by Isabo Kelly
He stalked to the door then turned and paced back to the opposite side of the room while Ulric stood watching. “How could you be so sure the risk was worth it with Layla? Weren’t you worried about…about what would happen to her if things went wrong?”
“Of course. Which was why I explained it all to her from the beginning.”
Althir paused to stare at his brother with raised brows. Ulric had the grace to glance away, his frown just a touch embarrassed.
“Okay,” he admitted. “I didn’t tell her from the very beginning. But before committing fully, before letting her commit to me, I told her everything.”
Althir nodded and started pacing again. The only way a relationship between a human and elf would work was if they really loved each other. The negative side-effects of elf-fire were worse on couples not in love because no real bond ever formed. Without that bond, without a true love, eventually things would fall apart, and the human would be tipped into the abyss of madness as a result. Very, very few humans had ever survived a long-term relationship with an elf without ending up insane.
He wasn’t sure how his brother could risk that with someone he claimed to love. Yet Althir couldn’t imagine never seeing Mina again. But to see her, he would have to risk her sanity in just that way.
She had come to his sickbed after he’d bled to open the vessel. Or so he’d been told by one of the nurses looking after him as he recovered. He’d been unconscious and hadn’t actually spoken with her. Since regaining consciousness, he hadn’t seen her. But he hadn’t gone looking any more than she’d come to him.
“What will you do?” Ulric asked quietly.
“I don’t know that either.” His circuit took him back to the door and this time he reached for the knob. He had some thinking to do, and he didn’t want to do it with his brother staring at him.
“Will I see you back in Glengowyn?” Ulric asked as Althir swung open the door.
Althir faced him and shrugged. “We’ll see what happens.”
“Good luck.”
As he returned to his sickroom, Althir realized that had been the most civil conversation he’d shared with Ulric in years.
The next day he moved from the sickroom to a proper, small flat in a complex near the meeting hall. That move was as sure a sign as any that he was free to go his own way now. The fact that the Sinnale were still willing to give him accommodation in the city confirmed what he’d started to suspect over the last few days. The humans he encountered inside the meeting hall didn’t glare at him anymore, or spit, or curse. He actually received hesitant smiles, nods of greeting, even one or two of the men had clapped him on the arm and expressed pleasure that he’d recovered from the bleeding.
Most didn’t know exactly what he’d done, and Althir was sure the council was keeping the details quiet. But something must have gotten out, enough information that those humans close to the council knew Althir had done something to help end the war—something he’d nearly died to accomplish.
Whatever the rumors, it was enough to change some attitudes toward him. To his surprise, that change did give him a sense of satisfaction. At least to some he was no longer a traitor.
With his own people…well, he accepted he’d never be fully welcome in Glengowyn again. He could return now. And he’d be safe to live among his own kind for the rest of his life. But they wouldn’t forgive as readily as the Sinnale had, even if they understood what he’d done to end the war.
For some reason, Althir couldn’t find it in him to care what his people thought of him anymore. There was only one person whose opinion really mattered. And he was going to have to face her soon.
The morning after moving into his new flat, he left the neat but nearly empty home and went in search of Mina. He wasn’t entirely sure where to find her. He’d been hesitant to ask anyone where she lived, afraid of revealing things he wasn’t ready to reveal to just anyone. He knew she came and went from the meeting hall frequently, though, so he set himself up across the street from the entrance in the common room of what had once been a pub. The room was deserted, but the tables and chairs were still stacked around the edges of the space. He pulled a table and two chairs close to the large front windows and settled in for his vigil.
A few passing humans gave him strange looks. He ignored them. As he waited, he realized he could go find Ulric inside and ask him. But somehow, bringing his brother into his confidence any more than he already had didn’t sit well. Years of resentment and bitterness didn’t go away overnight.
What truly surprised Althir, though, was how little real anger he felt for Ulric anymore. He didn’t think he’d proved himself equal to his brother finally. It wasn’t that. It was just…he didn’t care anymore what others thought of him in comparison to the glowing icon that was Ulric’s fame.
But Ulric didn’t need to know that.
Hours passed before Althir finally spotted Mina approaching the meeting hall. The sight of her stunned him, and for a long instant, he could only stare. She was dressed in plain trousers and tunic, both deep brown and formless. But her curvy figure was too hard to hide, even in shapeless clothing. Her swords were strapped to her hips, her hair pulled back into a tight bun. Sunlight glinted off the blond strands, highlighting the color. She looked beautiful.
And tired.
Even from the short distance he could see faint circles under her eyes and her cheeks looked hollow. He frowned, worry thrusting him out of his stupor. He hurried from the empty pub across the street and stopped her just before she walked into the hall.
He cupped her chin in one hand and held her face up for closer study. “Why aren’t you sleeping? What’s wrong?”
“Hello to you too, Althir.” She smiled crookedly, but her brows lowered in confusion.
“What’s wrong?” he pressed, too concerned to bother with pleasantries. “Is it the fighting? Has something changed?”
