Chapter 25 #3
“While we have your eluviam under control, let’s try to summon a vocational enhancement spell into a physical weapon,” she says quickly. Her hands leave mine and her glowing center hovers away, probably to pick something from my wall of decorative rapiers and shields.
While I’m waiting, I rub my hands together, feeling the ridges of my fingers for what seems like the first time.
Have they always been so thin? So bony? Has my skin always stretched the way it does now, as though webbed, between my fingers?
I rub my thumb over the cuticles of each fingernail, puzzling at the strange dip between nail and flesh.
“This blunted broadsword will work for our purposes. You have quite the collection,” she says, her eluviam reappearing before me. She guides my right hand to the hilt and unfolds my left hand, facing it palm up beneath the forte. The cold metal against my hand makes me flinch.
“Your brain is no longer in your head, but near your heart,” she whispers. Her hands lift away and the weight of the sword balances between my arms. “Listen to your eluviam. Use its consciousness to direct the energy to your hands, and into the sword.”
I hold my breath as I make my first attempt. My heart swells with warmth, and I listen carefully, or at least, I think I do, but then my body goes cold.
The blade clatters to the ground.
“It’s okay,” Ether soothes quickly, a hand massaging my shoulder. Her sudden touch, once again, is startling.
“It’s been a long day.” I sigh. “Why don’t we focus on something else? Perhaps I’ll be stronger tomorrow. Perhaps I’ll have better focus.”
After a pause, Ether says, “Sure.”
A blush ignites in my neck when she doesn’t move immediately. “Then, I want to know more about you. We’re going to be working together, but I also want to know you better as my…” She sucks in a breath. “My mate.” I gulp.
“Very well.” She sighs. “But only because I know it will alleviate the desire brimming in our blessed marks.”
Her hand falls away, but I manage to catch it before she can recoil.
“What if it isn’t because of the mark? What if I’m curious?
I haven’t had a proper conversation with you since dragging you to the castle and leaving shortly after to retrieve the tallup for you.
I think it’s time we get to know one another a little better. ”
She remains silent, so I continue.
“There is so much I don’t know about your people, about the magic that runs pure in your veins. I got a glimpse of it in Aldorin, but ever since I left, my heart has been aching, yearning to go back. Will you…allow me to come with you, someday? Perhaps when I’m king?”
I know that, as king, I would have every right to demand this of her. I know my father would. But I’m not my father. If she despises me, if she does not wish me to be a part of her life in any way, I will do my best to accept it. Even with the bond stretching taut between us.
She sighs after a long moment. “That’s the peculiar thing. You shouldn’t feel that kind of pull to the forest. To me. To anything related to Aldorin. And yet,” her voice softens, shrinking in volume, “I find myself wanting to oblige you.”
A yearning to see her expression smolders in my chest. What color are her eyes at this moment? Have they flickered with longing? Is she embarrassed? Vulnerable? Afraid?
She answers my unspoken thoughts with a subtle movement in her fingers—they don’t retract, but settle into my hand.
“Tell me about yourself, then. What is your family like? What was your childhood like in Aldorin?” I entwine my words with concern and care, but I must have already struck a nerve because it takes the elf a long moment to reply. When she does, it’s in quiet, rushed tones.
“My parents were slaughtered when I was young. By fairies. I won’t go into detail about that now.
Pluto appeared in my village shortly after his parents were killed, and he was one of the few children left in his village.
Nwatalith welcomed him with open arms, but he was the only one who stuck close to me.
Both of us were the result of mated parents, so we were considered to be special.
I always called it the mated curse. And, funny as it sounds, I always vowed to never mate with anyone .
And look where that got me. It’s silly how little vows to your own heart actually matter. ”
I gulp down the rising guilt, reminding myself that our situation isn’t my fault.
She continues, her voice gaining a sort of pride.
“I was always interested in learning my way around a blade, so I began training with our most competent village protector, Safia. She had been the apprentice to Alcottia, the protector who had saved me the night the fairies took my parents’ and many others’ lives.
Safia knew I only wanted to protect those I love, so she guided me.
