Chapter 23
THE FOOT OF THE MOUNTAIN
“Leave your home?” Elden asked, his thick white eyebrows bent in concern. “Where will you go?”
Rowan nodded, deep red hair shining against the flames.
“I built this home with my own two hands not three years ago. We knew of a terrible curse in the shadow of Winterthorn, but we always believed it to be far enough away. It has been dormant for the past six hundred years, but something shifted just last year.”
Just last year? Did the death of Elden’s father feed the blight? Cause it to spread faster?
“It was as if the curse was given new life. It began to grow faster, stronger, until we can no longer ignore the threat it poses us. Most of the cows no longer give milk. The chicken’s eggs rot before we can eat them.
” Scarlet’s eyes were far away as she stared into the fire.
“We grow the blueberries and raspberries for the village, but even those turned to ash before the first snow fell.”
Scarlet and Rowan’s true generosity had almost gone unseen. They had fed us without thought for themselves. They had given us some of their last bits of food.
“The blight,” Elden said.
“You know of this curse?” Rowan’s gaze shot up to the king.
Elden nodded earnestly. “Yes. It has indeed quickened. The blight has now spread throughout the lands of Ravensong, even going so far as to darken the human realm.”
Scarlet’s hand flew to her mouth, “I had no idea the curse was so widespread.”
Elden turned to the fire. “This is the reason for our journey. We travel to Winterthorn in search of a cure. If we do not find it in the next week, you will be wise to travel as far from here as you can. Please tell your village that unless a cure is found, it will not be safe to remain.”
Scarlet’s cheeks flushed pink, yet she and Rowan nodded solemnly. Dread pooled in the room, taking all the previous cheer away with it in a mighty lurch.
“Do not give up hope. We will find a cure. Well, at least I have a great hope that we will.” Elden finished.
Scarlet looked to the front window, to the tumultuous storm outside. “We didn’t even cut down our Christmas tree this year since we were not planning on being here to celebrate.”
“You celebrate Christmas?” I asked Rowan, eyes wide.
“Oh yes.” Rowan wrapped his large arm around Scarlet’s shoulder, which she leaned into with an easy smile. “I am fully converted. It’s crazy the things you’ll do for the one you love. Though, it does help that presents are involved.”
“Yes,” Scarlet teased, “Presents and iced gingerbread cookies.”
“Oh yes.” Rowan smiled. “I’d do almost anything for those, too.”
The husband and wife shared an easy smile then.
Their love was as evident as the affectionate expressions on their faces.
I shifted next to Elden on the couch, now more aware than ever of how close together we sat.
All he’d have to do was move his arm a little to the right and our hands would be touching.
Did I want him to?
After a lovely evening of easy chatter, Scarlet and Rowan left us with a couple thick blankets, then joined their children in the loft to sleep.
Elden and I prepared for the night in a strange silence, tiptoeing around the other as we laid out on the couches before the blazing fire. After several minutes of attempting to sleep, I turned to Elden.
“So, you were telling the truth,” I whispered, “about the maidens.”
Elden huffed out a small laugh. “Of course I was.”
“But why haven’t you fallen in love with any of them?” I asked.
Elden rolled over and stared at the ceiling, the oranges of the fire flashing on his sculpted face.
He didn’t answer for a long while, and I thought he wouldn’t share.
I’d been learning that the best way to get him to talk was to bring up random plants we came across on our journey.
He loved sharing little snippets of information on the different species and I never grew tired of listening to him, but he broke the silence with his rumbling deep voice.
“I believe my magic of transformation gives me a certain ability to read people. I can see through veiled expressions, down to a true feeling. For instance, I knew within moments of meeting the maiden this year, Lila, that she would not be easily convinced that I was not interested in a romantic relationship.”
“Then why did you take her?” I asked as I rolled onto my back and stared at the sloped ceiling.
“I could see pain, so much pain in her,” Elden said. “She needed an escape and believed Ravensong would be that chance for her. So, I gave her what she needed. Hopefully she will find her purpose on her own. I couldn’t be…too encouraging of a relationship between the two of us.”
