For the Love of Elves (World Walker Book 1)

by Shawn Keys

  Ajax watched grimly as she was hauled away. Her screams shook him to the core. She had played a game on him, but this was beyond a fitting punishment. The death sentence proved this King was every bit as vicious as Ajax’s own former one. But he had no power here. Not even giving the King the truth would save her now. He contained the pain deep inside, not about to show weakness in front of these beautiful but heartless beings.

  Lyvarress shifted back to the Errant, snapping, “You will reveal to me what you know of this pendant! I know there is a spirit contained within that holds power rarely dreamed of!” He gestured around to the elves of court. “They know I am on the cusp of greatness. A soothsayer has ordained my rise. This is the key to a new era in our realm’s prosperity.”

  Ajax gestured with his bound hands. “I can’t stop you from taking the pendant. Is that not enough? Must I offer up the prize to a royal thief?”

  The King fixed him with a cold smile. “Careful, human. Lest you try my patience past enduring. You were never worthy to carry it. A mud-knight sullies it with his touch. And now you are merely an Errant, adrift in the world.” He was more than a foot shorter than Ajax, but his bearing was pure confidence. He held all the power in this world.

  But then, he withdrew his aura. Enough to give Ajax a chance to hear sincerity in his voice. “However, I know magic. And you are correct. Magic stolen might never merge with its new wielder. In time, I have no doubt I would unlock its potential. But it is far more potent when freely given. So now you will give it to me.”

  Ajax heard a thread of worry behind the King’s voice. He isn’t as confident as he looks about unlocking the spirit’s secret. Ajax pushed back, “Have you inspired me in any way to bestow you a gift, King Lyvarress? A gift ripped from another’s hands is no gift at all.”

  Lyvarress’s mouth twisted in thought. He drifted away, pacing pensively. His gaze hovered on his sister lingering in the background. Her white dress was catching the last bold blaze of sunlight, setting her afire like an angelic torch. She glowed in the near darkness like the answer to everything.

  The royal elfish woman canted her head to one side, questioning his strange fixation. Her expressive mouth asked silently, “What?”

  Lyvarress’s gaze darted to his advisor.

  The severe elf gave an equally severe nod, reading the King’s thoughts.

  The King drifted back around, measuring the Errant in a new light. Seeing him as more than a problem; rather, Ajax had somehow become a solution. “Do not all humans yearn after fortune and wealth and treasure?”

  The strange question set Ajax back on his heels. “Not all.”

  “Oh? What if I could offer you a fortune beyond wildest imaginings. That is within my power, Errant. I would not be a thief. Indeed, you have done me a service unlike any other. You are the reason this treasure is within my reach. You deserve a reward to match the service.”

  Ajax barked a laugh in spite of himself. “The pendant is priceless beyond measure!”

  “Indeed?” The King issued a light laugh. It was almost sinister as the last measure of sunlight faded at the same moment. Only torchlight remained surrounding them. Shadows were suddenly so much deeper. “Quite unfortunate. You may have felt differently with a cart laden with obscene amounts of gold strapped behind you. Alas, you cannot be bought so cheaply.”

  Ajax’s jaw clenched. He would not have folded with an offer of gold, but he couldn’t ignore what that sort of wealth would let him do. The King was toying with his emotions. “I cannot.”

  Acting a role, the King pretended to unearth a worthy idea. “Perhaps, if golden coins are not sufficient…” He wandered back, and extended a considering hand toward the elfish woman at his side. “…you might be tempted instead by the golden flesh of my sister.”

  Ajax’s eyes widened, his mouth gaping open. Decorum failed him. Unbidden, his stunned gaze went to the ethereal woman who had until then been a part of the background court.

  The King’s sister was frozen in her own surprise. For an elfish woman, she was tall, hovering around five foot and a small smattering of inches. Her arched eyebrows and almond shaped eyes were sharper than most, blessing her with an attractive but alien elegance. Each proportion was exactingly in place with her, flawlessly symmetrical; she was a porcelain doll given life. Her sun-kissed skin was lustrous instead of tanned, like a golden hue shimmered under the surface without spoiling her natural coloring. Her flowing blonde hair floated about her like a halo that refused to let the last of the sunlight fade from the room.

