These ones have offended me and they shall feel the weight of my displeasure at the proper time.”
With a sinking feeling Moira realized that to an elf, “the proper time” could mean years—or centuries.
“Now if you will excuse me.” He sketched a bow and Moira dropped a curtsey. When she looked up she was alone in the clearing.
Dzhir Kar eyed the man in front of him skeptically.
“So you bring us the Sparrow’s magic?” he said coldly.
“Yes, Lord,” Pryddian said. One of the wizards holding him jabbed him sharply in the kidney with his staff. Pryddian gasped and jerked under the influence of the pain spell.
“Yes, master,” he corrected himself. “I stole it from the Sparrow himself.”
Pryddian was very much the worse for wear. Once he had been passed on to the Dark League’s hidden lair he had been questioned. Since the questioning had been merely “rigorous” rather than “severe” he still had all his body parts and could still function. But his back was bruised and bloody, one eye was swollen shut and he was missing a few teeth. It had taken nearly three days before the wizards who had remained behind were convinced he was worth passing on to their master. His trip south had been expeditious rather than comfortable. Now he waited in the arms of his captors for the misshapen creature before him to decide his fate.
Dzhir Kar considered. It was not unknown for apprentices to decide the Dark League offered them more scope than the Northern wizards—rare, but not unheard of. Still, this was neither the time nor the place to add apprentices, especially ones so recently allied with the North. A quiet dagger between the ribs would have been the normal response to such presumption.
But still, a spell of the Sparrow’s . . .
“What is this thing?” he asked, flipping through the parchments.
“It is a searching spell. The Sparrow used it to scan the world. It involves three kinds of demons, you see, and . . .” Pryddian gasped again as the wizard prodded him with the pain spell.