69
I walked through the corridors with a smile that stretched from ear to ear.
The servants I encountered initially looked at me reproachfully, but then their expressions softened, and they laughed with me as I engaged them in playful pirouettes.
The antique white silk and the wisteria-colored tulle skirt of my dress, featuring dark gold ivy and lilac flowers that climbed the corset and extended below the boat neckline, flowing down the bell-shaped tulle sleeves, rustled with my movements.
I had never felt so happy. The joy swirling inside me was so overwhelming that I thought I might burst at any moment.
Entering my parents’ private wing, I followed the echo of my father’s voice to the living room. At the door, I adjusted my gold floral tiara with a pearl at the center, feeling invincible despite the roars from inside the room.
I forced myself to tone down my smile and walked in without knocking.
Still in her dressing jacket like her mate, Mother sat at the edge of the sumptuous, light-colored wooden couch, her posture exposing all her anguish.
Father stopped pacing the room in long strides and stared at me silently, his eyes so wide they almost appeared ready to pop out of their sockets.
Calmly, I shut the door behind me and braced myself to endure his anger with as much stoicism as I could muster.
“You . . .” he hissed, advancing toward me threateningly. “ How dare you!”
His scream struck me with the incisiveness of an ice storm, shaking my confidence and making me recoil subtly.
“Don’t yell at our daughter like that,” Mother said, rising to her feet.
“A daughter who publicly humiliated us by rubbing herself against that man like a human in heat!” he spat.
“Watch your language,” his mate ordered.
Father shot her a furious glance, pointing his finger at me.
“ She should have controlled herself!” He gazed at me, his stern face twisted with anger that he had never shown before.
“Instead, you danced so brazenly . . . so dirtily.” He looked me up and down, as if recalling how my body had moved on the dance floor with Amlach’s. “You were disgusting.”
“She is in love, Erech,” the queen retorted with sorrow for me.
“She just wanted to breed with him!” He peered at the finger and tooth marks Amlach had left on my neck, horrified. “And at last, she did.” He stepped closer, pinning me with a stare brimming with disappointment. “But know this: Nothing you did with that human is love.”
He was wrong. He was wrong. It was different from the love the elves shared, yes. It was wild and dirty and insatiable and perverse. But it was love. And it was inescapable.
My father shook his head slowly. “I can’t even look at you.
I can’t even smell your scent, only his nauseating smell.
” He recoiled, his nose curling with revulsion.
He took a few seconds to try to regain his austere composure.
He couldn’t. “Do you understand what your decision to lie with that half-blood under the eyes of the entire court will result in?”
“He’s not a simple half-elf, nor just a king,” I said, seething with emotions for what I was about to declare.
“He’s an insult to Spirits and our blood,” Father growled. “He shouldn’t exist!”
“Erech,” Mother warned him.
“No!” he shouted, turning away and walking toward the windows. “You won’t silence me again!” He let out a furious exhale as he pressed one hand against the glass, almost as if physically weakened by the situation. “If you hadn’t convinced me to spare that man, none of this would have happened.”
“ Erech,” she repeated imperiously.
“What, Annael?” he snapped, piercing her with a rancorous look—one he had never given her before.
My mother held his gaze with all the regality she embodied. “Let our daughter speak.”
She raised her thin eyebrows, daring her mate to retort. When he only let out a frustrated, throaty sound, the ghost of a smile touched her lips. Victorious, she turned to me and gestured for me to speak.
It was at that moment, when I noticed her eyes shining with affection, that I understood she already knew what I was about to say.
Before I could hold back, I smiled like a little girl once more, my eyes welling with tears of emotion. I then took a breath to form the words I had longed to utter for millennia.
But something within me suddenly shifted.
Something tore through me.
My breath caught.
My heartbeat, initially strong, gradually slowed.
Happiness left me little by little.
The tears began to recede.
My brow knitted.
Slowly, my eyes moved to the west wall of the room. In the direction of the temple where Calien’s Crystal was kept.
One, two, three seconds went by.
Then my heart began pounding so forcefully that it seemed like it might break through my chest.
“Darling?” Mother said, confused.
“What’s happening?” Father asked me, suddenly wary.
Terror coursed along my spine like a blade as I gazed at him, suddenly out of breath. “Call Araton,” was all I said.
Then I dashed out of the room.
Holding my skirt up above my knees, I ran breathlessly out of the palace and along the paths of the gardens and through the trees of the forest.
Until I abruptly halted in front of the steep white stairs of the smaller, older temple of Aegel.
At the top, the doors that the Queen of the Witches and our wisest and most skilled druids had sealed with a spell were wide open. I no longer felt the vibration of their magic that shielded and hid the building from evil.
The only thing I sensed was a presence within the temple.
I instinctively reached down to my waist, grimacing when, of course, I didn’t find the dagger’s hilt. I called myself an idiot for not stealing a weapon from one of the sentries.
Without wasting another moment, I climbed the steps.
Inside, short flames flickered in the tall bronze braziers positioned between statues of soldiers holding gold pikes, shields, and swords. I stepped across the threshold, trembling at the thought of the upcoming battle.
But when I recognized the tall figure standing before the wooden support on which the Crystal floated, a few steps from the altar at the end, I stopped.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.