Chapter 17 #2
I grin. “Now you’re just testing me. Sinthalesorea—easy.
Maevish. Noun. Translation: deep, forested valley.
Henaithwin—even easier. Lukkarin. Proper noun.
Translation: the Mountains of Mist. Made famous by none other than your father, who referenced the Henaithwin in a press conference almost a decade ago.
One of the only instances wherein an elf has publicly revealed information about the landscape of Elaerion. ”
“Very impressive, Kallister. In fact.” He leans forward, eyes flashing. “Some may go so far as to call it obsessive.”
Heat creeps up the collar of my sweatshirt. “I enjoy translation. That’s all.”
“Mm-hmm.” He leans back, throwing an arm over the back of the futon that comes dangerously close to being around my shoulders.
“In any case. As its name suggests, Sinthalesorea is indeed a vast forest, into which the rooms and towers of árrion are tucked. The rooms were open and airy, windows always open to allow in the fresh air and sunlight that filtered through the mist. Paths connected the stone structures. Trees grew in such abundance that, when running along the trails, you could scarcely see any of the buildings, but for the few that crawl up the side of the mountain. You had to know exactly where you were going to get there.”
“It sounds…” I shake my head. “It sounds wonderful.”
“It was.” He smiles sadly.
“You keep speaking of árrion in the past tense.”
“That’s because…” He lets out a long exhale. “That’s because árrion no longer exists.”
“It was destroyed?”
“Not destroyed. It is no longer inhabitable.”
I can scarcely breathe, so afraid am I that Daerios might realize what he’s doing and stop. What he’s telling me is more substantial than anything I’ve read about Elvish history. I might be the first human to ever hear this tale.
“When I was just a boy, a group of Wild Elves were lured by a pack of nightshades into a realm of Elaerion known as Zolaerren.
I do a quick translation in my head. “Maevish. Shadowfell.”
“Correct. No elf is supposed to enter Shadowfell; monsters roam beneath a sky of permanent black, dragging themselves between pools of darkness and craggy mountain peaks. When we sent missions over its border in the past, no elf returned.”
“But these elves…” I prompt.
He nods. “They returned. But not as the beings they once were.”
“As what, then?”
“As Shadow Elves.”
“I’ve heard of the species,” I say. “But I don’t think I’ve ever seen one.”
“You wouldn’t have. None crossed over from Elaerion to Earth. We wouldn’t allow it. They’d done enough damage to one realm, and were more than content to sit with their spoils.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When the Shadow Elves returned to the realm of the living, they were angry. They could not truly live outside Shadowfell; their skin, either pale whitish-green or sallow shades of grey, dried up under the sun, which meant they could come out only under the blanket of night. For that reason, my father and the general did not consider them to be a threat.” He shakes his head. “They could not have been more wrong.”
I ball up my shorts in one fist. I’m afraid. Afraid for little Daerios. How old was he when this happened? If he was alive, he couldn’t have been more than a boy.
“Amongst the Wild Elves who first crossed into Shadowfell, there was a skilled craftsman known as Ontamo. When he returned in his shadow form, he retained all of his skill, along with a deep hunger to bend the rest of Elaerion to the Shadow Elves’ needs.
” Daerios’s fingertips brush my shoulders.
“Ontamo went back to Shadowfell, where, using materials pulled from one of the many pools of darkness, he forged a blade.”
“What kind of blade?”
His lips pull sadly upward. “The kind that can sever a barrier between realms.”
“Oh.” The pieces fall into place. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“You mean to say that he cut the barrier, and the shadows, the monsters…”
“All released into Elaerion. Everywhere.” Pause. “Including árrion.”
I shudder. “What-what happened?”
Daerios drags one finger along the seam between the futon and my shoulder blades.
It makes me shiver even more deeply. “The darkness was a flood. It rushed into Elaerion through the rift in the barrier with all the force of a thousand-foot dam being broken open. We saw it spill in from the west, and watched the inky black leech through the sky, rushing toward árrion like a great sandstorm. We were completely unprepared.” His finger comes to rest at the tip of my shoulder.
“The monsters followed soon thereafter.”
“They chased you out of árrion,” I guess.
“They did. But not before killing almost a fourth of the palace’s population.” He pauses. “Including the fifth prince. My youngest brother, Uian.”
Uian. I recognize the word. It’s Lukkarin. “Twilight.”
