We held the judgement outside.

  The earthshapers made us a place in the pit that we’d begun digging beneath the keep, cutting a small theater out of the rock itself. Seats rose in tiers around a flat central space where the arguments would be presented.

  The dark stone, combined with the walls of the pit that rose around us and blocked some of the mist’s light, gave the whole affair a shadowy, furtive air, as if the judgement itself were something that we felt ashamed of, something that we wanted to do out of sight and then forget about.

  There were two irregularities in the circular, central area. The first was a small bench off to one side, just far enough from the tiered seats to cut its occupants off from the crowd. The second was a huge stone urns that stood opposite it. Zirilla stood next to the urn, wearing a blindfold as per tradition.

  I was one of the last elves to arrive, my hands somewhat stained with soil. I found my place at the innermost ring of seating and sat next to Fireesha and Mirio, who looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

  Though there was no tradition insisting that it be so, Hassina sat directly across from me, both the urn and the bench between us. She could have sat with me and the rest of the council… but I agreed with her positioning. It felt right.

  The last of the attending elves came into the arena and took their seats. A few of our scouts and psychics were arranged at strategic points around the colony as usual, lookouts ready to sound the alarm. But they’d trusted their votes to others in attendance. Everyone would be accounted for.

  Seriana came last, and Fireesha moved so she could sit beside me. We didn’t speak—I simply clasped her hand and and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

  Then Hassina stood. Slowly, the hushed murmurings that filled the theater fell silent at the sight of this. At last she raised her hands and wove a spell, creating a sound that was much like the striking of a gong—long and ominous.

  The judgement had begun. Hassina stood and clasped her hands before her, the only elf in that moment who had the authority to stand. She was quiet, waiting.

  Luthiel appeared at the steps that led into the theater, Valir standing behind him. The former archmage wore a thick chain around his neck, and a heavy, cylindrical stone the length of two hands was hung from it.

  He was, as always, perfectly composed. His walk was not shameful, sluggish, or hurried. Neither was it proud. He strode slowly to the bench, his bearing somber and his gait formal. He was a walking statue.

  He sat, and Hassina gave a curt nod to Seriana, who stood, crossed the space to her husband, and sat beside him. Valir stood behind them, opposite the blindfolded Zirilla.

  I sat and eyed my rival. If any consolation came with the endless work that had filled the days leading up to now, it was that Hassina had been granted as little time as I had to prepare herself. Besides: the often-arcane laws of the courts were little but guidelines, now, and she and I both knew it. The laws had gotten us here, and would dictate how we proceeded, but the vote of our people would decide Luthiel’s fate, not whoever presented a more skillful manipulation of the snarl of mechanistic protocols that comprised elvish law.

  Across from me, Hassina bore herself like an empress, her face severe. The High Priest, the Grand Storyteller, and now the officiator of the judgement. In another circumstance I might have given a bit of a wry smile at the thought. Hassina complained of ageism, of gerontocracy. But if Luthiel and I had too much power, where did that put the church?

  Hassina spoke. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it carried to every corner of the theater around us.

  “Today we sit in judgement of Luthiel, once called Lux Aravae, the [Arcane Champion] of the elves. We cannot our courts for this purpose. This would be a mockery. For each and every elf who could have served upon the council of judges has ties if not to Luthiel, than to Lux Irovex or to myself, the only two members of the high council who have chosen to name fates. And so we recourse to the old ways.”

  Fireesha wouldn’t put forward a fate because she’d been Seriana’s apprentice, and had reported directly to Luthiel for most of her life. Galeena wouldn’t put forward a fate for the same reason: she reported directly to Hassina. And Mirio wouldn’t put forward a fate because he was barely taken seriously as an archdruid, let alone a high councillor: if he agreed with me too loudly, it would probably hurt my cause.

  It was just me and Hassina. We’d get it done quick, at least.

