The Prince's Mark

Chapter Sixteen

"Do you realize what this means, Mirthal?"

"No."

"Not only are the black peaks moving, but they absorb things as well."

Mirthal placed his elbow on his knee and rested his chin in his palm. Grunting, he shook his head.

"Maybe the mountain didn't move, but the spade went towards the rock?"

Without any hesitation, Sakshi smacked Mirthal on the arm. He flinched and leaned away from her, eyes wide.

"Why did you—?" he tried to ask, but Sakshi cut him off.

"Quiet. Look, you wrote those... Elvish words, didn't you? At the top there was a minuscule amount of space between the letters and the edge of the rock, but now it's gone."

She was right. Mirthal frowned, entirely displeased to find that the red of the first few Elvish characters was against the mountain.

"But! The spade! I thought that the mountain would push it. This is more serious than I thought..." Sakshi paused, rubbing her hands on her knees. "What shall we call it?! I was thinking of calling it terra shift, but this isn't that simple anymore! Maybe... terra absorption? Ah! Or terrassimilation?"

Ignoring Sakshi's increasingly loud ramblings, Mirthal gazed up the side of the massive black stone in front of him again. Maybe it really had moved. Somehow it had inched forward and started to swallow that spade. But what did that mean? Was it isolated to this particular mountain or was it happening throughout Winlea? Could it happen in the Elven Kingdom?

Taking a deep breath, Mirthal ran his fingers through his hair. This silent, lifeless place must be doing more damage to him than he had thought if he was believing something so ludicrous so easily. There had to be another explanation for this. Right? Right.

"Mirthal! Are you listening?!"

He turned to Sakshi and shook his head.

"This has to be happening because of the dezmek. You're a non-human—do you know anything about them?"

The term 'non-human' made Mirthal click his tongue. Elves were certain that they were the people who mattered most, so hearing a human consider elves as simply not human was bizarre. If anything, humans and dezmek were non-elves.

"Don't call me that. But I know a little about them. I met one in Shalen, you see."

"And?"

"He was tiny!"

Sakshi huffed. "And?"

"Hm... He was nice to me. I didn't have any Aodehsh money, so he helped me, even letting me stay in his bed at the inn with him. And he got angry easily, but not like you, he was much cu—"

"Oh!" Sakshi shouted, interrupting him. "Easily angered, hm? That makes sense! One little foray into the greater ocean and they were furious. Perhaps that led them to this mountain scheme..."

"I don't think so. My experience with dezmek has been a lot better than with humans," Mirthal said with a hard edge to his tone.

Sakshi waved her hand dismissively. "You've only met one."

"You haven't met any."

"I don't need to!"

"Why ask me, then?!"

Mirthal stood up, gritting his teeth, and took a few steps away from Sakshi.

Staying in this place was exhausting. The first day had been the most physically miserable day of his entire life. The next two had been okay, particularly since Sakshi hadn't argued with him. But she had started up again and it was not Mirthal's idea of a good time. Elves didn't go up against him like this.