The massive offensive strike the Sinnale had started had ground to a halt two days earlier, according to the gossip he’d gathered from the nurses. But they were holding the retaken territory securely now, forcing the Sorcerers to fall even farther back.
Mina shook her head and dislodged his hold on her chin. “Everything is still quiet on the front, for the moment,” she said. “There’s something else going on. I don’t know the details. Just that there’s a mission underway. Something to do with the List.”
She murmured most of this in such a quiet voice only an elf could have heard her. She studied the passersby as she spoke. He and Mina drew attention, but no one passed close enough to overhear them. Still, they’d be better able to talk with some privacy.
“The council gave me a flat on the next block. We can speak more freely there.” He took her arm, but she hesitated. “Do you have a meeting inside?”
“Nothing immediate.”
He watched her closely but couldn’t tell from her slight frown what she might be thinking.
Finally, she let out a sigh. “Lead the way.”
Her hesitance gave him even more to worry about as he led her the short distance to his rooms. When he opened the door for her, she walked the full length of the sitting room, going directly to the windows that looked out on a side street.
“You’re safe here, you know,” he said.
She gave him an inscrutable half smile and turned her back to the window. “A matter of perspective,” she murmured.
“Why haven’t you been sleeping?” he asked again.
She raised her brows and nodded to his arms. “How are you doing? I thought it would take another few days for you to be fully recovered.”
The bandages weren’t visible beneath the sleeves of his shirt, but they didn’t need to be. “Good enough to leave the sickroom. Elves recover faster than humans.”
“You were nearly dead.” She swallowed visibly.
“As you can see, I survived.”
“I went to see you that evening. You weren’t awake yet.”
“They told
me you came.”
“You were so pale, Althir…”
She sucked in her lips and looked away, but not in time for him to miss the moisture in her eyes. He couldn’t refuse the need to comfort her pain any more than he could resist her. He crossed to her and pulled her into his arms. She was stiff against him for several torturous heartbeats, and then she softened and her arms circled his waist.
“Scared me to see you that way,” she muttered against his chest.
He stroked a hand over her hair, a little ashamed to realize he was pleased she’d been worried about him. “That’s why I didn’t want you to see,” he said. “Why I asked you to stay away.”
Her grunt sounded annoyed, and for the first time since crossing the street to her, he smiled.
“Was it worth it?” she asked without loosening her hold or looking up. “The List was there? It will help?”
“I’m sure it already is.” He pulled back enough to lift her chin so she had to face him. “Would you like to know what it was for now? Why we did what we did?”
She tilted her head and nodded. “I guess it’s safe for me to know now, right?”
“You’ll be one of exactly twenty-three people, both human and elf, who know the truth.”
He watched her eyes brighten with curiosity, and some of his concerns banked. He still wanted to know why she looked so worn, but that could wait a little bit longer. Holding her to his side—he couldn’t seem to let go now that he had his hands on her—he walked her to the couch and they sat.
“My cousin, the one responsible for the shrapnel arrows? She’s, inadvertently as it turns out, created a new kind of arrow. One that doesn’t even have to be aimed. Once it’s drawn, an archer just has to whisper the name of its target and that arrow will fly strait to its target’s heart. Even with obstacles in the way.”
“It flies through the obstacles?”
“Around them. It’s a very directed missile.”
She pulled back so she could stare up at him. “That’s…that’s rather terrifying. Is there any way to avoid it?”
He shook his head. “Not that she’s told anyone yet. If there is at all. That’s why so very few people know about it. My cousin, the king and queen of course, one of their bodyguards, your council, Ulric and Layla, three human and three elf assassins. And now you.”
“You learned from the council? You said you’d talked it out of them when they were asking about the Sorcerers’ real names?”
“And the powers that be are in agreement the information about the arrows is too potentially dangerous to make known to the general public of either city. But I trust your discretion.”
Her lips lifted in a brief smile before dropping back to a slight frown. “So the List… With that, the arrows can kill the Sorcerers? The Sorcerers’ protections won’t prevent the arrows getting through?”
“That was tested last night. Two of the Sorcerers were killed by the assassins, using the arrows from a safe distance. Human spotters in different locations confirmed the kills—they didn’t know how the arrows worked or what was different about them. They just confirmed the Sorcerers were shot through the heart and the resultant implosion turned them into little more than bloody chunks.”
She cringed at his description but a blink later her expression opened. “It worked. What we did… They can kill them now. All of them!”
He grinned at her growing enthusiasm. Her wide-eyed satisfaction wiped some of the exhaustion from her face. “It won’t be long now. The war will be done. Maybe a matter of weeks.”
She blinked. “I can hardly believe it. After all this time… It’s hard to comprehend the end being so close.”
Studying her, he asked, “What do you want to do once the war ends? Will you go back to making chocolates? Do you want to reclaim your home?”
He hoped her answers would help him decide his own next move—whether to let her go or to find out if she returned his feelings. Even if she did, though, he still wasn’t sure if he could risk her sanity. Holding her, he already felt the first tingles of the elf-fire, a low burn through his system. He was already playing a dangerous game just seeing her again. If she didn’t love him…
He couldn’t think about that yet. First, he needed to find out what she wanted for her future.