  Then, the storm broke, and anger flared into her features. “How dare you speak of me like this? I am no whore to be given to suit your whims!”

  Lyvarress kept his meticulous composure. His words were precisely chosen, meant to drive her anger hotter while maintaining his equilibrium. This was a calculated descent into crudity. “But you have made such efforts at beauty this evening! Who could argue that everyone in this room would want you? Hardly an accident, is it, Callistia dearest?” He gestured to her robes, tailored with an eye to breezy elfish fashion sense, her full breasts heaving upward with each angry breath so that her cleavage threatened to explode into view if the wrong button were to give way. Her dress-robes were no more daring than many other elfish women in the court, but her steaming emotions were making them seem more revealing.

  Stung by the pinpoint strikes against her, Callistia struggled, not prepared for the callous attack. She flushed in embarrassment, not quite sure where to put her hands, knowing that covering herself would only add to his harsh words. “Because I have scrubbed myself fresh and wore my finest dress –”

  “– and no doubt shaved where it counts?” Lyvarress mocked her.

  The crass comment belonged in a gutter, not a court. It made Ajax cringe. There was no subtlety there; this was a deliberate attempt to assassinate her character. In a proper setting friendly to Callistia, her supporters would surely have rallied around her to defend her from such a cutting remark.

  Instead, the nobles drank it up as they watched her flinch in emotional pain. Entertainment for their all-too-often dull lives. Ajax could see their thoughts emerging in their cruel sneers, especially her female rivals who were always fighting an uphill battle against the King’s sister. The King is burning his sister’s reputation. How can I play this to my advantage? Perhaps he might even make her cry. It was a terrifying sight to behold.

  The storm in Callistia became a tempest. “What a vile tongue you have this evening, brother!”

  He approached her with two lightning steps, grabbing her wrist. “You are my subject first, and sister second! Do you hear me? Refuse me, and I shall ensure you work the brothel you so clearly belong in.”

  His vicious words continue to pummel her. Her gaze darted to Ajax, taking in the whole of his being in one sweep. Then, her focus was back on the King. “You can’t expect me to pleasure this brute! There is a beast’s aura about him!”

  That made Ajax pause. Could she sense his hidden heritage? He was blessed it was not more obvious. As he matured into manhood, none of the sloping forehead, heavy brow and weighty ears of his ogre heritage had emerged. His lantern jaw, thick neck, block-shaped head and barrel chest gave him a baritone voice few humans could match, but they could be explained away as a primitive throw-back to a more rugged human past. Could she sense it somehow? Elves were mystical creatures, and orcs and ogres were their ancestral enemies.

  Even as she said it, Callistia’s eyes were drawn back to Ajax. They moved past his face, roaming along his powerful body to read the raw aggression lurking in his warrior heart, tempered by the manners hammered into him during his time as an elfish-trained mud-knight. He was the vision of controlled strength, and Ajax had the sense that her gaze lingered on him despite her best efforts. That his brutish strength spoke to the core of her in a way she might not admit outside the privacy of her own soul.

  The King noticed her distraction and scoffed at her. “Maybe rutting with humans appeals
to you after all?”

  Callistia snapped from the moment, glaring at him.

  Before she could speak, Lyvarress said snidely, “Then again, there are others ways. If this hapless Errant cannot excite you enough to let him enter you, then call your chamber maid to the bed with you. What you find so charming about a moon elf is beyond me, but I hear she has served you well over many a night.”

  A thrilled murmur raced around the room as the King confirmed one of the juiciest rumors of court. It didn’t matter if there was truth to it. The King had spoken, and thus is was real. Dalliance among other sun elves was fun and produced wonderful rumors, but sex-play with a moon elf? It was not as shocking as taking a human to bed, but they were still unworthy. Especially for royalty!

  Ajax broke free of his paralysis, done with letting these events spiral out of his control. He interjected, “What if I reject your gift? Have I no choice in the price for my treasure?”

  The King spun back, stunned that he would dare speak and break into his game. “Be extremely careful, Errant. If you are dead, you have no claim to the spirit artifact. I seek to reward you as the rightful owner, but I will feel no shame in killing you in a duel to defend my sister’s honor?”