  “I will begin,” Hassina said, her voice steely, almost harsh in its forcefulness. She stepped forward, sweeping her gaze across the assembled elves. “Before I name the fate I choose, I will tell you a story. And before I tell you my story, our story, I must beg your forgiveness. It is not lightly that I ask you to dwell on this day.”

  A wave of frustrated, helpless exhaustion came over me as Hassina spoke, despite the fact that I’d known this was coming. I could see in the faces of the gathered elves that almost all of them felt the same.

  “In the early days of our summer,” Hassina said. “The Doom came upon Aranar.”

  I didn’t know what they thought or felt on the matter. I didn’t know what memories they had that had now become curses, afflicting them again and again in unexpected moments of the day. I didn’t know how many of them still woke in the morning and, as they shed their blissful half-sleep, remembering with a sudden sinking jolt of the heart that Aranar was gone.

  I was tired and sick, and I knew that Hassina was, too. I didn’t want to talk about it and I didn’t want to hear about it.

  But here we were.

  “I was in the Sable Tower when it happened,” said Hassina. “We lost contact with Kal Herana first.”

  A city of almost a million. The crown jewel of the world of the elves.

  I had first met Kal Herana when it was no city, but a seemingly endless field of wild grass filled with horses, bison, and a chittering chorus of insects—a field that ran on alongside a glittering, unnamed river until both met a rocky seaside and Hashephel had said: that inlet would make an excellent natural harbor.

  And I had agreed by saying: the river is gentle.

  How quickly had it happened? If the Doom’s origin point was not Kal Herana, then it had been close. Had the people of Kal Herana been blasted into ash in seconds, unable to even understand what they were seeing before it caught up with them? Or had it been as it was with Tel Telana, as it had doubtless been with the other cities?

  The horizon had become a scar. The scar had grown to swallow sky, sea, and earth.

  As millions of souls were snuffed away, I had been sitting in the shade of the old trees that grew on the green all round the Sable Tower….

  Something’s wrong, Alcuon had said.

  “It did not take us long to realize that something was… deeply wrong,” said Hassina. “And I think that disbelief clouded the mind of most of us, myself include. But soon—too soon to be believed, even now—we received a message from Kel Ziole. The last. It said: ‘launch the ships’.”

  It was the first thing that Hassina had told me when Alcuon had warped us both inside the Sable Tower. Three words: obviously a message sent in haste. And they’d said that Kel Herana had been silent for minutes….

  Oh, the spike of terror that had run through me then, the fear I’d felt. Exactly what I’d feared would happen had happened.

  “As Luthiel retrieved the ships from the River of Realms, Lux Irovex arrived, heard my report, and rose to gain sight of the horizon.”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  I’d thrown myself into the sky. Not again. Sabina, please, not again.

  Please!

  And I’d seen it: the scar. Stretching the whole length of the glittering sea and growing each passing moment. A jagged black line—something too big to be comprehended….

  “Within moments,” Hassina said.

  And then she fell silent. Her mouth hung open, her face showing a muted, soundless agony that could barely be seen. She was living the moment, just as I was: just as all of us must have been. I saw tears glittering on the faces of those in the crowd, saw faces that were downcast and hidden.

  Hassina was not being maudlin with her story, but sparing: she was saying as little as she could say.

  And she was turning us all into ghosts.

  Her mouth trembled and she set her jaw, pushing forward. “Within moments, we knew the nature of the doom. Lux Irovex landed, began to give orders to hasten the evacuation of the city. And within moments, two silver ships appeared above the tower green. Ships that, in their wisdom, the elves who remember the loss of old Maia insisted must be at the ready at all times. Luthiel had returned.”

  Hassina paused, letting her gaze sweep across the faces of the assembled elves. “Luthiel’s eyes saw far,” she said. “And as he looked out toward the doom, he saw that something else was coming. Something preceding it. A fraying wind was fast approaching, a ripple that would distort all of the mana it touched and make normal warp magic impossible. The wind is why no one from the other cities came to board the ships as they should have—not one. Luthiel saw that the wind would fall over Ellistara, and then Tel Telana, and that when it did, we would be trapped.”