She lifted her shoulders in a little shrug. “I haven’t been able to think about the future in so long, I’m not sure what I want. I should reclaim the family home and shops, but…” She twisted her mouth into a half frown. “But there are so many memories there now. I’m not sure I can face it, knowing my parents, my brother won’t be coming back.”
“Any other family to take up the mantle?”
“Oh there were a lot of us at one stage. But all the ones interested in running the bakery and chocolatier have died in the war. There are some cousins still alive, no one I’m close to. But maybe they’d be interested in having the old place.”
“If you had a new location? A new shop, would you want to continue the business?”
“A new shop might help, actually. Start over fresh. But this city is going to need a lot of rebuilding once the Sorcerers are finally pushed out. I think it’ll be a long time before I can indulge in my own dreams.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to argue her point but he stopped himself. Though the goblin wars hadn’t been fought on Glengowyn lands, there had still been a lot of rebuilding of their society following each conflict. She was right, the Sinnale would need time before their lives started to feel normal again.
“Glengowyn will likely help with the rebuilding. It’ll make for good trade. Ulric will love that.”
“Ulric? Why?”
“He loves bartering and trading—a side effect of his strategic genius.” He couldn’t seem to help the edge of sarcasm when saying the word “genius”. Some habits were hard to set aside.
She smiled at his tone. “Help from the elves would be good. Probably heal some of the tension still between our people.”
“Speaking of… I no longer appear to be a pariah, at least within the meeting hall.”
To his surprise and delight, color rose in her cheeks.
“I might have…mentioned how you nearly died helping us,” she said. “No details, of course. Just a few rumors to help right the accounting.”
“Mina. You didn’t need to do that.”
“Yes, I did. You won’t tell anyone the truth about why you aligned with the traitors. At the very least, people need to know you contributed—nearly with your life—to end our war.”
“My reputation doesn’t matter to me.” And it didn’t anymore. For the first time in his life, acclaim and acknowledgment seemed hollow things compared to what he might lose now if Mina didn’t return his feelings.
She pursed her lips and looked down at her hands in her lap. “It matters to me.”
Lifting her chin, he made her meet his gaze again. “Why? Why does it matter to you?”
“You’re a good man, Althir. I won’t tolerate people saying otherwise.”
Her defensiveness made him smile slightly. But that wasn’t the answer he was hoping for. “You thought I was an intolerable ass when we first met.”
“You were,” she shot back. “And very rude.”
He laughed. “You threatened to kill me.”
“And you decided talking about my breasts was fair game.”
“Well…” He glanced down, unable to resist. “They are very hard to ignore.”
She thumped his thigh, none too gently. He noticed, though, because he was still staring at that part of her body, that her chest rose and fell faster as her breathing sped. It took a great deal of willpower not to reach out and cup one of her impressive breasts. But that wouldn’t solve the issue at hand. One he wasn’t sure how to raise.
“What about you?” she murmured.
He dragged his gaze back up. “Me?”
“What will you do now? Return to Glengowyn? I spoke with Layla. She said you were allowed. And the ki
ng and queen lifted the traitor label.”
“When I was in my cage, I did miss the forest. I definitely wanted out of this city.”
“So you’ll move back.” Her gaze danced away as she spoke.
“Not right away.”
His answer must have startled her because she looked directly at him. “Why not? This place isn’t exactly a comfortable city anymore.”
“I’m still deciding if I’ll stay here or in Glengowyn. Or…”
“Or?” she prompted when he trailed off.
He hadn’t allowed himself to think through the “or” fully, but at the back of his mind, he had been considering that if Mina didn’t return his feelings, staying even as close as Glengowyn might prove too much of a temptation for him. To ensure he left her alone, he would have to go somewhere much farther away.
“I’ve considered…traveling,” he said. “It will be some time before the other elves can look at me as anything but a traitor. I might be allowed back to Glengowyn, but I won’t be welcomed. And here…” Mina was in Sinnale. Leaving would hurt wildly. But if it meant she was safe from any repercussions, he’d go.
“Traveling where?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know. I hadn’t really planned anything out yet. Still have some recovering to do.” That last was an excuse. He was a bit weak, but he could travel without risking his health.
He heard her swallow hard and the sound started his heart beating a little faster. Did his leaving make her sad? Would she miss him? Did she want him to stay?
“I’d be sorry to see you leave,” she admitted.
“You’d be the only one I’d truly miss.”
“Not even Ulric?” She raised her brows, trying to joke, but there wasn’t any real humor in her eyes.
He cupped her cheeks in both hands and held her face. “Mina. I’d stay for you. But…”
“But the elf-fire,” she said with a nod. “The addiction. You can’t be with me anymore. I know.”
“There is a way.” He took a breath and prepared to jump out over the abyss.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Ulric and Layla…” Althir started, watching Mina’s expression closely. “The reason they can be together is because…because they’re in love. Not just a passing love. A true love.”