  Ajax nearly laughed. Defend her honor? You’re destroying it as we speak! But he realized the King had built this trap with multiple layers. Down nearly every path, Ajax could walk into his death.

  Ignoring the paradox, Lyvarress continued, “Is not the value of my sister’s virginity and the privilege of laying with a scion of the sun on par with any magical trinket? You will accept her, and she will delight you until the sacred sunrise rituals we cherish. Then, when the sun is high, you will give me the secret to the pendant as proper compensation. If you do not, then you will have shamed me. You will have stolen from me the great gift of my own blood’s blood. Deny me, and as the light fades at sunset tomorrow, I shall re-invigorate the sacrifices of old to the forgotten gods. I am sure they are rather hungry after all this time. Enough to devour a heart even as large as yours.”

  He leaned in and whispered fiercely, “Bend to my will, you human insect. The war for this magic is above you. It always was. Take what is offered and give me what’s mine. Then I will cast you back into the rough wilderness where your kind belongs. You can run from Tyranthelam’s gendarme for the rest of your pathetically short life.” His regal eyebrow arched. “If not, then you are my enemy. My enemies tend to die.”

  Ajax glared back, eyes sparking like flint. “Tyranthelam couldn’t unlock the secret in a decade. If you kill me, you will have nothing.”

  Lyvarress intoned, “It is in my blood to rule this world. Not his. But if it takes me a decade, then what of it? If not a decade, then a century. For what is time to my kind?” He reached up and ripped the pendant off Ajax’s neck, bruising him as the thick cord reluctant snapped.

  The King stalked back over to his sister and hissed a final warning, “I shall weigh your actions as I weigh the heart of my own gendarme and knights. When I commune with this spirit for the first time, it must be with the clear conscience of having sacrificed something important enough to be worthy of gaining this prize. You are my sacrifice. Come morning, if he has not possessed your body, then your betrayal will be treason.” In a swirl of robes, he vanished.

  The court was a-buzz. Normally, when the King left, the other nobles began to fritter away almost immediately to seek new amusements. But now, the crowd remained rooted in place, watching the drama of what would happen in the King’s absence. They were sharks looking to feast on the Princess’s pain.

  Callistia steeled herself under their gaze. A significant part of her looked ready to leave in defiance. Ajax couldn’t imagine all the pressures that battled in her mind. All her long life, making contacts and friends and alliances. Her brother’s public, callous abuse of her trust was threatening to unravel and taint all of it. Some would judge her for obeying him. Others, for surrendering her purity. Yet still others for whether her courage failed her, and even that…what sort of courage? The courage to do as her King and sovereign demanded? Or the courage to reject his unreasonable demand and risk the label of treason? And that was merely what Ajax could cook up in his brain.

  When she moved, it was not to flee. She took very precise, very measured steps toward Ajax. She approached until standing only a couple yards in front of him. Pride clung to every inch of her.

  To Ajax, she was intensely perfect. Unattainable. Above him in a way that was impossible to climb. This went beyond attraction. He could feel his desire, but it went further into admiration. He couldn’t imagine anyone taking this embarrassment with such sculpted grace.

  Callistia’s eyes sank down Ajax’s body again, then stopped at his mid-section. For a brief second, Ajax thought she was seeing the painful bulge threatening to rip the seams on his thick-cotton traveling trousers. That made him flush a little, feeling on display. But whatever she may have seen, her intent shifted to elsewhere. She gestured at the iron cuffs linking his hands to his belt. “I believe the purpose of those has ended? Remove them. He’s our guest being granted a boon by the King, not a prisoner.”

  Dassereen tilted his head up, looking down his nose at her with a cunning, half-concealed smirk. “Perhaps he should keep them on. I think only for your safety among the pillows.”

  An eyeblink later, she was in front of the gendarme. Her speed was blinding. Yellow-white motes of light hovered in her aura and along the path she had traveled. Her fore-finger was raised under Dassereen’s chin, and her razor-sharp, yellow-enameled fingernail was pressed to the soft flesh of his throat. “What makes you think you have the right to address me with such insolence? My brother is King. You… are not. Am I clear?”