“I worked hard at perfecting my proficiency in archery, hand-to-hand combat, and spellcasting. I outpaced my peers, but I was unable to take Safia’s place.
Threats from the fairies and other adversaries grew worse, so instead, I constantly surveilled our young.
Especially with the new law against laughing in recent years, our children have been put at greater risk. ”
“A law against laughing ?” The words slip from my mouth. That would explain why she doesn’t partake in the expression often. But how have I never heard of this? Why would there be such an outrageous decree?
“Of course you don’t know what I’m talking about,” she mutters, angry. I open my mouth to speak, but she cuts me off. “That’s fine. My life may be here now, and not with my village, with the children. But I intend to return to them as soon as my debt to you is repaid.”
She’s creating a clear boundary between us. Sorrow pierces my heart, even though I know it’s the mark making me feel dejected.
I would let you go now , I want to say. But aside from the bond drawing me to her, she’s all I have. She’s my only chance. And that eats away at me each second now that I know how important she is to her people.
“Now you,” she says with a lighter tone. Is she smiling? I’d like very much to delight in the shape of her lips curving into her cheeks… My face burns thinking about it. “Tell me about you. Your family. How you were brought up.”
“You’re curious?”
She coughs. “Well, it would only make things fair for you to share your life with me after I’ve shared mine.” Her voice sours. “What? Were you not planning to?”
I laugh. “Okay, alright. Don’t go throwing a fireball at me or anything. I’ll tell you.”
Once I begin, I’m not sure how long I go on for. But she listens without interruption. Partway through my story, I suspect she’s fallen asleep, but I hear her make soft noises in response to me several times, signaling her attentiveness.
I begin with telling her about my heritage, about my mother, who had hair like midnight and a fragile, malnourished figure. How she would sing to me.
I explain how my mother was found dead during her evening bath, a dagger clutched tightly in her hand, and a gaping wound oozing blood from her chest. I tell her I’m the one who discovered her body.
I don’t tell her that I think someone killed her and staged it as suicide and even if I were to find damning evidence, nothing would be done to bring the truth to light because I’m pretty sure it was one of my father’s machinations.
When Ether sucks in a breath, I clear my throat and lighten the mood with a change of subject.
I start to ramble about my hobbies, namely reading.
I brief her on my favorite story about a little boy and a dragon he finds injured in a magical forest. Not like Aldorin, I clarify.
Dragons have long since been scarce since before the War of Undying, and with the two immortals kept under Arioch’s watch, no one is permitted to see one except on the occasion of a coronation.
The magical forest in which the little boy finds the dragon is filled with dragons of all types, and the beast he finds is a runt, bullied by the others.
But despite the dragon’s size and the boy’s weakness, they form a bond tighter than the closest friendships and become the greatest duo in their world.
It’s my favorite story because I see hope in it despite the odds.
And after living most of my life without that childlike hope, it never fails to make me believe I am not always limited to my circumstances.
“I wish I could read,” she says once I’ve finished. Her voice is tight, as though from overuse.
“I could teach you,” I offer, then roll my lips together. Can a blind man teach an illiterate elf how to read? It’s unlikely.
Her hand rests on my shoulder.
I clear my throat.
“I noticed the instrument in the library. Do you know how to play?”
I smile. “ Do I?” Pride fills me. Playing the lute is something I’m more than good at, something I can showcase for my master, for my mate. The feeling vanishes, though, when I realize she visited the library. When did that happen?
When she met with the king?
“Is something wrong?”
I lift my hand to hers. Her fingers flip around to hold mine. But instead of feeling the warm comfort of her touch, I feel empty.
I’m still not sure how this bond between us works. So far, it brings me comfort with her near, with her touch. But even with the shared connection, we are not obligated to tell one another our secrets. And to be fair, there hasn’t been a time when I could ask about her meeting with my father.
“Do you remember where the library is?” I ask quietly.
She’s silent, giving nothing away.
“If you do, would you mind retrieving the lute?”
Her voice brightens. “Are you going to play for me?”
I nod and laugh, relieved she can’t sense the suspicion in my words.
She scurries from the room, her feet sounding against the ground. The swirling magic shape of her disappears, and I’m left in darkness.