Shiloh had finished his cubes of meat and had curled up against Anbu and fallen asleep by the time Brumli arrived in the carriage that Alleria had sent for him. It had only been a day since I had last seen him but when he walked through the door into the residence it was like I was seeing him for the first time in forever. I walked over to him and enveloped him in a big hug that left him feeling disconcerted.

  “Has something happened?” he asked with concern in his voice.

  “No, I’m just glad to see you.”

  “I’m glad to see you too; glad to see that you’re okay, these elves make my skin crawl.”

  “You and me both, which is why I wanted you to come with us to this feast: to help me get a sense of what we’re really dealing with here.”

  “I don’t think we’re going to like what we find.”

  “Neither do I. How are things on the ship?”

  “Everything’s fine on the ship; I haven’t let any elves onboard, whenever they bring us food we bring it up onto the ship from the dock, we’ve been very careful about that.”

  “Good; I think we’ll only be here for another two days at the maximum, so tell them when you get back to the ship that they need to be ready for us to leave soon.”

  Brumli washed and changed and we left for the feast in the carriage that Alleria sent for us. The feast was being held at Alleria’s palace, which was on the opposite side of the city as the Chamber of Elders. Alleria’s palace was enormous; it was at least twice as large as mine and it was as beautifully constructed as the Chamber of Elders. We arrived at the palace expecting to be received with the same circumspection as when we had first arrived, but, to my surprise, when we entered the banquet hall of the palace we were greeted with cheers and applause from the elves that had been gathered for the feast, many of whom extended their hands for us to shake as we made our way through the hall toward the main banquet table where Alleria was waiting for us to join her. The dahu and buro carcasses were already on spits being grilled and the delicious smell of roasting meat filled the hall.

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  “Why are they giving us such a welcome?” I asked Alleria.

  “I told them all about what happened on the hunt; how Uraia shot the dahu from so far away and how she saved my life by stopping the buro with her bare hands. You saved their queen; they wish to express their gratitude to you for that.”

  “Uraia was just doing what comes naturally to her; she would have done the same for anyone.”

  “All the same, it was me that she saved, and for that you have our everlasting gratitude; this feast is in honor of your bravery and heroism, and to celebrate the forging of a friendship between two queens built on mutual admiration and respect, and what is hopefully the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship between our kingdoms,” Alleria said with her glass raised, drawing cheers from the assembled elves.

  I wasn’t aware that Alleria and I had become so close during the time that we had been here; as such I wasn’t sure what my reaction should be to her speech. I went with the safest option, which was to raise my glass with a fake smile pasted on my face. I found it hard to believe that Alleria would be completely oblivious to my contempt for her and her people and their treatment of the dark elves, but then if her narcissism was deep enough it would render her impervious to any kind of negative feelings people had toward her, which appeared to be the case here.

  The atmosphere in the room was one of general merriment and it made me feel confident that I would be able to gain some valuable information by conversing with the elves in this room when their defenses were down. Everybody had a glass of wine in their hand and from what I could tell all of them were perfectly comfortable with us being there. All of them, that is, except Boronir. In contrast to everyone else in the room, he stood behind stock still behind Alleria, looking like having a good time was the last thing on his mind. He worried me; he was clearly still smarting from his humiliation earlier and he had the look of a man who couldn’t be trusted to maintain his composure.