Hassina waited a moment before standing and moving into the open space at the center of the theater. She took the elves around us in with a slow, sweeping gaze.

  Tradition dictated that we could now address one another’s arguments more directly. I had to wonder how much she intended to address mine, and what strategy she would take. In church and council matters, Hassina didn’t typically dwell overlong on criticisms, instead casting her judgements in the most positive light possible.

  How would she act when her opponent was me? We’d see.

  “Bondage is surely an ill fate,” she said. “If it truly is bondage. But consider: how many years has it been since any council ever brooked the use of magic to enshackle another into servitude? I can scarce believe that any elf on the council now would condone it, let alone a majority. I would not condone it.”

  She raised her voice, casting it out to the corners of the theater. “Will Luthiel teach our children the arcane arts as their slave? Will he do their bidding—cook their meals, carry their books, clean their rooms? No; the reverence and respect that a pupil shows toward their master is a crucial part of tutelage. There is no other way to have him teach our mages than to place him in a position of authority and superiority. This is not servitude.”

  As she spoke, her eyes scanned the crowd, slowly probing over each of them as if she could read their thoughts, was searching for those who disagreed. “And if you think that superiority will be limited only to the youngest of the young, I urge you to think again,” she said. “Will our wizards force themselves to show some token of disrespect each time they seek his counsel? If Luthiel should strike upon some critical insight in the study of this world’s phenomena, will his peers feign indifference even as they rush to take his findings into account? Shall we ignore that Luthiel is more familiar than any elf with the contents of the archive and that his own personal experiences can bring added value to nearly every text? When we seek to draw of his deep, deep well of wisdom and experience, will we do so as if we are speaking with a statue, an echo, another text itself? Or will we mark the value of such an elf by respecting him?”

  Her gaze briefly fell upon Luthiel where he sat next to Seriana. “I see hardly any shame in this servitude,” she said.

  “Though perhaps in the affairs of battle we will at last find servitude,” she said. “Perhaps when we command use of his raw strength in [Focus], his skills as our [Arcane Champion], there will be shame. For there, at least, we may find some way to direct him as if directing one who moves furniture or stacks firewood: here, not there, a little further, good.”

  Slowly, she shook her head. “But I cannot free myself of the sense that if we direct Luthiel in battle, it will be where he is needed: he will fell behemoths, lay low armies of hostile beasts, and hunt out our enemies where they hide. In this, there will be glory, not shame. To slay a behemoth is an awesome deed—all will see it thus. The decree of the council cannot change this.”

  Slowly, she began to cross the space of the theater, moving through its center toward me as she spoke. “I won’t deny that my heart is warmed by hearing Lux Irovex’s promise of a future where children yet unborn sit in safety and reflect upon the glorious deeds that built our civilization,” she said. “I believe in this vision. I not only believe that we can all bring this about, but I believe that under her leadership, we will.”

  She stopped in the exact center of the theater, sweeping her gaze across those present before she began to slowly moving closer toward me.

  “Yet what will that mean, a hundred years from now, if Luthiel stands among us? He will serve us, surely: I see no cause to doubt that. But from a position that is high above most of us, a fact that we cannot change, not by judgement. And so we must ask: shall the children we seek to bring into the world see, with their own eyes, that the price of betrayal is less costly to those of us who are old and powerful, who are established among the wise?”

  She had moved to stand as close to me as I had stood to her, when I’d delivered my own arguments. Now she stopped, turning to address them much as I had.

  “Mark me,” she said. “Bitterness will take root in their hearts. They will know that they can never be among the privileged ancient ones. Already we will ask them to forever live in the shadow of the world we lost—a world they cannot remember. Do not ask them to witness Luthiel being treated so lightly for a crime so serious: it will be a sure sign the power their elders hoard is held and used unjustly.”

  She let this thought linger in the air for a moment, scanning their faces in the silence. “Most elves here are not from Ellistara,” she said at last. “They would not have been consumed by the Doom, even if Luthiel had succeeded. And while I am not a wild elf, and can take no special privilege or camaraderie upon myself in addressing them, I must ask all of you one final question.”

