by Everly Frost
It’s a loaded question masquerading as a joke, the kind that only Macsen could pull off, but it’s suddenly clear that it’s the question they all want to ask me. I instinctively reach for Baelen but he’s further away than I expected, at least ten paces from my location, his expression shuttered and closed. I can tell from the way my family and friends look at me that they’re worried. I forgot how much I’ve changed: my skin, hair, even my physique. I’m leaner, stronger, working in the mine for a month gave me muscles I never had before. Not to mention the new addition of the tiara on my head. But the picture I’m painting right now in this dress… is all wrong.
“Nobody,” I whisper. “It was Grayson Glory’s way of making me uncomfortable.” I lift my chin up. “Besides, I’m a gargoyle now. They have a very particular way of getting married that I will follow when the time comes.”
The corner of Macsen’s mouth twitches, but he doesn’t quite smile. I don’t think he’s certain whether my answer has alleviated their concerns yet. “And what is that?”
I take a deep breath and say as clearly as I can, “You can ask Baelen after it happens.”
Everyone relaxes. After another quick glance at Baelen, Macsen finally breaks into a grin and drops a kiss on my forehead. “Glad to have you back, sister. The army needs you.” He raises his voice. “Maybe now Commander Rath will stop raging around like a shadow panther with a sore tooth.”
Baelen snorts from across the courtyard. It’s a light reply, but it sounds forced. “Don’t count on it.”
He turns to set my ladies down, finally releasing them from the thunder. They stumble and flinch to the ground, disoriented, some of them flinging their arms over their heads because the last thing they remember was the glass ceiling about to fall on them.
My mother calls for help and other elves race from the house to assist my disoriented ladies. But once they’re back on their feet, they gracefully decline the offered hands, striding toward me. Reisha leads them. She hasn’t lost any of her elegance or stealth despite the mistreatment she’s experienced over the last month. She was always calm and intelligent, thinking before she acts. She pulls to a halt. Each female holds out her arm horizontal to her chest and rests her forehead on it. It’s the elven gesture of remorse.
Reisha speaks without raising her eyes. “Forgive us, Princess. We were unable to protect you.”
I’m aghast. “Against Grayson? Nobody could protect me from him.” Except Baelen… I look for him again, finding him even further away from me. Every time I look up, it seems he’s distanced himself even more.
“It’s our job to fight for you. To never give in to fear. We failed.”
I swallow my tears. I won’t let them believe that they failed me for another second. I’m the one who failed them. “Storm Command! Heads up!” I stride between their neat lines. “You have succeeded by surviving. You have protected me by staying alive. My heart would have broken if you hadn’t…” I swallow my emotions. “You have made me proud.”
I stop in front of Reisha. “Raise your eyes, Storm Commander. You owe me no remorse.”
Her voice catches as she swallows back her emotions. “What are your orders, Princess?”
“You will eat and rest, Reisha. All of you must regain your strength for the fight ahead. Go now and allow these elves to help you. You must be ready to fight with me when the time comes.”
As my ladies disperse, Mom takes my arm, leading me inside the House. I glance back to Baelen. He’s a silhouette against the falling dusk, watching me go. He doesn’t make any move to follow me before he turns and heads in the other direction. It seems like the freer we are, the more distant he becomes and it’s scaring the hell out of me.
Mom says, “I know you must be tired and hungry…”
“But I need to see Elise.” After the pain I felt when I thought she died, I’m desperate to see her, hug her, and reassure myself that she’s okay.
“She needs to speak with you. She’s been shaken and distressed ever since she got here, refusing to eat or sleep.”
Refusing to speak is one thing, but refusing to eat or sleep is another. I’m alarmed by this news. Elise was always the calm one, balancing out my emotions. It takes a lot to unsettle her this badly.
Jordan and Sahara follow closely behind us. Jordan says, “At first we thought it was because of the torture—”
Rage burns through me. Grayson told me the Elven Commanders were trying to get information out of her—that they went too far and thought they killed her. “Tell me.”
Jordan doesn’t soften the details, knowing I’d rather have the facts. “She arrived with burns to most of her body.”
My stomach turns. I will kill each of the Elven Commanders, slowly, one by one. Grayson can’t stop me anymore. I want to turn around right now, find them, and rip them apart.
Mom rubs my arms, a soothing gesture. “She’s okay, really sweetheart. Sahara and the other healers have been working on her for two days straight to make sure she is completely healed.”
That would explain why Sahara looks so exhausted. Her normally glistening silver-green eyes are dull, her shoulders slumped.
Mom continues, “But nobody can get Elise to eat. She won’t until she speaks with you.”
“Then take me to her right away.”
Jordan leads the way even though I know this house and all its rooms far better than any other place. If I wasn’t so focused on Elise, I would stop and take it all in. Being back in the Rath mansion is surreal after so long and everything that’s happened since I left.
We arrive at a guest room on the lower level. A healer sits beside the bed in the middle of the room, removing a dressing from Elise’s arm. “This is the last one, Elise.”
Elise catches sight of me and launches off the bed. “Princess!”