Yes. Any kind of attention would have caused more pain for her in the end.
“And what were your first thoughts of me?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking, though I was afraid of what I would learn.
Elden chuckled. “You were happy in your bakery and…compassionate to me when I came to you as a hungry child. Though, truthfully none of that mattered for me at the time. I would have done anything to bring you and your magic home with me. Your magic could not be ignored.”
“You could have been a little nicer about it,” I grumbled.
“Would you have come?”
Heat filled my cheeks and my heart skittered. “No.”
“You asked me why I gave you the old cottage in the middle of the garden’s labyrinth,” Elden said. “I’d felt the love you had for your bakery and wanted you to have the closest thing to it in your kitchen. I knew the old cottage would be perfect, if a bit rough—”
“A bit rough?” I laughed. “There were cobwebs the size of bedsheets in the larder!”
“I knew you would feel too exposed in the royal kitchens, be around too many unfamiliar faces, but out in the cottage, you could fix it up to your liking and cook at your own pace.”
I was strangely touched by the sentiment. There really was something nice about having my own little spot in the gardens, a place of my own that I could mold in the manner I saw fit.
“Why did you visit me as a boy in the first place?” I asked.
“I visit all the great masters personally every year in disguise, to find those I wish to take on.”
“But I was not a master.”
“Your prosperous business proved otherwise.” Elden smiled infuriatingly.
I groaned. “The price I pay for succeeding.”
“The more you shine, the more attention, desired or not, you bring upon yourself.”
“I wasn’t exactly shining, hidden away in the kitchens as I was.” I rolled my eyes. A lot of good that did me.
“Someone as brilliant as you will always shine,” Elden’s voice was like a song on the wind.
I squashed down the way those words made me feel—all light and flaky, then closed my eyes, focusing on what kept me going. A happy thought to banish all doubt. “Well, all I know is that if we succeed, when we succeed, I will see my family again. I have the word of the king.”
A pause, a little too long, then, “yes, I gave you my word. If we break this curse, you will be free to see your family again.”
I let that thought, that promise fill my heart. I would see Daisy and mother again. I wanted that more than anything. I would get to go home…but is that what I really wanted?
I shook my head as if I could clear the intrusive thought that easily. It wouldn’t do to dwell on Ravensong, the magic I’d felt here, and this new something between Elden and me. First, we had to go into the heart of Winterthorn and find this cure.
A storm blew outside, rattling the windows, but inside we were cozy and warm. Comfortable in the small cottage that gave us shelter during the storm.
In two days, we would arrive at the foot of the great mountain of Winterthorn. What kind of dark magic awaited us there?
Elden and I awoke early to find Scarlet and Rowan packing supplies in the kitchen.
“To wish you luck on your journey.” Scarlet handed me a satchel jangling with several glass jars. One of milk, several jars of raspberry preserves, and a large packet of sugar.
Elden shot me a glance that said, Remember, do not refuse them.
I nodded, touched at the hospitality and hugged Scarlet with tears in my eyes, “Thank you for your generosity. I know you have little.”
“We have enough. We will be well.” Scarlet pulled me deeper into the embrace and whispered, “And you have something very rare indeed. Do not squander it.”
I pulled back, “I do?”
Scarlet shot me with a sly smile. “The love of the Elf King.”
“But I—”
“It’s as clear as the white hair on his head.” Scarlet sprung one of my curls playfully. “He loves you, truly he does. I can see it in his eyes and feel it emanating from him. Don’t you?”
Heat filled my cheeks, and I glanced away. “I don’t know.”
Though my very heart screamed at me that, yes, it was thawing toward the king. That, indeed, I was falling for the tall, handsome elf. Would it really be so hard to believe that he liked me, too?
At the quirk to Scarlet’s knowing lips, I said, “I don’t know. He is a king. An elf. I’ve been taught to hate them since I was a child. He stole me away from my family. But…I am learning why he did what he did. I am beginning to trust him.”
Trust? Had I really said I was beginning to trust the king? Christmas miracles truly did happen.
Scarlet nodded knowingly, “These things take time. But don’t take too long. A vulnerable heart can wait in anticipation for only so long.”
