I closed my eyes with a groan. We seriously needed to talk about the soul reading thing a lot more the next time I saw him because apparently I needed to teach him a little something called boundaries.
“Maybe I can’t hear his soul or whatever very well because I’m still pretty much human even with all the changes my lord said that mage did to me.”
“Perhaps,” Rinwen agreed, the sound of her soft voice startling me a little. She had been so quiet during our discussion that I had forgotten she was there. “The accounts of the human brides in the old texts are vague at best, so I doubt anything was ever written on the matter. That being said, I think I should go to the archives after the healer attends you anyway and ask the archivist to find as many documents or books that reference the human brides of old. We may find something important that our earlier histories have missed.”
“I wish I could read them, too,” I said wistfully.
There was very little I could read from both the bookshelves in my bedroom or the library back in the apartment. Although Lariel had been trying to teach me the seemingly endless amount of elven glyphs, it would be a long time before I would be able to read with any proficiency given my dismal foreign language skills.
“One day I expect you will be reading our histories to your child,” Lariel said firmly.
My chest tightened at the mental image her words conjured up of me sitting on one of the overstuffed reading chairs in the library with a small, blond boy in my lap and a thick book in his much as I had done with my father before he had died.
“But you three will need to teach him or her Elvish,” I said, my voice thick with emotion. “God knows my horrendous accent doesn’t need to be passed on.”
All three women laughed. “Your accent will get better, as well,” Lariel said.
The sound of the front door opening abruptly resonated in the background and everyone stilled.
“It’s still too early for the healer,” Lariel said with a frown towards the closed bedroom door.
“It’s probably just my lord husband,” I said. “I mean, who else would the guards just let waltz into the king’s rooms unannounced?”
A second later I nearly jumped out of my skin when the door to the bedroom flew open, and there in the threshold as if the universe was giving me the ultimate finger stood my worst nightmare glaring at us from a face as beautiful as a porcelain doll’s.
“Leave us,” the elven queen commanded sharply. “I wish to speak with the Royal Wife alone.”
CHAPTER THREE
I mutely watched Lariel’s back, stiff with unease, disappear as she closed the bedroom door behind her with a feeling akin to panic. Once again, I mentally cursed the courtly protocol that prevented not only my friends, but also me from disobeying a direct order from the queen without severe consequence. Sethian had said that our unborn child currently outranked the queen, but that fact in no way meant that I did, too. Until he presented me to the elven court officially as the Royal Wife, I didn’t even exist in their eyes.
I hastily sat up and scooted back against the headboard. If I had to talk to the queen, I sure as hell wasn’t going to do it flat on my back. I expected her to come over to the bed, maybe even order me to get up and demand that I prostrate myself before her or something equally demeaning. When she did neither and just continued to stare expressionlessly at me from across the room, that’s when I realized that I really had no idea what kind of person she was other than the bits and pieces I had gleaned from the rare times Sethian or my friends had mentioned her over the past month.
There was no way that she was here to congratulate me on my pregnancy, but maybe she did want to offer a kind of truce between us for Sethian’s sake.
“I trust that you warned your ladies-in-waiting not to speak of the child?” she abruptly asked.
I didn’t, but I nodded anyway since I had every intention of doing it later once this very visit was over. This definitely wasn’t how I thought she would begin the conversation.
“It’s a disgrace, you see,” she continued, sounding quite matter-of-fact, “a disgrace to our people letting a human birth the next heir who will rule us all one day. Our king and a good many of our people may see you humans as our race’s salvation as the people of old once did, but I am not the only one who believes it would be better for our people to just fade into the pages of our long history than to couple with lesser life-forms.”
The more she spoke, the more my back stiffened. Every ounce of good will I had been prepared to offer her for the sake of civility drained out with each ugly word. Then to add insult to injury, she suddenly laughed at what was probably the look of disdain on my face that I just couldn’t hide.
“Is that so?” I forced out past the huge lump of rising anger in my throat.
”Truth is always hard to hear,” she said with a look that almost looked like pity had someone else been wearing it. “I am speaking to you of this as much for your sake as ours. What the king is doing is unnatural, and it was this very unnatural act of mating with humans that is ultimately the cause of our women’s sterility.”
“What do you mean?” I asked reluctantly, utterly sure that I didn’t want to hear anymore but knowing I couldn’t afford not to.
At this point, I was pretty sure the queen was trying to rattle me for whatever messed up reason, but it was for that very reason that the things she was about to tell me would be the truth—or at least the truth as she saw it.
The smile she flashed me was bitter. “Sethian would never tell you this, but our healers believe that our genome was irrevocably tainted sometime in the ancient past when a few of our male ancestors for whatever unfathomable reason mated and had offspring with humans. The Sidhe have never been a very fertile race, and when it was discovered that these half-blood children were extraordinarily fertile, they were sought out by all the noble families. Thus, the human taint was spread far and wide through several generations before the first of our women began to be born barren.”
