The Guided Journey

Kestrel had saved the world. His story began in “The Healing Spring” and continued through its most recent chapter, “Journey to Uniontown.” A young elf, he had been plucked from obscurity, and send on a mission. At first, he had ostensibly been an elven spy, watching the intrigues of the humans, but his greater role had been to grow into the role of acting as the agent of the gods. Kestrel went through a grueling series of adventures in his battles, and his travels took him across more nations than any other elf of the Eastern Forest had ever traveled. He was able to make the journeys in part because he was part-human himself, and able to be made to look human, unlike the typical full-blooded elves of the forest, who looked down upon his racial ambivalence. When his battles finally ended, Kestrel made the long journey home to the Eastern Forest, and retired, he hoped, to live a peaceful life as a nobleman, the Warden of the Marches, a title and an estate granted to him by the king of the Eastern elves. But it turned out that a quiet life was not his destiny. Now, he has been tangled in the complex personalities and politics of the elven court at Center Trunk, capitol of the Eastern Forest. He is assigned to carry out a tiresome mission, instead of helping the elves and humans and imps who are his neighbors at Oaktown. He loyally agrees to make the trip to Kirevee in the Northern Forest as an escort to a political newcomer. But the trip turns out to have more challenges and revelations than expected, and Kestrel finds that he will have to wait much longer than he thought before he is going to go home again.