He paused. “Just because my wife still favors you, a kindness she would do well to reconsider, doesn’t give you the right to question me as you have just done—in front of my sons and my officers.”

He turned to his sons, beckoned for them to follow, and stalked angrily toward the Ellenroh. Pied watched them go, stunned. He should say something more, he knew. He should make another attempt to stop him or maybe just try to explain himself better. But he couldn’t make himself move.

He was still standing there when the airships lifted off like huge hunting birds and swung south toward the Federation lines.

Drumundoon, who had waited patiently in the background until Pied’s attention had shifted away from the departing vessels, came up to him.

“He will change his mind, Captain,” the aide said quietly. “He will realize he acted out of haste.”

“Perhaps.” There was an awkward silence as they faced each other. “I couldn’t think of anything else to say, Drum. I just stood there and let him walk away from me.”

His aide nodded and gave a faint smile. “Maybe there weren’t any words left to be said.”

They walked back across the airfield and into the Elven encampment in silence. Now and again, Pied cast anxious glances toward the Federation lines, where the first torches were being lit with twilight’s approach. He could still see the Elven warships, dark smudges pinned against the sky. He searched for ground activity, but saw none. It was hard to tell, though, so far away and in poor light.

His thoughts drifted. He had grown up with Kellen Elessedil, and there were few men or women who knew him better. He should have been able to devise a more effective approach to dissuading him from making an ill-advised attack. He should have been able to avoid angering him so. Somehow things had gotten out of hand, and he was still struggling with the fact of it. He could see the faces of Kiris and Wencling in his mind, looking shocked and afraid, as if seeing what he hadn’t seen, as if knowing secrets he should have known. He tried not to think what Arling would say once she discovered how badly he had let her down. If she would talk to him at all, he amended. She might not. She might dismiss him as swiftly as Kellen had.

“Captain,” Drumundoon said suddenly, taking his arm.

A man was racing toward them from across the flats, one of his Home Guard. The man’s name escaped him, though he knew it as well as his own. He struggled to remember it and failed.

“Phaile,” Drum whispered, as if reading his mind.

Phaile reached them in a rush and saluted. “Acrolace has returned, Captain!” he exclaimed. His breath came in short, labored gasps. “She’s badly injured! She says you are to come right away!”