Who was this old man anyway? He certainly wasn’t a guard, too old, no armor, no weapon, unless he intended to use the tablet with astronomical designs and names written on it as one.

He rudely threw open some wooden double doors, hurling me into another alabaster room of the wan, ashen palace. Angels like white. Elves hate it. It’s a color of death, absolute death. This was the whitest, mort frightening room I had ever witnessed. It echoed emptiness, sickness. Death hid in the vast empty corners. Although it was intricately carved, it was too blank.

I looked up. There were two women, women angels, in the room. One severely injured, resting on the floor, symbols I’d seen in the old man’s tablet surrounded her, a blanket covered her. The other one was watching over her tenderly.

"Really, Samhain, I’d expect you to treat him better if he is needed to fulfill your prophecy," the angel, watching over the injured one said.

"But mistress, he—"

She waved her hand and silenced him. "Even if he is an elf, you will treat him kindly in my presence. Violence is the last thing I wish to see when my sister is dying."

Sister? But, if I truly was in the presence of the Queen as I suspected, then how could the pale, straw blond woman, with her hair in tiny braids, falling below the small of the back have this woman as here sister? The dying princess, she had black-red hair, very tanned skin, the only resemblance to each other either of them held was the large size of the chest.

The fair-haired angel turned to me, gently smiling.

"Yes, young elf, I am the queen, ruler of this kingdom," she said. "You have been brought here because of Samhain here, I apologize for his rash actions. He told me my sister needed an elf to play a requiem at her side. Strange that an elf would be needed, but he has never faltered in his advice, even it comes from the stars."

"A requiem?" I asked.

She lifted the thin blanket form her sister.

The woman wore nothing under the blanket, save some bandages covering a large wound on the side, just below her ribs. She was dying, and angel magic could not heal it, could not make it better.

"I … I don’t know any requiems." I said. Tears in my eyes. I’d face the fate as any other elf now, no salvation here.

"Play anything, not necessarily a requiem, but a mourning song." Samhain said, startling me.

"I… I’ll try"