Any Man So Daring by Sarah A. Hoyt

moment masked something else — a twinge of worry, a fear — no, not fear. She realized that she felt guilty, scared of what they were going to do and of how it might stain her mind. “But killing him by stealth is dishonorable,” she said. She remembered her father — her adopted father — explaining to her the crimes he punished, and this sounded like base murder, which was one of them.
    Proteus's eyes widened in surprise, as though he’d never expected her to protest any of his decisions. Then he shrugged.
    “The king of the hill is such a creature, with such magical power at his disposal, that we kill him by stealth or not at all.” He shook his head. “I knew we’d need this from the beginning. We’d heard of it, my father and I, from the centaurs of the south that serve us. There were tales of their ancestors that told of this net. Yet my father thought that he could win by mere force. I searched for the net alone, but it lay near the base of Vesuvius, covered in so many spells and incantations that it took me all my magic, all my effort, to find it, to penetrate its shields, to acquire it.” He looked into the middle distance again, and his eyes slowly filled with glittering tears. “While I was thus occupied, Quicksilver won the war and imprisoned my father. He had my father condemned to death. To save my own life, I had to forswear my father and my claim on the kingship of the hill. I did it so I could live to avenge my father’s death. Lady, I promised then that, if it took my last breath, I would ensure that the net would be used and would help me slay the tyrant.” His eyes filled with tears and he looked at her, a picture of resolute tragedy, a picture of grief and courage so mated that one could not be pulled from the other.
    Miranda knew not what to say. For once her quick wit fed no words to her still tongue.
    But then she thought on the child they would kidnap, steal from his mother and the safety of his hearth. The child’s father might be the beloved of Quicksilver, but what had the child done to deserve being enmeshed in the battles of immortal elves?
    Yet the father of this boy had been loved by the tyrant. How good could a mortal be whose heart knit such an evil creature as Quicksilver to him?
    No. No. The boy might well be evil, a dark thing.
    “Show me the child,” she said. “The child we would steal.”
    Proteus looked oddly at her. “The child? Why, my lady? He is a mere mortal.”
    His words failed to reassure her, rather spurred her sense of guilt to frantic exasperation. Proteus cared not for the innocent creature.
    Why felt it she, so keenly?
    Mayhap because she, herself, had been raised as a foundling, far from her own people and those to whom she belonged.
      Imagining removing a child from his parents made her head pound and her heart clench in shame.
    “Show me the child,” she said.
    Proteus sighed and rolled his eyes, as though signifying that the madness of elf princesses must be indulged.
    Absently, he traced cabalistic symbols mid air.
    Something like a window opened in the clear air in front of Miranda’s eyes.
    Through that window, she beheld a forest, but not a forest as this one that she knew so well.
    These trees were smaller, their trunks more embraceable, their tops not reaching so far into the distant sky.
    Amid the trees, a boy scrambled.
    He was a mortal boy, with brown hair, roughly cut, in a round cut short about his ears. His rough suit of once-good cut and material showed wear at knees and elbows, as if he’d scraped it against too many trees.
    His eyes, as wide and golden as those of a falcon intent upon the chase, looked fixedly and feverishly ahead of him, as he rushed, tripping, into the forest.
    It was as though the boy followed an alluring phantom or a glittering vision that would not tarry for him, and that rushed deep amid the trees, ever out of reach.
    Pixie-led , Miranda thought, remembering legends she had heard of mortals lured by