I run to her as she slips off the side of the bed before the healer can stop her, her knees buckling immediately. I race to her, lifting her into my arms. She’s far too light.
“Princess,” she whispers. “Is it safe to hug you?”
The last time I saw her, I’d just found out I could safely touch others again. I answer her by wrapping my arms around her. I don’t try to stop the tears streaming down my cheeks or the possibility that I might turn into a hot mess. She’s really alive.
“They told me you died.”
“Oh, Princess.” She drops her head to my shoulder, too weak to hold it upright. “I was very close to death. I had just enough energy to spellcast a death trance. I was injured badly enough that it was convincing. It’s how I escaped.”
She’s very thin and very weak. I help her relocate to the two-seater at the side of the room so she can lean her head into my shoulder. Mom and the others are already retreating from the room.
I wait until they close the door. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
She’s suddenly agitated, pulling away from me. “Nobody is safe. Nobody!”
“Elise, talk to me. They say you won’t eat until you speak with me and you need to eat.”
“I know why the Elven Command wants to destroy the deep springs. When they thought I was dead, they spoke freely in front of me. All three of them were there and they didn’t guard their words.”
I ask carefully, “Which ones were there?” I know I shouldn’t care if Grayson lied to me about being involved in Elise’s torture but I need to know.
“The original three: Elwyn Elder, Osian Valor, and Pedr Bounty.”
“Not the younger ones? Grayson or Priscilla?”
“Grayson! No, but they talked about him many times. It was his mother who started it.”
Started what? I want to ask her so many questions, but I need her to eat something. “Tell me about the deep springs. And then you must eat.”
“They said the springs are located in the spot where the gargoyle king first separated the earth’s layers for our new home. Water from the surface of the earth drips into the springs.”
Elyria once told me the
same thing. She said that the springs are the only water source that flows directly from Earth’s surface. I also noticed the strange drip from the ceiling when I healed Baelen—water droplets that seem to form from nothing.
Elise’s hand tightens around my arm. “They said there is an unseen entrance in the ceiling of the springs.”
“An entrance… to where?”
“The surface,” she whispers. “A pathway back to the surface of the Earth.”
27. Marbella Mercy
If I had a hundred questions before, now I have a thousand. I try to focus on the most important one. “What are the Elven Command’s plans?”
“They want to ascend to the surface.”
“But… why? Humans tried to kill us. They almost wiped us out. Why would the Command want to go back there?”
“Grayson’s mother was a Visionary. During her pregnancy she had a vision of a world that is vulnerable to sorcery. The Elven Command would be like gods if they made it to surface. There are many human lives to feed their sorcery—many easy deaths to build their power. The Commanders are dying here. They don’t have much time left. They’re feeding off the old and weak. They can’t take enough lives to sustain themselves.”
Throughout our history, elves with Visionary powers have seen images of the Earth’s surface. It’s how we know about the cities that humans have built—the skyscrapers and giant monuments. But all of the visions until now have told of the destructive power of human weapons—of bombs that would rival the power of Incorruptible’s strength. All of the visions have warned against ever trying to ascend again. But now, Grayson’s mother has seen a world that the Elven Command could manipulate and control.
Part of me wants those old bastards to leave. But I would not wish their cruelty on the humans.
“Once they ascend, they will destroy the springs so that nobody can follow them.”
I shake my head in shock. Grayson told me they wanted to destroy the springs. Now I understand why. “If the springs are destroyed, it will devastate the gargoyles.”
“Worse, Marbella: our world will collapse. The springs are the center point at which our world was created. Without the springs as an anchor, the sky will fall. The Earthen city above us, the one the humans call Chicago, will also suffer catastrophic damage.”
Wide-eyed, I try to come to terms with this information. The Elven Command is basically plotting to destroy our entire world, along with the Earth city above us. I wonder if Grayson knows this will be the outcome of destroying the springs. I exhale my frustration about the sheer magnitude of the Commander’s plotting. They’ve been trying to find a way to access the springs for as long as Grayson has been alive.
“Why wouldn’t you tell this to anyone else? Why only me?”
“Because the Elven Commanders have killed everyone who knows about the entrance. Even though I despise their methods, the more people who know, the more chance there is that someone will try to find the entrance, try to ascend, and damage the springs in the process. We can’t take that risk. We also can’t let the humans find out about us.”
I whisper, “Grayson’s mother knew.”
“That’s why they killed her.”
I stare at her. “No… the Elven Command didn’t… Grayson did…”
She shakes her head adamantly. “They said it plain and clear. Gideon Glory killed her. She was his first kill.”
I’m shocked. I told Grayson to question everything he was told but I never imagined how deep the lies went. Elise sags against me. “I don’t think the Command is completely united in its mission.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Before I escaped, Elwyn Elder stormed in very upset and said that Grayson threatened him and accused him of telling lies.”
That must have been the night that Grayson first brought me to his home. Elise was still imprisoned then.
Elise continues. “Elwyn said: ‘We never should have listened to Gideon. We never should have bound Grayson.’”
“What does that mean? Binding Grayson?”