“That’s right.”
“I—I didn’t know you had another brother.”
“No one does.” He glances over at me. “Outside of the elves, I mean.”
“Could you not fight?” In my mind, the elves are endlessly powerful. Almost invincible. It’s hard to imagine a monster they couldn’t defeat.
“To the best of our ability, we did. But we were at a disadvantage.” He looks down, the pain clear on his face.
“Our magic is tied to the elements. When the darkness flooded our world, it severed that tie. And not just for the Sun Elves, who draw our power from light. For everyone. Water Elves, Fire Elves, Wind Elves… The water was still there, and the earth, and the wind, and everything else, but we could no longer access it. It was just gone.” He swallowed.
“They took our home, they took my brother, and they took our magic, too.”
The devastation in his eyes makes me sick to my stomach. Before I can think better of it, I lay a hand on his arm.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He glances quickly down at where my body is touching his. Surprise flits across his face, followed by something else. Something I cannot fully read, but that is intense enough to make me withdraw my hand and clear my throat.
“But your magic is back now,” I say, speaking to the carpet instead of the prince. “Right? I’ve seen videos of you doing it.”
“I’m sure you have. Much to the chagrin of my father.
” He sighs, and his finger brushes along the back of my shoulder blades again.
“We can perform magic on Earth, yes. But it isn’t the same.
Our scholars believe that it has to do with the chemical differences between realms. Here, you have all of the same elements that we do—sun, water, air, fire, all of it—but it is not quite the same as on Elaerion. And our magic is tied to our realm.”
He holds out his hand and—like it’s nothing, like it’s as easy as breathing—conjures a ball of light.
It blooms over his hand, dozens of glistening threads of pure sunlight, winding around each other, forming a perfect sphere.
I cannot help my intake of breath.
Daerios smiles sadly. “It is but a fraction of what I could once do.”
I am nearly struck speechless. I find that idea so terrifying that all I can do is keep a completely straight face as I say, “Well, there’s no need to brag.”
This surprises a laugh out of the prince. He drops his hand, the sphere of light dissolving, and turns to look at me full-on. The sadness on his face is gone, replaced with pure amusement.
I hate how relieved I feel to have been the one to make that sadness go away.
“You must…” I clear my throat. “You must really trust me. To tell me this.”
Daerios doesn’t initially respond, but he doesn’t look away, either. His eyes rove my face, taking in my eyes, my rounded ears, and settling, finally, on my lips. His stare lingers there as he says, softly, “I do, Quinn.”
Well, you shouldn’t.
The more Daerios tells me, the closer I come to the answers I have sought for so long. But… the less I want them. Or, at least, the less I want them for my original purpose.
Because I do want to know. I want to know everything about the elves.
About Daerios. His adventures, his missteps.
I want every story, every loss, every past love.
Every moment that led to this one. And I no longer want to know because I want to use it against him.
I simply want to know him. I’ve never felt that way about another person before.
It’s terrifying.
“What did you do?” I whisper.
“We fled to a network of caves and tunnels, the entrance to which we blocked off using protective magic.” He withdraws his hand from the back of the futon.
Balls it into a fist. “From there, we tried everything. Everything. We called upon the gods, forged every manner of tool or weapon we could think of. Repeatedly, we tried to access our magic, made tinctures or performed old rituals we hoped might connect us to it again. Nothing helped. To this day, the planet remains cloaked in night.”
“So, the elves came to Earth as refugees?” I tilt my head. “But that makes no sense. Your father has always said you don’t plan to stay forever.”
“We don’t.” At this, the first hint of a smile returns to his face. He releases his clenched fist, letting it fall onto the bare skin of my thigh. Warm jolts of electricity slither up my leg, into my torso, deep into my pelvis. “There is a way to return the darkness to Shadowfell.”
“How?” I shift my weight, scooting closer to Daerios. “That’s what you’re looking for, isn’t it? The way to beat back the darkness?”
“That, my darling Quinn, is a story for another time.”
“Oh, come on!” I whack his shoulder. “You can’t do that! You have me on the edge of my seat here.”
“I can see that.” He looks down at my bare thigh, which is now pressed impossibly close to his.
My breath hitches. Daerios seems to have gone utterly still.
I become painfully aware of just how close we are.
How my breath ripples the delicate waves of his hair.
How his hand need only climb a few inches higher—