Page 53 of A Rising Hope (The Freckled Fate #3)

53

OREST

T his up close, the elves were much more vicious than I’d ever imagined. Human shaped, though taller, with sharp pointed ears, they looked primal, animalistic. The colors of their eyes were significantly more vibrant, piercing. Their cold sharp stares were similar to the fuming, armored animals they rode.

I clenched my hands behind my back, fingers numb, palms shredded down to their bones, but I forced the tremors to still. My armor was bent and terribly stained. My nose broken, and the hastily seared wound from the arrow in my shoulder made my left arm completely useless, but I held my bruised chin up, compelling myself to stand tall as the King of the elves marched in between his soldiers towards us.

His long, charcoaled hair was braided with intricate strands around the thorny metal crown he wore. He was dressed in armor, formed in a way I had never seen before, as if made out of magic; the threads looked like metal and yet they were fabric. An illusion of armor, and yet something told me it was much more durable than whatever metal and leather scraps we wore.

Whatever battalion commanders that could still stand, stood beside me, injured, battered and bruised, but they stood keeping their heads up.

And Zora . . . Zora was nowhere to be fucking found. A thought that disemboweled me within. I had to find her. She’d been in my arms and she had been in my sight through the end of the battle. Yet when we reached this abandoned chateau to take shelter and recuperate for the night, the elves approached me, and she slipped away.

With a mix of disdain and curiosity, the Elf King harshly scanned the bleak room of the abandoned estate we had overtaken as a refuge for the wounded to recover.

Not knowing much of elvish magic, I kept my skills hidden, not risking a full jump, instead cautiously observing the blue iridescent light twinkle around him.

The King tilted his head to the side like an animal, the movements so unnatural. His abnormally bright turquoise eyes shifted as he assessed each of my battalion commanders, like a predator assessing whether we’d be prey or a threat to him.

The air was tense and heavy, stuck in my lungs as I took measured breaths.

After a silence that seemed to last an eternity, the King reached to his side, near his heart. The fabric shimmered like an unseen shield as he pulled out a small envelope.

My commanders shifted on their feet, unsettled by the motion, but I stood still, ensuring not even a blink was out of line.

There was no point in this charade. There was no hiding the truth that we were entirely at their mercy. No, our pride had died on the same battlefields alongside our armies.

Now I stood still, forcing perfection because it was the only comfort I could provide to my thrashing heart.

The King passed the envelope to the tall elvish soldier that stood to the right of him.

The ferocious warrior’s long pointed nails scraped the paper. He scowled, approaching us, disgusted at our mere existence. But obliging with the King’s silent request, he handed off the letter to me.

I clenched my teeth, fighting pain and nausea, forcing my disheveled fingers to move as I opened the familiar letter, recognizing Gideon’s broken black seal on the back of it.

But the writing, no, the writing, was definitely not his.

Though I couldn’t understand the words written, I knew exactly who had written the letter. And so did the King. His haunting eyes met mine, his thin-lipped mouth moved as he asked in a broken language resembling ours.

“Finnleah? Where haathh she?” Like a blade, his voice cut through the eerie quietness.

“Finnleah is not here,” I answered, uncertain if such truth would bring the wrath of the elves upon us. “She is gone, but I can pass a message.”

The King released a sigh full of displeasure, and I knew he understood me well enough.

“Alive she haaathh so?” he questioned.

“Yes.” I gave him a tight nod. Whether my words were a lie or a truth, I didn’t want to question it.

He reached for the long silver chain around his neck, pulling a green eye shaped stone from underneath his armor.

I had seen that amulet before. Finn wore it on every occasion she could.

“My sister’s duety and her deabt paid has been. Her wissh fulfilled,” he declared with his mighty voice in a broken tongue, but everyone around understood then.

A life debt had been paid in full.

He gave another scrutinizing look to my broken soldiers and to me, not hiding his repulsion at our mangled bodies.

Whatever Finn had written in that letter, whatever that necklace meant to him, it was bigger than the ancient quarrel lingering for thousands of years between Elves and Destroyers.

Because they had come, and they had saved us.

The muscle in my temple twitched.

How did they cross the border undetected? My mind begged the question. One that made my thoughts pause more than once.

“Tell Finnleah, her and I conveersse we mussst,” he announced to those in the room. With a single click of his metal heeled boots, he turned around, departing from the room, each step commanding power and might. The lines of Elven soldiers silently followed him in perfect unison. An ocean of black and white as, one by one, they left the room.

The moment they were out of our sight, one of my commanders swayed. His body hit the dusty floor with a dull thud.

“Get him on a cot,” I snarled to the frozen soldiers lingering near him.

“We have none left,” another braved to answer.

“Then fucking make one.” I scowled over my shoulder at him, but my feet were already across the room. Rage, fury and dread all mixed into an explosive mood as I stormed down the long-winding halls of the crumbling estate.

Screams, cries, and, at times, the too poignant quietness encompassed the dark narrow corridors of the building. Injured bodies of slowly dying soldiers covered every available inch of the chateau. Half of them won’t make it till the morning , I knew that. There was no comfort in delusion to believe otherwise. Our armies were destroyed.

We were alive. But defeat came in more shapes than death.

I recognized Yanush limping through the poorly lit halls. Her ear was torn, blood soaking her leathers. She and Motra wrapped their hands around the half-conscious body of Ioanna. Both of her legs were broken, an arrow wedged in her side and her face so swollen I wouldn’t have recognized her had it not been for the black-and-white hair that peeked beneath layers of caked on mud and dirt.

“Who else?” I asked, my voice cold and sharp.

“Tori and Cori, we found. Both are pretty torn up, but they’ll live. Ashe said that at one point she saw Cass, but she is still looking for Lulu and Gia,” Yanush mumbled, not hiding the brokenness in her voice at the report.

“Gia didn’t make it,” I revealed. She swallowed the lump, and her bloodied eyes filled with devastation, but she nodded understanding.

“Zora?” Motra managed to speak through her busted lips.

“Zora is alive.”

Ioanna moaned in pain, little tremors recoiling through her torn body.

“We are taking shelter in the third room down the servants' hall,” Yanush said. “Tell Zora to find us. We need her.”

I silently nodded, pushing forward through the crammed building. Dreadful chaos rushed down the halls. Bright flashes of flames followed by loud screams ricocheted against the lifeless brick. The smell of blood and burned flesh settled in the air from the never-ending cauterized wounds.

I searched every passing person, scanning for her menacing glare, but Zora was nowhere to be found. My powers flared like a drowning sailor fervently searching for a lifeline in the darkest of tempests.

Zora. Zora. Zora. Zora . . . Her name was the only spell to my existence.

I pushed past exhaustion, past the agony of my broken body, scouring for her in the crowds of dismay.

But no matter where I looked, she wasn’t there.

My powers cried out as realization brought me to a complete halt. My eyes were glued to a small shadow cast on the courtyard below.

My mouth turned dry.

And I knew what she had done.