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listen when Laeral spoke.
    Still feeling stunned, Arilyn sorted through the pages until she found Laeral’s letter. It urged her to act on Queen Amlaruil’s behalf, to combine this mission with a task that would soon be offered to her by the Harpers.
    The half-elf let the parchment sheets fall to the table. She leaned back and dug one hand into her hair as she considered this unexpected turn of events. In some ways, this was the answer she had been looking for. She didn’t believe the forest elves would entertain the idea of compromise, but maybe—just maybe—they would consider retreating to Evermeet.
    But the question remained: Why send her? Why had she been chosen as an emissary of Evermeet, she who had no claim to her elven heritage but the moonblade strapped to her side?
    A small, cynical smile tightened the half-elf s lips. Perhaps that was it, Arilyn thought. Perhaps the^ royal

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    family had finally contrived an honorable way to reclaim Amnestria’s sword!
    They’d wanted it some thirty years ago, when Arilyn’s mother—the exiled princess Amnestria—had been murdered in distant Evereska, leaving her moonblade to her half-elven daughter. Amnestria’s family had come to her funeral—from where, Arilyn had no idea—but she remembered with knife-edged clarity the elves’ chagrin when they learned of this bequest, their impassioned claims that only a moon elf of pure blood and noble heart could carry such a sword. Although Amnestria’s family had discussed the matter in Arilyn’s presence, not one of them had a single word to spare for the grieving child—not one word of comfort or even of acknowledgment. The royal elves had worn mourning veils that obscured their identities. They had not given Arilyn so much as a glimpse of their faces. Now, all of a sudden, this aloof, faceless queen decided to grant Arilyn the honor of a royal mission? One that was most likely impossible and, Arilyn noted cynically, possibly suicidal?
    In truth, the half-elf didn’t believe the elven queen was deliberately contriving her death. But Arilyn could not fathom what the reasoning behind this commission might be, and not knowing—combined with her painful memories—made her deeply angry.
    Arilyn reached for the royal commission. Slowly, deliberately, she crumpled up the parchment into a tight wad and dropped it into her half-empty wine goblet.
    *I trust you will be so kind as to relay my answer to the queen,” she said in a parody of a courtier’s respectful tones.
    “That’s your final word?” Carreigh Macumail asked, dismay written across his bewhiskered countenance.
    The half-elf leaned back and folded her arms over her chest. “Actually, I have a few more thoughts on the matter. Repeat them or not, as you choose.” She then proceeded to
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The Harpers
    describe what the elven queen could do with her offer, at length, in precise detail, and vividly enough to drain the color from the captain’s ruddy face.
    For a long moment the sea captain merely stared at Arilyn. His barrel chest rose and fell in a heavy sigh. “Well, it’s been said there’s no wind so strong but that it can’t change direction,” he observed. “Mist-Walker will be in port for a ten-day or two, should you decide you want to do business.”
    “I wouldn’t lay odds on it,” Arilyn advised him as she rose to her feet. She tossed a pair of coins onto the table to pay her portion of the tab and then stalked off.
    Macumail watched the half-elf go. A tipsy female sailor rose to block Arilyn’s path, her hand on her dagger’s hilt and a leer of challenge twisting her lips. The half-elf did not even slow down. She backhanded the woman, who spun on one heel and fell face first onto a small gaming table. Dice and half-emptied mugs went flying, and the sharp crack of splintering wood mingled with the startled oaths of the interrupted gamblers. The woman lay groaning amid the wreckage of the table. Arilyn did not bother to look