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It's near noon on a summer day and Claudia feels the stars waiting behind the sky; waiting and watching, always watching. Eyes made of light peering at her from the Void.
Let me in, little mage, a voice calls from between the stars. Let me into your world and I will tell you where your father is.
"My father is dead," she whispers as she cuts another faintly glowing blue flower. She knows she shouldn't answer the voices; Aaravos taught her better than that, but he is gone and her father with him, leaving her to linger on alone in a world that no longer feels like home.
Someone is coming, the stars sing, and malefic laughter oozes out between their bright voices.
"Thank you," she murmurs, even though they told her the same thing last night, and the night before that. She crushes her gathered flowers and the tiny creatures that live inside them, whispers an incantation, and her garden could be any peasant woman's kitchen garden. Claudia licks her hand clean and goes to see to her own appearance.
She's waiting expectantly at the door when they arrive. It's a cheap trick, but she'll take her satisfaction where she can get it these days.
They rein up in the grassy patch in front of her cabin, two tall men on expensive horses trying and failing to look inconspicuous. The taller one startles when he sees her waiting and she raises an eyebrow. "You're late, King Ezran."
"I'm what?" Ezran dismounts gracefully and hands his reins to his companion. He's taller and leaner than his father was, and his long, gold-adorned locs hold more grey than Harrow's ever did.
Claudia sighs. "Primal magic can't cure human diseases. How many plague pits did your people have to dig before you were willing to lower yourself to asking me for help?"
"Claudia--" Ezran starts.
"You're just like your father," she says, almost surprised at the bitterness in her own voice. "You'll rail against dark magic all day, but when you need it to save your kingdom, or your throne, or your family, you expect it to be available. Well, it won't be for much longer. I'm an old woman, King Ezran, and my knowledge will die with me. What happens when the next plague comes, or the one after that, and I'm no longer here?"
"Your daughter--"
"You made it a crime to teach dark magic." She smiles, slow and vicious. "But you thought I would do it anyway, didn't you?"
"No, that's not what I meant--"
"Then what did you mean? What other possible reason could you have for asking about my daughter?" She feels her lips twist into a cruel sneer. "Surely you weren't concerned that she might have been murdered for being a dark mage? Like that poor family last winter...I doubt the baby really had time to learn any dark magic, but better to be certain, hmm?"
"Someone murdered a baby for using dark magic?" Ezran's companion asks.
Claudia ignores him. She fixes her eyes on Ezran and tells him the story as the stars told it to her, slowly, so he has time to appreciate every last horrible detail.
He has the nerve to weep. "You must know I never intended--"
"I'm sure your intentions were very important to that family," she interrupts.
Ezran wipes his eyes on an embroidered handkerchief and tucks it back into a pocket, somehow managing to make even so small a gesture effortlessly elegant. "Claudia, I know it's been difficult for you, but we couldn't have achieved reconciliation with Xadia without giving up dark magic. You know that."
"You've certainly told me enough times. And yet, here you are, risking your precious reconciliation to save human lives with dark magic. Does Zym know what you're doing?"
"Claudia, please. I know you hate me, but people are dying--"
"Don't presume to know how I feel about you!" she snaps. "And if humans dying was all it took to overcome your squeamishness about dark magic, you would have been here a long time ago."
Ezran sighs. "I'm here now. What do you need?"
My father. "Promise me you'll stop the murders of suspected dark mages."
"I will, Claudia, I give you my word."
"You mean you'll do as much as your Xadian friends will let you--no, don't bother trying to deny it. You'll choose them over humanity every time." She takes a piece of paper out of her pocket and gives it to him. "Bring me everything on this list."
He reads through it and his eyes widen. "Are--are you sure? All of this?"
"If I had my father's library, or even just his notes, maybe I could find a less costly way, but alas, you burned it all."
"If I had known--"
"I told you!" she screeches, suddenly incandescent with rage. "I got on my knees and begged you not to burn those books, but all you could think of was proving to your Xadian friends that you were one of the good humans!"
"Claudia, I'm sorry--"
"Not as sorry as you will be when I'm gone," she says, and her rage drains away, leaving her cold and shaky. "If you want me to stop the plague, bring me what's on that list. Otherwise, go back to your castle and wait for it to run its course. But I have no hospitality worthy of a king, so you had best be on your way."
"I will consider my options," Ezran says. "And I will do what I can to stop the murders. Claudia...I wish things could have been different, I truly do, but I made the best choices I could for humanity's future. Can you try to understand that?"
"Save your excuses for your biographers," she says. "Goodbye, King Ezran."
For a moment he looks like he's going to protest, but then he bows and turns to his horse without another word.
His companion hesitates and looks at her imploringly.
"I have nothing to say to you," she tells him. "Goodbye, Soren."
"Claudia--" he starts, but she has already shut the door.
"Let's go," Ezran sighs, and Soren obediently follows.
Claudia watches their horses disappear down the trail, and when she is sure they are gone, she releases the concealment spells and walks through her garden of stolen magical plants, gently brushing their leaves with her ash-grey fingers.
Let me into your world, little mage, the voice hisses from the Void. Let me in and I will tell you where your father is.
"My father is dead!" she insists, and she feels hideous, alien laughter like icy fingers scratching the inside of her skin.
She tells herself she must not let any seeds of hope grow.
Her father can't possibly still be alive.
Can he?