“How can you be so sure that the human genes were the cause?” I asked. “How can you be sure it’s not just a case of correlation rather than causation?”
The queen sniffed. “Our present-day healers are not so primitive as your human doctors. When examined, all the barren women had one thing in common. Their genome had reached a threshold in which at least ten percent of it was comprised of human genes.”
“But—with that logic, wouldn’t a first-generation child of a pure elf and a pure human also be born barren?” I said pointedly. “That obviously didn’t happen since you said that there was a lot of interbreeding with these half-breed children over a long period of time.”
For a moment, the queen looked slightly taken aback, as though she didn’t expect a “mongrel” like me to really understand her explanation.
Then she scowled, and with the air of the long-suffering, she replied, “That is because it is a problem that can only present itself after a long period of time. Human genes are not easily passed to my people, and the few that do, with the exception of those that determine virility, are recessive, thus remaining mostly dormant. However, once the human taint is introduced, it can never be reduced, but it can accumulate, doubly so within our daughters. Eventually, it is this human poison that disrupts a Sidhe woman’s very essence, an essence vital in the process of conception. Without it, our partner’s seed will never reach its destination.
“Many a healer and mage have tried to remove the humanity from within us over the millennia, but they have yet to find a way to do so without it killing us. However, they believe that, in time, a solution will be found.”
I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why she was telling me all this. What exactly was she hoping to gain? Was she trying to make me feel guilty about her inability to have a baby out of spite? Did she want me to apologize? I would do it, if only to reduce the amount of these kinds of confrontations that I would have to deal with in the future.
However, th
e queen was still talking, so I kept any forthcoming apologies behind my teeth for the moment.
“It has long been suspected that Sethian’s mother was a human transmuted to look completely like an elf and the realm fed the lie that the king had decided to take a second wife from among the Lithvir Sidhe royal family when the queen chosen for him from my own people failed to produce a child after several thousand years. It was a very unconventional decision as the Lithviri rarely interact with our two peoples, much less intermarry.
“The king went to great lengths to make certain that her blood was never examined, and when she died, he tended to her body himself and held her wake only a few marks later rather than wait the traditional complete moon-cycle. It was also strange that although she was supposedly a member of the Nalldir royal family, not one Lithvir Sidhe attended her wake.”
The queen paused, and the smile that stretched her lips was unnerving, as though she knew she was about to drive in the knife. “She conceived within their first year of marriage, though Sethian was to be their only child. Now that you have conceived just as quickly, the suspicion is even more plausible. You have proved more perceptive than I had initially thought possible, so I believe you have noticed that the king’s features are very different compared to the Sidhe men around him. The ancient texts mention this as a characteristic of a true half-blood.”
I reluctantly nodded. His face did look a little less alien than all the other elves I had seen.
“For a half-blood to conceive a child with a human—could that child even be considered a Sidhe? You must understand that the people will never accept such a creature to sit on the elven throne.”
“It seems the only way ‘the people’ would even know that my baby was different than they expected was if you told them your suspicions about Sethian’s parentage,” I said coldly. “Suspicions, I might add, that you can’t even prove.”
The queen’s eyes narrowed. “The elven realm is no place for a human. You cannot possibly understand the turmoil you will cause once your pregnancy becomes public. The very act will open the gates for more of your kind to flood this realm to introduce more tainted children to those who are too desperate to care. The healers of my people are so close to finally finding the method of safely removing the human genes from our genome. Are you so selfish to deny all the women of this realm a chance to have a child of their blood?”
Her words hit me like a well-aimed slap to the face. No matter that she had chosen to deliver them in the bluntest way possible, it didn’t take away the uncomfortable fact that there was some truth in them.
“What is it you want me to do by telling me all this?” I demanded, suddenly feeling as tired as I had yesterday and unwilling to play this game with her any longer.
The look of triumph in her eyes that she couldn’t quite hide had me instantly regretting my words. “What is right. Return to your own realm, on this very day before the king returns to these rooms.”
I sucked in a sharp, startled breath. “Even if I wanted to, which I absolutely don’t just so we’re clear, I can’t exist completely in the human realm anymore because of the changes to my body, right?”
“My family has a mage with the ability to return you to your previous form. The king will be told that you miscarried, that you came to me heartsick and asking for help to leave the realm, unable to bear the thought of facing him.”
For a long moment, I stared at her, frozen in utter disbelief of her audacity. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what having such an extreme transformation to my entire body would do to a baby at such a fragile stage of development. That she would even propose something so horrible as calmly as if we were discussing a change of clothes was just so…so…
“Get out!” I snarled. To hell with court etiquette! There was no way I was going to let her get away with even thinking something so despicable. “I don’t care if you are the queen. If you’re not out of this room in two seconds, I’ll scream for the guards! I may not outrank you, but my baby does. If it’s for the heir’s welfare, then I’m sure no one will object to my throwing you out of here, least of all Sethian! How dare you even suggest something that would hurt my baby!”