“And what of my unsure heart?” I quipped.
“An unsure heart can turn in the matter of a few kind deeds.” Scarlet kissed me on both cheeks and stood back, inspecting my face—which I was sure was as red as the raspberry preserve in my hands.
“Thank you,” I said to both Rowan and Scarlet, “Thank you for everything.”
Elden and Rowan clasped forearms and nodded in farewell. Then Elden pulled Scarlet in for a gentle hug. A spike of jealousy stabbed my heart. Their friendship, their relationship was so…easy. Why was my relationship with the king so complicated?
Little Hawthorne toddled up and handed Elden a crumbled piece of paper. On it were his scribblings and paintings, very abstract. He looked up at Elden, so proud of his art and Elden thanked the child as if it were the finer than all of the art pieces in his large palace gallery.
Elden and I slid into our saddles and started the long winding trail to Winterthorn. The peak was impossible to ignore now. The snow-capped mountain towered over the distant landscape like a constant threat.
Travel was difficult as our horses climbed the twisting trail. Craggy and unforgiving. Cold and purple. My enchanted coat did nothing to stop the chills from spiraling down my side.
“What happened to your grandmother? The first human queen?” I asked as we rode side by side on a rare open trail.
“No one knows.” Elden shrugged. “Her fate was lost to the legend of Winterthorn.”
Then I would have to discover whatever became of the woman who won the heart of the first Elf King. She was the key, somehow, to figuring out how this blight started. To discovering the cure, I just knew it.
The trees thickened as the trail wound to a close.
No one traveled this way–hadn’t for six hundred years.
The blight tangled all around us like a festering disease.
Even the snow did not touch the ground or coat the charcoal scratched branches.
The snow would fall, then dissolve into the black ground as if any pure thing would be swallowed up by the decaying blight.
It didn’t take long until all sounds and sights of wildlife turned into a sharp silence in their absence—the only sound, the clomping of horse hooves on the dead ground.
The ominous blackness only got worse and worse, the closer we traveled to the looming peak in the distance. Night fell fast, as if the sunlight did not even have enough power to touch the blackened ground.
We rode on the side of a craggy cliff, the outcropping jutting out into the growing dark, offering little shelter.
“We will have to camp here tonight. Winterthorn is still a half-day’s journey, and soon enough, the light will be swallowed up.” Elden frowned at the obscured sun in the distance.
We stopped beside a jutting cliff, its sheer side offering shelter from most of the wind.
Snow blew at us from the west as I attempted to put up my tent with trembling hands.
I was not quaking from the cold, but from fear.
We were so close to the mountain, so close to the first shade monster who prowled this part of the realm.
Everything around me sulked with a blackened absence of life.
I jumped at every gust of wind. Flinched at the keening whine in the air.
Elden’s boots stomped beside from where I crouched by my half-erected tent. I looked up at him, a question in my eyes about how to go about finishing the thing. But Elden’s mouth was downturned, and he rubbed a gloved hand on the back of his neck, eyes faraway.
“What is it?” Something was obviously on his mind. Something that made him quite uncomfortable. Dread swirled in my gut. As fun as it was to see the king uncomfortable, out here so close to Winterthorn? It might mean our very necks were on the line.
Elden cleared his throat, his eyes meeting mine seemed almost—pleading. “I was wondering if you might wish to stay…in the same tent tonight. For safety reasons.”
My stomach dropped, and I shot up from where I’d been crouched. “Share a bedroll again—”
“No, of course not, no.” Elden shook his head as if scolding himself, “You would have your own bedroll. But we are within the blight, so close to Winterthorn. I would just sleep better…knowing that you are safe beside me.”
I stared at the king. He grimaced, his eyes taking their time to slide over and land on mine.
“No, it’s silly, of course—” Elden began as he found his gloves more interesting than my eyes. But I’d already made up my mind.
“Yes, please,” I said before Elden could say another word. Silence fell between us. and I took a step closer to the king. “I would sleep better as well.”
My stomach clenched as relief flooded me—relief and a new kind of tension.