  Again, she moved to the center of the theater, then paused. “Our judgement must be just,” she said. “Can we call it justice that we ask so many elves to bear the presence, the aide, the guiding hand of the one who would have seen them, their family, and their culture destroyed? Is it justice to demand that elves who have done no wrong commend their children into the care and teachings of one who would have seen them dead? I say no.”

  She moved to take her seat. “And I leave it to all of you to answer for yourselves. I cede.”

  She sat.

  I waited for a few more moments to allow everyone’s thoughts to settle, feeling their attentions slowly turn toward me once more.

  Then I stood.

  “The fate of bondage is no sham,” I said. “The shame of it is not a lie, something to be officially decreed but not truly felt or lived. Has Luthiel not lived among us from the day we arrived here? And who can say that they treated him much as they did before the Doom—with the same warmth, the same reverence? I have watched; I know. He has been isolated, treated with curt coldness from even those who once deferred to him with warmth and reverence. Even without any judgement, no-one wishes to stand with Luthiel.”

  If my words moved him, Luthiel gave no indication from where he sat. He was stoic as a statue, as always.

  “Furthermore,” I said. “There is a difference between respecting an elf’s knowledge and respecting the elf. All those of us who have dealt with the mortal races know this difference. A human archmage who is among the foremost scholars and spellcasters of their time might find their skills commonplace among more learned elven wizards, and even trivialized by our own masters. Such a human can find cause to resent us for our long years, seeking our wisdom with great bitterness. And I believe it will happen here, has already happened: elves will resent Luthiel for his knowledge, his skills. They will consider them wasted, in light of his deeds.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Again, I began a slow circle of the theater, slowly sweeping my gaze across our onlookers to try to make it seem as if I stared directly at each of them, if just for a moment.

  “As to the privilege of the ancient elves,” I said. “I see no privilege. I do not call it unjust to consider Luthiel’s long years of service in light of his mistake. An elf who serves for fifty years and then finds cause to betray me I might kill, yes. But an elf who serves all of us for more than a thousand before suffering the failure of loyalty, reason, and morality that causes a betrayal is treated with more mercy and dignity. I see no inequality in this. The fault that is found by a millennia is less of a fault than that which is found by mere decades.”

  I passed before Hassina, not stopping or even letting my gaze linger on her. “As the unborn,” I said. “I must ask this: who are we to decide, already, how they are to be managed? Why try to control the actions of elves who haven’t been born? Let us decide as we see fit. If they should judge us, then so be it. If they see unfairness in a lenient punishment, let them. If we cannot justify to the young the justice we decide, then that is our failure, not a failure of justice. Let us tell them a hundred stories of the elf who was once Lux Aravae, including that of his greatest folly, and see how they decide. Is that not how our wisdom works, has always worked?”

  I stopped, completing my circle of the theater. “If the more merciful fate is decided on this day, I will not look into the eyes of young elves with shame, but pride. A pride I can justify.”

  I moved back to my seat, then turned. “I cede.”

  Across from me, Hassina rose. She seemed to think for a moment, then said: “I have nothing more to add. Let us cast our stones.”

  It was a slow process the vote.

  Galeena and Fireesha oversaw this part of the judgement. They’d crafted the stones that would be cast—a set of more than two and a half thousand, enchanted so as to be difficult to replicate and easy to account for once the vote was finished. Each elf would receive two: one marked with Aeth and one with Nir. To cast a stone alone was to cast your vote for that judgement. To abstain, you had to cast them both together.

  It went from youngest to oldest, beginning with the children, almost all of whom had come from Ellistara. Fireesha and Galeena called them out, lined them up, and then had them each approach the great stone urn, place both hands inside it, and drop whichever stone or stones they desired.

  Zirilla stood by the urn, her eyes covered by an enchanted blindfold. She would mute the sound that the stones made when they fell into the urn and ensure that no-one tampered with it. The urn itself prevented anyone but her from sensing inside it with their gaze, and her blindfold kept her from sensing anything about the elves who cast their stones.