The queen suddenly stepped towards the bed and grabbed my upper arm before I could flinch away. “Hurt? I am trying to help you, you foolish child!” she hissed, squeezing my arm tightly. “There are many things the king has failed to tell you out of his own selfish desire for a child. He knows very well the trouble this half-blood child will bring to the stability of the elven court. Why do you think that he keeps you locked away and guarded as closely as the royal coffers? You have no idea of the forces that are currently moving around you. Soon you will be begging to be sent home!”
“Your pregnancy will change everything.”
I wrenched my arm from her grip, Sethian’s words from last night echoing ominously in my mind. “I hardly call two guards on the door extensive protection. Forget your games of intrigue and just tell it to me clearly because right now all I see is a desperate woman trying to scare me into doing something unbelievably stupid.”
I knew I should stop, that I was probably going too far. There was no telling what this powerful woman could do to me, but once my anger had been unleashed, it was impossible to hold my tongue, especially when I had no real desire to.
If looks could kill, I would have been dead and mutilated a million times over. Yes, the line had definitely been crossed—on both sides.
“If insults are my thanks for trying to help a human then this will definitively be the last time,” the queen spat as she turned on her heels and stalked towards the door, wrenching it open. “Take a knife to the throat of one of those Maelenas sisters and you will see that you truly know nothing.”
The door slammed so violently behind her that I thought the walls around it would crack.
The queen was right about one thing. The last few minutes proved that I really did know absolutely nothing about the elven realm, but now that my eyes had been opened wide, I was determined to change that fact, starting with a little question to Saeria and Rinwen concerning knives…
The moment I heard the door to the front entrance slam equally as hard as the bedroom’s, the bedroom door swung upon, admitting three very-worried-looking elven women.
“I’m okay,” I was quick to assure them as they hurried over to my side again. “The queen just didn’t like what I had to say, is all.”
“I don’t think I have ever seen her show that much emotion,” Lariel said, tilting her head at me with an implied question.
I sagged against the headboard wearily. Talking with the queen had been as draining as a long, uphill hike. “Let’s just say that she just gave me a crash course in elven politics and was unhappy when I didn’t want to play along.” I turned from Lariel to the sisters. “She also hinted to something interesting about you two.”
When both Saeria and Rinwen stiffened, it was as good as admission. Encouraged, I pressed on, “Did my lord husband assign you both to me as bodyguards as well as my ladies-in-waiting?”
They exchanged a look before Saeria sighed, looking resigned. “His Majesty is going to be very angry when he learns the queen told you this. He had been quite emphatic that you were to never know.”
“He probably just didn’t want to worry me,” I reasoned as Lariel stuffed a couple of my pillows behind my back. “The queen was trying to make a point about my ignorance or else I don’t think she would have brought the matter up at all.”
“No matter the reason, it was still forbidden to tell you,” Saeria said.
I shrugged. “It’s not like I mind.” I looked at them curiously. “Are you hiding a bunch of knives or daggers on you?” Their dresses looked so thin and airy that I couldn’t see how they could conceal anything as large as a dagger.
Rinwen sat on the edge of the bed and held out her hand. “Watch,” she instructed.
Then her entire hand glowed a bright, white light, and a second later, a
rather large, jewel-hilted dagger with a black, shiny blade that looked like obsidian appeared in her hand.
“Wow, so you can manipulate space just like the king,” I said, impressed.
“No, nothing like His Majesty,” Rinwen replied. “My power is very limited. This dagger is the largest object I can phase into another dimension. Saeria can conceal objects as large as a long sword. Our family’s strengths lie in protection and combat rather than what you would call elven magic. Our father is the head of His Highness’s royal guard. Our mother is quite the archer and huntress.”
Come to think of it, this is the first time either one of them had mentioned their parents. They had often brought up their older brother and an occasional cousin or uncle, but it had never crossed my mind to ask about their parents. Lariel’s family served as either tailors or scribes in the palace, so I guess I had just assumed that Saeria and Rinwen’s family did something similar.
“I would very much like to meet both of your families sometime,” I said. “Oh, but my lord husband wants us to keep my pregnancy to ourselves for now, so it would probably have to wait until after he presents me to the court and announces it publically.”
Lariel nodded. “That would be best.”
“Speaking of, that was another thing the queen came here to discuss with me,” I said, watching their expressions closely, “how the court will react to the news of my pregnancy.”
The fact that their expressions didn’t change at all was quite telling.
“Did you know?” I asked. “About your ancestors having children with humans being the cause of your infertility?”
I don’t know what changed, but suddenly Lariel no longer looked even remotely like a teenaged girl, her true age making itself known through the eyes that stared back at me with the weight of centuries. “We did, but it does not matter,” she replied quietly, solemnly. “What use is there blaming anyone for something that was impossible to foresee? All we can do now is move forward. Before you arrived, we couldn’t even do that. Now we have the chance to grow again, maybe not exactly as the beings we once were, but still Sidhe all the same.”
Claimed by the Elven King: Part Four Page 2