  Swallowing carefully, Dassereen tilted his head in a slight nod – all he dared do to avoid blood being drawn. Whatever threat she posed, it was enough to put the seasoned gendarme back in his place. He gestured to the others, “Remove the restraints.”

  They obeyed, and a few seconds later, Ajax was free. He rubbed at his wrists and flexed his powerful arms. One of the gendarme didn’t move swiftly enough back, so Ajax growled at him. He wasn’t in any mood to put up with them crowding him. He had seen past their elegant facades. These elves were as petty as any human lord in their minor courts. The gendarme withdrew, sensing the danger of a cornered animal who was not really under anyone’s control.

  Callistia’s hand fell, though her glare remained on Dassereen for a long while. Then, her perfect façade returned. Drifting again with stately grace, she turned to face Ajax. “Shall we retire to somewhere more comfortable? This is not an affair suited to an audience.”

  Ajax measured her back. He could see the strain in her face and the slight twitch along the edges of her movements. Not so perfect after all; chaos and turmoil roiled inside of her. He couldn’t even imagine her grief, but he sympathized as best he could. Trying only to make this easier on her, he answered with a grave nod. “The choice is yours.”

  The statement brought her a dark flash of humor, as if thinking, Despite all evidence to the contrary. She said, “Then follow me.” She floated on elfish-light steps for an exit leading out of the Sun Tower and into the royal apartments. The King’s supporters leered as she led Ajax away.

  Ajax did his best not to give them more reason to gossip. He gave her space and cast his expression in stone. No eagerness. No lust. Difficult, considering the hardness of his shaft. It was a constant fight to keep his eyes from the sway of Callistia’s sculpted buttocks beneath the folds of her robe-dress. Even behind the flowing fabric, he could imagine the lithe sensuality of her body.

  He cut off his own lust harshly. No. I will not add to her pain. As soon as we are clear of this farcical gathering, I’ll vanish. I won’t hurt her even more. I already have one sun elf king hunting me. Why not two?

  Chapter 4

  At first, they walked sedately. But as they put distance from the tower, Callistia started to pick up the pace. She seemed
to care less and less about her posture and demeanor, nor about maintaining a speed that her ‘guest’ might find suitable. She wasn’t trying to lose track of him. But the pressure was mounting to get into privacy before she exploded.

  A set of double-crystal doors opened as she approached as if by magic. Considering who this is, it probably is magic, Ajax suspected. They crossed into a palatial room that blended a bedroom with an expansive sitting area and dressing room. Massive windows stretched across the entire face of the castle, without any visible seams or support structures. Glass-work like this was impossible for humans, once again showing off the skills and artistry of elves. They were on the side of the castle facing the cliffs over the ocean. Looking out the windows was like standing on a drop that plunged a several hundred feet into the waves below. The vista was incredible, and Ajax wished he had the time to appreciate it fully.

  However, the emotional drama playing out in the center of the room was too powerful. And it rightfully deserved his attention, given his place at the core of it all.

  Callistia turned and flicked her hands. Her rage gave her magic a little extra force, and the doors closed with a resonate clash halfway between a bell tolling and steel smashing. Not caring that a foreign, (secretly half-) human knight would hear, she unleashed her frustration at full volume, “That arrogant, condescending bastard!”

  From deeper in the apartment, emerging through the door to a closet as large as many human cottages, another elf emerged. “Milady? Are you well?”

  Ajax was confronted with another beauty, born from another elemental source. As much as Krizzalani was a product of the dark and Callistia was a herald of the sun, Ajax could see the heritage of the moon in the approaching maid. Her skin was pearl white pale with a sapphire undertone, enough that she nearly glowed in the low light. Her black hair stood out in stark contrast; strands made from the night sky surrounded her lunar-bright face. The majority of her black hair was as long and as stark in color as Ajax’s own. But amidst the black of her hair, sparkling motes twinkled faintly as they caught the firelight. She was barely any taller than Krizzilani had been, but where the dark elf had been intense and focused, the maid was spritely and bounced. Ajax could easily see this maid getting into mischief, but it would be meant for laughter rather than evil.