15. Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Fifteen
Konrad
D espite our present company, the day passes uneventfully.
The pirates stay on their side of the island, and we stay on ours. Or at least Eloise and I stay on ours. It seems like every time I turn around, Valda has wandered away. But when I glance back again, there she is— usually blowing a mocking kiss.
As the sun crests the horizon, I lead Eloise— and, unfortunately, Sir Pigeon— back to the cave. I finally caught a seagull to make a more substantial meal than the berries and saplings Eloise gathered.
Valda is sitting inside the cave already, next to the pile of firewood and kindling I gathered earlier today. She’s wearing only her torn chemise, with her coral gown folded neatly by our blanket. In Valda’s still gloved hands is a pitcher of water and a few dishes we most certainly didn’t possess this morning.
I narrow my eyes. “How did you come by those?”
“This?” Valda gestures to the pitcher, her expression’s serene innocence I trust as much as I do the pirates. “Oh, I filled it from the waterfall. Not to worry, I did not bathe in yet— you still have that to look forward to.”
Doing my very best not to imagine Valda bathing in a waterfall, I set the bird down and cross my arms. “You didn’t contact the pirates, did you? Because their fear of me might be overcome by their desire for your ransom—”
“Yes, yes, I know. Money is all I’m worth to you lot.” Valda rolls her eyes. “Not to worry— I only let handsome criminals abduct me.”
Eloise looks up from carefully arranging the reclaimed plates she’s piled with different types of plant life— at least we’ve moved on from the bark. “Then why did you let Abi abduct you?”
“Probably the same reason she kisses me,” I mutter darkly as I arrange what firewood I collected— leftovers from the storm— at the mouth of the cave. I don’t like the thought of alerting the pirates to our position, but we can’t eat raw meat, and I need to eat. Eloise and Valda, too.
Still, I almost regret not slaughtering them all already and getting it over with. It seems inevitable now, and we are all living tensely until all comes to pass as destiny decrees. Especially since I cannot afford to check out of existence like I did last time I took a life— lives . Eloise needs me now more than ever— and Valda does too, unfortunately.
“You two enjoy your meal,” Valda says, settling onto my blanket. “I already ate, so I think I’m going to retire.”
Eloise turns to her in confusion just as the sun abandons us to darkness. “So soon?”
“Don’t want to force your father to tolerate me for too long.”
I frown. “I think you’re taking my words out of context—”
But Valda is already gone, her eyes closed and her chest rising in the same small breaths of sleep from last night .
I light the firewood, giving us both warmth and light. “That stubborn woman better not be lying about eating.”
Eloise shrugs. “More for us.”
Shaking my head, I hold my saber in the flames to burn away the filth it’s collected. Without a knife, skinning this bird is going to be a bit . . . risky.
Still, I get it properly plucked and roasted . Sir Pigeon watches me with judgement in his beady little eyes the whole time.
Despite how difficult she made it to hunt, Eloise seems quite content eating the gull leg, sitting against the cave wall across from me. “So, are you going to sleep with her again?”
I sigh and close my eyes to keep from glancing in Valda’s direction. “I did not sleep with her—”
“You laid beside her at night while you both slumbered. Isn’t that what sleeping with someone means?”
Deciding not to elaborate, I take a large bite of roasted flesh. I know it’s not the finest of fares, but just now, it seems like a delicacy.
“Are you going to share your blanket, Eloise?”
She’s already wrapping it around her. “Nope.”
It would seem getting to unbraid her hair, flaunt her ears, and run about the island like the uncivilized elves of old have gone straight to Eloise’s head. We have to get off this island before she drives me to madness.
I narrow my eyes, but I’m not sure what to say. I never paid attention to how Matthias and Martha disciplined her, so I have no idea what to do.
So, I just finish my share of the seagull, feeling almost full again. Then I curl up on the edge of the blanket Valda is partially wrapped up in— just enough to not be lying directly on the cold stone, but also far enough to not risk touching Valda. It is also just right to be quite uncomfortable, but that is neither here nor there and quite inevitable .
Except, when I think of last night, I don’t remember feeling all that uncomfortable. There were a lot of other sensations filling my mind instead that I had better not linger upon. Like how soft she was pressed against me and how sweet her scent was . . .