“I don’t know for sure, but binding is something that is done as part of a curse.”
I urge her, “What more do you need to tell me before you’ll eat something?”
“Only one more thing.” She sighs. “It was very strange… When the others thought they killed me, they brought Grayson to see me for the first time. He came with that female and she was laughing because you would be so upset, but Grayson… I was sure…” She shakes her head, tiny trembling movements. “I was sure he saw through my trance. I thought for a moment he was going to tell them I wasn’t dead, but instead he told them to take me out to a field and dump me in an uncovered grave where the talon crows could get me.”
I shudder. Grayson said he told them to bury Elise properly, but it turns out he really told them to dump her like a piece of unwanted trash. Anger flies through me so fast that I jolt. “That’s… Grayson… I’m going to kill him…”
Elise grabs my arm. “No, no. You don’t understand… The only way I could call for help was because they took me way out beyond the cloaking spell. They didn’t cover me up so I was easily visible from the sky. That’s how Baelen could find me.”
My anger turns to utter disbelief. “You’re telling me… you think Grayson helped you?”
“He knew I was alive. I’m sure of it. His sorcery is stronger than any I’ve ever encountered. He could have told them but he didn’t.”
Had Grayson really helped her? But why come back and put me through the pain of believing Elise died? Unless… he had to be convincing. Priscilla was waiting when we went back to the room. If I’d looked anything but devastated… she would have known something was off. I sigh. It’s very hard for me to understand Grayson’s motives for the things he does.
Elise collapses against me. “That’s everything I know. Now I can eat.”
I immediately call for Jordan and Sahara. I’m relieved to see that they are prepared, appearing with a bowl of warm broth to ease Elise back into eating food. Before I leave them to their task, Elise snags my arm. “The Storm Command?”
“They’re all safe, Elise. They’re here in the Rath house. Once you’re recovered, you will see them again. But now you must eat.” I stroke her hair as angry tears burn in my eyes. I leave the room with one determined thought: I will meet the Elven Commanders in battle and I will tear them to shreds.
Mom finds me in the hallway. “She’s eating?”
I nod and Mom gives a sigh of relief.
I say, “It’s going to take her days to recover. Thank you for looking after her.”
“Of course, sweetheart.”
When she links her arm with mine, I ask, “Where’s Baelen?”
“He’s out with the patrols. They’re doubling the guard in preparation for an attack.”
“I should be out there with him.”
“Not in that dress.” She indicates all the cleavage I’m revealing with a barely-suppressed smile. “Come with me, sweetheart. Let’s find you something else to wear. And then dinner. No arguing with your mother.”
Once I’m dressed in a simple shirt and pants, I follow Mom to the food hall to eat at a long table with my ladies for the first time in a long time. They are tired, exhausted, but they hold their heads high and go slowly eating their first proper meal in a month. I look for Baelen when I arrive, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Mom reads my mind, leaning in before she sits down next to me. “He will eat when he can.”
She takes her place on my right while Jordan and Sahara soon join us—Jordan takes a seat on my left and Sahara sits opposite with Reisha. Indira stalks in soon after and sits next to Sahara, tucking her wings in neatly at her sides so they don’t get in the way.
I find myself surrounded by my closest female friends and my heart swells to be here among them. Even though she’s thin and frail, Reisha is a steadying presence, Indira is a constantly fierce one, Jordan is unendingly calm, Sahara is kind and loyal, and my mother…
well, she’s trying not to smother me with all the mothering she hasn’t been able to do for seven years. I allow myself to relax for the first time in a really long time, slowly feeling my heart warm as the love of these loyal females surrounds me.
At one point, I reach across the table and take Jordan’s hand. “How is Sebastian?”
She glows. “My husband is out at one of the outposts with Eli Elder. They look after the ground patrols while Baelen takes care of the sky with the gargoyles.” She laughs all of a sudden. “I never thought I’d say anything like that about gargoyles.” Then she throws an apologetic glance at Indira. “Uh…”
The forthright female grins. “I’m not offended. We have a long history to move past. But I must say I’m enjoying this alliance with the elves.” She leans forward and lowers her voice to a whisper. “You have much prettier underwear than we do. I may have to steal some.”
I burst out laughing. It’s true that elven lingerie is made of silken material while gargoyle underwear is usually more practical, made of breathable fabrics. The clothing Howl gave me to wear was the exception, but after being stuck in some of the underwear Grayson gave me, I’ll take breathable any day.
“Here,” Indira says, passing me her pouch across the table. “These belong to you.”
I look inside to find the Rath and Mercy stones. I pull two of them out.
Mom exclaims, “Our heartstone! But what happened to it?”
I tell them about Grayson and the stones embedded in his back, the way he used them to keep me tied to him, but I leave out the parts where he manipulated my emotions. I can’t have that conversation with them before I have it with Baelen.
Mom runs her hand across the shattered pieces of the Mercy stone. She holds one up next to my face and raises an eyebrow as if she just had a thought.
“What?” I ask her, smiling
“You should add this one to your crown. And one of the Rath stones too. I can have one of the metal workers add it for you if you like?”