  There’s no time, Aziriel. None! Luthiel’s composure had been shattered when I’d landed on the deck of his ship, but he hadn’t been panicking. He’d been utterly horrified, but still lucid. He’d reached out and shown me what he saw with his mind, not bothering to take the time to explain it with words. I’d understood immediately—and I’d had to make a decision.

  “He told this to Lux Irovex as she landed on the deck of his ship. And Lux Irovex made her decision. She decided that they will both stay, be covered by this fraying wind, and use all their powers to stave off the doom for as long as possible while Alcuon attempted to compose a spell that will retrieve the elves from Ellistara and warp the two ships away to the River of Realms. A spell that worked in spite of the fraying wind.”

  From where she stood across from me, Hassina looked my way, an apology writ clear on her face. It was her job to tell this story, but there was no question as to who among us it belonged to.

  “She knew that this meant her husband would surely die,” she said softly. “For to warp any elves across a stretch of frayed mana, one cannot use a spell powered by mana. One must use essence, and the only source of enough essence that Alcuon could have found in so short a time was himself. Old magic, this magic of sacrifice—but well-known to a wizard such as Alcuon.”

  With an effort of will, I focused on the world around me as Hassina spoke. I broke it into pieces, so that my eyes didn’t see objects, but rather just a smear of light and color. My ears didn’t hear Hassina and the chirruping of insects in the grass above us, just a wall of sound, curious in its texture. I tasted the air in my breath and felt the shifting winds move the hairs of my body….

  It kept me from thinking of my final moments with my husband. But soon Hassina’s words brought me back from my trance:

  “—Betrayed. And why? Because Luthiel had no faith.”

  I shut my eyes. She was right, damn him. In the hour I’d needed him to trust me, in a matter where I’d had every right to demand his trust, he’d turned away.

  My brother.

  Hassina raised her voice. “No faith,” she said, the words echoing around us. “Not that Alcuon would finish his spell in time. Not that they could keep the Doom from consuming the city for long enough. To Luthiel, one fact shines true: that he can assuredly save the elves already in the Sable Tower, the archive aboard the ships, both manahearts, and both elven champions. And he will not risk all of this for the sake of the thousand wild elves in Ellistara, for those families and their children who are here with us tonight.”

  Again, her eyes moved across her audience. Often, in matters such as these, I had some inkling of how the vote would go: who held the advantage and who held the disadvantage. Here, I had no idea. I commanded more loyalty than Hassina, certainly, but those most loyal to me were the families that Luthiel had been trying to kill. And any loyalty toward me was a double-edged sword, now: I was the one he’d disobeyed.

  It was the same with Hassina. Were the high elves apt to fall to the defense of their own champion, or to follow her in condemning him?

  “And so the [Arcane Champion]... left. He tried to force Lux Irovex and her husband to come with him, too—but by unknown means, she denied him. Lux Irovex was left to execute her plan on her own, and she did. The risk was harder without the aide of her brother, but still, all was done as she’d intended. Alcuon died to compose his spell—one that sent both the elves of Ellistara and those who had gathered in the Sable Tower into the river of realms aboard the second silver ship.”

  I let out a small sigh, relieved that she’d chosen to be sparse in detailing the last moments of that fateful day.

  “Luthiel’s crimes are a cascade of transgressions,” Hassina continued. “Each of which could doom him to a grievous penalty in our old courts, some to a penalty as harsh as death. But this is not a court, and I see no need to describe them all. Instead, I will simply describe how I feel his actions justify the fate I will name.”

  All the time she’d been speaking, both Hassina and I hadn’t looked at Luthiel. Now, she turned toward him with a pitiless expression—and I saw that he sat stoic as a statue, Seriana beside him with tears glittering on her cheeks.