Shaking those thoughts out of my head, I focus instead on what I can hear. Even in mortal form, my sense of hearing is far more powerful than my vision and allows me to sense beyond our camp. If the pirates decide to attack us tonight, I’ll hear them before they reach the mouth of the cave. I will sleep with one ear alert tonight.
“ M a!” I called as I approached the homestead. “Pa?”
It was against Guild policy to leave a job before it was finished. But the moment I heard of the Night of Broken Walls, I knew nothing else mattered except returning home.
But as I stood at the edge of the property, I wanted nothing more than to turn back and continue my life with the thought of my adopted family — my pack — living safe and happy back home.
Because I knew if I continued forward, I could never cherish that illusion again.
Everything was quiet. I didn’t hear a single conversation or trace of laughter. And the air smelled wrong.
It smelled like death.
“No!” I yelled into the air, defying the stench it carried as I leaped over the boundary fence meant only to mark territory, not protect it. Why didn’t I build them a higher wall ?
I ran across the grounds I spent my childhood playing carelessly in. Surely, this sacred space had not been violated. Surely, there was still some goodness in the world —
The stench reached a level that stopped me in my tracks.
There, cast carelessly in the long grass, was the shell of the elf who raised me from a pup. The one I called Pa.
“No,” I whimpered, feeling like that scared little boy he found cowering in his stable. The one this man clothed, fed, sheltered, and raised as his own when the rest of the world rejected me.
Now, the rest of the world had rejected him.
Throwing my head back, I howled into the coming evening. My skin itched to give myself to the moon, to become a beast with no grief — only hunger.
But I did not only love Pa. And even if I had only loved him, he still loved so many others. I had to search for them.
I closed Pa’s eyelids, ignoring the blood staining his green tunic, marking the way he was brutally murdered. Then I plunged a fallen branch into the ground next to where his body lay so I could return to bury him.
Shakily, I rose again. Then I saw that Pa was not the only corpse I smelled. The younger of his sons by blood, Bartholemew, laid a yard away, a notched bow still in his hand and a sword embedded into his stomach.
I glanced back, searching for the corpses of the men who attacked them, but there were none. The fool wasn’t shooting to kill, and now he was dead.
Once again, I kneeled beside a corpse and closed his eyes. Bartholemew was fully grown by the time his father took me in, so we never played together. But he watched out for me, got me apprenticed into the Mercenary Guild . . .
The Guild I was working with instead of protecting my family. I’m the one who was trained to take out multiple opponents — not them. Last night was the moment I could have repaid all they invested in me.
But I was not there.
Now, I had to find Bartholemew’s girl in the next town over to tell her their spring wedding was not to be.
If she wasn’t also murdered for the crime of being an elf.
I stabbed another stick into the ground and stood. Then I almost collapsed upon seeing a third corpse just to the right.
Pa’s eldest son lay prostrate, so many crossbow arrows protruding from him. There were other corpses beside him, two men I didn’t recognize and bearing kinfolk arrows.
Of course, Matthias fought valiantly. He had a family to protect. Little Eloise —
Eloise!
I leaped over the carnage and hurried toward the main house. Surely, these monsters, capable of killing innocent men in their homes, were still not depraved enough to slaughter a child?
The wooden door to the multi-story cottage hung open, and I pushed my way inside.
Ma was on the floor. The dried blood on the floor seemed to have flowed from the back of her silver head. Elves were swifter and nimbler than mortals because their bones were weaker and more flexible. Here was the evidence — a gentle woman snuffed out by man’s roughness, thrown back because she should not keep the door closed against the bombardment it received.
I nearly blacked out, but I heard something. A whisper of movement. Eloise and her mother?
Up the stairs I ran. And there was Matthias’ bride, half-collapsed against the wall. Her form was still, her hand outstretched. One finger pointed toward the storage cache by her bed. A wardrobe had been pushed in front of it to keep it hidden.
I stepped over Martha and pushed the wardrobe aside, obeying her last wish. Then I tore open the cache door .
Immediately, the youngest elf in the family crawled out of the cramped space, gasping for air. Her joints betrayed her after so long being curled into each other.
Reaching out, I caught Eloise before she collapsed, doing my best to block the view of her mother with my body.
“Konrad?” she gasped.
I clutched her tightly to myself, supporting us both with the gesture. “I’m here.”
The next words that needed to be said were lodged in my throat, but Eloise knew them anyway. She sobbed against my chest as we both tried to register the horrible truth that we were all each other had left.