  Like everything else, it was tradition. We had easier ways to achieve anonymity and security, but this was the old way, and so this was how it had to be done.

  It was a strange thing, sitting in silence as I watched the children cast their votes. They were all too young by far to vote in the election that decided the makeup of the high council, but those rules didn’t apply to this ancient tradition.

  It was utterly absurd, but there were children as young as five who would be casting stones. Surely they would vote as their parents decreed—and if this was the case, I could hardly fault the insanity of our tradition for giving them a vote. There was, I deemed, an unfairness in the fact that the families who might have died in Ellistara were outnumbered, had to pool their judgement in with the high elves. The wild were the elves that Luthiel had tried to sacrifice, children and all: was it not fitting that their votes should have more weight? At least letting the children vote would hopefully give them a stronger voice.

  But how they would use that voice, I couldn’t say. In fact, I had no idea how any group of elves would vote, and as I watched everyone take their turn approaching the urn with stones clutched in their hands, I wondered.

  The wild elves of Ellistara were the people and culture that would have been destroyed. But they were also my people. How would they choose? It was impossible to know. Those with children might have wanted a harsher punishment than Hassina’s. Those who were in the military might more likely align with me.

  The high elves were no doubt more likely to be conscious of the fact that if the courts were to decide this matter, a punishment as lenient as the one I’d put forward would have been completely out of the question. Even Hassina’s was merciful, by their standards.

  Some of them were mages, and might side with Luthiel on that account. Some of them were the clergy, or simply especially pious, and thus might side with Hassina. Some of the high elves were also military, and again, more likely to align with me.

  In the end, the minds and hearts of the individuals casting their stones would determine the outcome. I had no idea which fate would win, and I had no idea how.

  I watched my people each approach the urn and cast their stones. Some of them only ever put one hand in the urn, holding the uncast stone in an open hand. They were proud of their vote: the stones were fashioned in a round shape, with a hole in their center, for just this purpose.

  Already, I could see some elves who left the urn taking a seat to thread cords through the hole at their uncast stone’s center, ready to wear the sign that would declare what fate they’d sought. It was something I’d have to deal with: the day had divided us, but there was no reason for us to stay divided once it was done.

  Mirio went shortly after the children. Hassina was not long after him. Most of the elves in the colony came between her and Fireesha, and Galeena went not long after her. I watched the remaining elves silently, pensively, my thoughts and worries seeming to disconnect me from the moment.

  Then at last I saw Seriana step forward and cast her stone.

  I rose. Oldest last.

  After all, Luthiel himself was the only other elf among the firstborn who had come with us. The drowning of Maia had killed too many of us, and the Doom of Aranar had winnowed what was left. Now, in all the cosmos, there were only… nine firstborn? Perhaps ten, if I included Myrasciel.

  Wherever she was.

  Alone. The thought struck me like a thunderbolt as I moved to take my stones from Fireesha and Galeena. I had lost those dearest to me before, but I’d never been the only firstborn, never been the oldest. There were always my siblings around me.

  And yet as I approached the urn, I felt a new fear creep over me like a growing frost. What would it be like to not just be one of the oldest elves, but to be the oldest?

  I dropped the stone of Nir into the dark mouth of the urn, and the absence of sound made it as if I had cast it into the void.

  I returned to my seat, and Fireesha rose beside me to meet Galeena in the center of our theater. Both of them conferred, whispering to one another in hushed tones before placing their hands on the urn.

  On a whim, I spared a glance at Luthiel—and regretted it as soon as I did. He’d been composed and stoic through the whole of the judgement, but now I could easily read his face.

  He was looking at me with a mixture of fear and pity. He’d witnessed my realization.

  Fireesha and Galeena whispered to one another for a few moments. Then both of them moved to the center of the theater. Galeena spoke, her voice wavering.

  “Luthiel is to suffer the fate… of exile.”