  “First,” said Hassina. “His manaheart was not his personal possession. It belonged to all of us, and was meant to be used to serve all of us—down to the last child.” Here, she looked toward where most of the elves of Ellistara still sat. “When he left with his ship and those elves who had already made it to the Sable Tower, he stole it. To steal or tamper with one of the manahearts is, in the normal course of the law, an act of treason.”

  She let this declaration hang in the air for a moment.

  I felt that it was something of a stretch. It was only treason because the manahearts were a crucial part of how we maintained control of an entire world with such a small population. That law was in place so that stealing one of the manahearts would be a more serious crime than simply stealing a priceless jewel—it put our entire civilization at risk.

  “Second,” said Hassina. “He knowingly chose the sacrifice not just of elven lives, but of an entire branch of Aranian culture—one that was not his own. Ellistara is where wild elves are nurtured in their youth. It is a concentration of all the knowledge that makes their very people, an entire way of life. Luthiel chose to take a better chance at preserving the manahearts by sacrificing the very thing they were meant to protect.”

  Despite the funereal silence that had blanketed the audience up until now, A hiss seemed to run through them at Hassina’s words. It was quiet, but it carried a livid rage that I knew all too well.

  I agreed with Hassina, after all. I’d left Luthiel alone in the wake of the Doom, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to grab him and shake him, furious and screaming: How could you? How could you, how could you, how could you?

  My brother. My people.

  I’d had to tell my husband to die to do what Luthiel had been too afraid to even take a chance on. How could you?

  “Third,” said Hassina. “He had no right to make the choice. In the time of utmost crisis, when command falls to Lux Irovex, Luthiel—an elf held in highest regard, trusted above all others—was insubordinate. He went against her orders. He tried to steal her away from her duties. He betrayed her.”

  Now Hassina turned toward me, and this time there was no apology writ on her face. “Trust me, my brethren, that I do not say what I say now as an indictment against she who, on this day, stands as my only rival. But I must say this: Lux Irovex, our [Primeval Champion], is as ruthless as she is powerful. She has sent more elves to their deaths than any other person alive, and she has saved more elven lives than could ever be counted.”

  Hassina’s eyes were shards of frost. Her voice was steel. “On that day she asked her husband to die the moment that it became necessary, conscious that not one second could be spared. And so now I ask this: who better than her to decide, as the Doom comes to Tel Telana, who would live and who would die? Who was Luthiel to gainsay her commands? Time has proven her faith in Alcuon’s abilities well-founded: even without Luthiel’s aide, all was done as she’d insisted it should be. The wild elves of Aranar survive.”

  Slowly, Hassina turned, walked back to where she’d been seated, and turned again to face the gathered audience. “My stone is the stone of Aeth,” she announced. “Cast it alone and you align your judgement with my own.”

  Then she waited, letting silence build to a crescendo before she let her voice ring out across our crude theater and echo off the stone walls of the pit that rose around it.

  “I name the fate of exile,” she cried. “Exile: three hundred years or two ages of our people, as marked by our chroniclers.”

  She paused to let this settle over the gathered audience, then spoke again. “Let it be delayed if it must be: the high council may vote on how long, though the most they may decide will be a decade. I must acknowledge the reality of our circumstances, and recent events have shown that Luthiel is useful, powerful, and within Lux Irovex’s control. To punish him in haste might incur a cost against the colony, and this more than anything I wish to avoid.”

  She turned to stare at Luthiel, and he met her gaze, seeming undaunted. “One last thing,” said Hassina. “These are the old ways. A punishment served is a crime forgiven. When the term of his exile is completed, Luthiel will return to us… unashamed. Ready perhaps, to seek again the station he once earned among us.”

  Now she turned to me. “That is all. I cede.” And she sat.

  Quiet filled our theater, and I became aware of every elf’s attention coming to rest upon me.

  I stood.