Wayfinder by C. E. Murphy

didn’t speak until she had it in her hands, one end resting against the stoneworked floor. It seemed brighter, as if trying to draw attention to itself, and she wondered what kind of picture she made, bedraggled in mortal wear but holding a weapon of immortal make. She drew herself up, aware she was much shorter than the elfin folk around her, but making the best of her presence.
    “I
have
the staff, Emyr, and I’ll defend myself with it if my own power isn’t enough. But I won’t sit idly by while your two factionswork to destroy one another. If rousing Hafgan, awakening Dafydd, and lifting the Drowned Lands is what it takes to end this mess, then that’s what I’ll do.”
    They couldn’t stop her: the staff all but hummed in her hands, suggesting ways she could make an escape. The earth below would break with one sharp blow, a tunnel tearing through granite to offer her a pathway out. The cavernous roof could be splintered with no more than a surge of willpower. Lara had no doubt the staff could drag her skyward and send her soaring through the shattered ceiling.
    And both would destroy the Unseelie city. She knotted her fingers against the staff’s intricate carvings and tried to exude calm, not encouraging any of the dramatic scenarios the weapon proposed. There was a door out. She would use that, like any normal person. Not that she felt normal. She never had been, not with her odd talent, but for the first time, standing there with the staff, she felt as though she had the potential to be vastly more than she was. That she could, if she wanted to, rule this world, and perhaps her own as well.
    “He won’t stop you,” Aerin said unexpectedly. Some of the flare left the staff. Lara breathed more easily and blinked toward Aerin, who continued, “I’ll go with you so the Seelie will not be forgotten, no matter how far you travel.”
    “And the Unseelie?” Ioan asked.
    “It’s your story she looks to corroborate,” Aerin muttered. “I doubt she’ll forget your kind. But send a representative, if you like. Quests are always best done in threes.”
    “A point well made.” Ioan smiled and turned to Lara. “I’ll join you.”

“Abandon your people in the midst of war?” Emyr sounded pleased by the idea.
    Ioan widened his eyes in flawless innocence. “The truthseeker has proposed amnesty, Father. Will you not lay down your sword for the little time it takes us to journey to the Drowned Lands and back?”
    “Little time? It could be months. Years!”
    “Which is negligible to immortals,” Lara said. “Maybe you could stay here to ensure the Seelie court’s good behavior.”
    Emyr looked down his nose at her, disdain no less effective for the water still dripping off him. “I am a
king
, Truthseeker.”
    “Which should make you an effective bargaining tool. More effective than your firstborn sons turned out to be. Speaking of which, have you seen Merrick, Ioan?”
    Astonishment lengthened Ioan’s jaw. “Merrick is dead.”
    Lara crushed her eyes shut, trying to remember who she had shared what information with. For a moment she wished she was at home, gossiping with her friend Kelly Richards, if for no other reasonthan her certainty that Kelly had been told everything. “No, he isn’t. Merrick was the mastermind of his own demise. He framed Dafydd. A power play.” She shrugged, eyes open again, and sympathy splashed through her as she saw Ioan struggle to fit the news against what he thought he’d known. “He controlled the nightwing hydra you fought in my world,” Lara added. “I caught up with him a few hours later, and you’d hit him pretty hard. I thought he might have come looking for payback.”
    “That was—” Ioan broke off, held his breath, then, more steadily, began again. “That was months ago. I hadn’t spared a thought for the … hydra … or you, in some time, Lara.”
    “It was this morning, in my timeline. So where’s he been all this time? Hiding?