Page 4

CHAPTER FOUR

“O W !”

The toddler tugged on my braid hard enough that there were more than a few loose strands between his grubby fingers. He giggled at my grimace and waited for a smile, but I couldn’t give him one. My body ached with exhaustion and grief. It took what was left of my energy to pull a thick spout from the thrashing water below and use it to carry us to the edge of the river.

Elaran waited for me at the bottom. “Gerarda already sent word to Feron. He will be ready when we return to discuss …” She raised her hand to the sky that was beginning to clear over the wood. The thick bands of stars glimmered through wisps of shadow while the remaining soldiers’ shrieks echoed in the distance.

The waateyshir would be occupied long enough for us to get to the portal. My back relaxed, and my magic settled to a low simmer under my skin.

Julian giggled in my arms. I wrapped the boy around my shoulders hoping he would leave my braid alone, but his fingers dug in to hold himself steady.

“You’re not very motherly,” she said, her voice completely deadpan as she wriggled her fingers up at the boy.

“My mother stuffed me in a tree for seven hundred years.” I winced as Julian tugged again. “And the only parents I ever saw at the Order were the ones who dropped their daughters off in the middle of the night. None of them were particularly motherly either.”

Elaran’s teasing smirk faltered. I’d hit a nerve.

Whatever it was, she steeled herself just as quickly. “Why don’t we let the grumpy, sullen Fae protect us with her special magic powers while you come with me,” she said in an exaggerated high-pitched voice that made my ears hurt. She reached up for the boy, and he opened his arms for her.

“I could have walked him to the portal,” I grumbled.

Elaran raised a brow at me. “You have blood all over your face. I’m saving the poor thing from a childhood of nightmares.” She tucked him onto her hip, and he immediately rested his head on her shoulder.

“I think maybe the humongous bird of death might have already done that.”

Elaran looked at my boots. It took her eyes a long time to make it to my face again. “I refuse to believe that Hildegard taught you to fight with so little grace.”

I looked down. My tunic and leathers were covered in thick smears of red. The parts that weren’t sticky with blood were stained dark from ash.

I scoffed and opened my mouth to retort, but I couldn’t. Minutes after battle and Elaran’s leathers were pristine. She wore no shirt underneath her fighting vest but even her tan skin was clean. Not a scratch or drop of blood. Her perfectly done updo held together by her gold weapon only made it more annoying.

She bit her lip knowingly as she smiled.

I cocked my jaw to the side and let my shoulders slump forward. “We need to go.”

The boy sucked his thumb. His ears had grown into their round shape with no scar along the front and only a tiny little line of stitching left behind it. If he was lucky enough to survive to adulthood, time would wear the scar away completely.

My skin prickled along the edge of every name I’d collected. If only time could wash away all scars.

“I’m sorry you lost a friend today.” There was no pretense to Elaran’s words. Her knowing smile had fallen to a straight, serious line across her mouth.

My throat burned hot. I had spent the past two days planning our escape with the Halflings and imagining Victoria’s face when she first laid eyes on Myrelinth. I was looking forward to when she’d get to see all the faces of the ones she saved over the years alive and free—at least as well as they could be with Damien still on the throne. Some of them even had children now.

Children Victoria would never get to meet. Something rumbled in that dark, rocky bottom in the depths of myself, the one that I had fought so hard to climb out of. Lash. Maerhal. Nikolai. And now Victoria. Every loss had set a crack along the ground of it, fracturing it little by little. I didn’t know how many more losses I could take until that dark place I kept so contained crumbled into a hungry pit that sucked every last bit of hope out of me.

I grew used to the searing pain in my throat; it was a reminder of how much I’d already fought and won. I could fight a little more.

“I’m sorry too.” I drew a breath of cold air to ease my throat. “But there’s no other way she would have wanted to go. She was a protector to the very end.”

Elaran bit her cheek and didn’t say anything, but I knew she wasn’t one to let words sit on her tongue.

“Say what you wish.” I was too riddled with grief for offense, and I didn’t have the energy to wonder what Elaran wanted to say.

She glanced at me then down at Julian. “She was hit by one of the soldiers.”

I winced. What man would strike a woman so frail?

“He paid a hefty price; she threw him over the edge for it.” There was a note of admiration in Elaran’s voice that made me smile. “But he split her lip.” Elaran paused, running a finger over the curve of Julian’s ear. “She was bleeding.” Elaran turned to me, her green eyes fierce and serious. “She bled red, not amber.”

I huffed a laugh. “That’s to be expected. She is—was—Mortal.” Tears misted my eyes as I corrected myself.

Elaran stared at the ground in disbelief. Her nostrils flared, trying to sort through which question to ask first.

“But how could you trust her? With something as important as our people’s lives?” Elaran stopped walking. We were nearing the portal too quickly for her to get the answers she wanted.

She turned, lifting her chin as she looked at me. As she judged me and my decisions. I didn’t blame her. If it were anyone else partnering with Mortals, I would have questions too.

I shrugged. “Because she trusted me first.”

Elaran’s jaw snapped shut, her feet rooted to the ground like she was an earth wielder tethering herself to that spot.

“Before Victoria started her life ferrying Halfling children in and out of hiding, she had her own.”

Elaran’s sharp nose wrinkled. “Halflings or children?”

“Both.” The word sunk to that dark place inside me as the memories of those early years came to the surface.

“Had …” Elaran’s lips clung to the word for much longer than they needed as she realized what had happened. “They were discovered?”

I nodded. “The eldest was named Idris. He was a young boy when it happened. He was working for an apothecary in town when he nicked his palm shearing some winvra leaves. The apothecary saw amber and reported him.”

Elaran blinked and her face turned sour. “She married a Halfling?”

I nodded.

“How could she not know?” Elaran said to herself more than to me.

“She did.” My throat tightened. “Her husband’s name was Landyn. He was a Halfling who escaped the fields in Volcar and somehow convinced his agent that he was dead. He looked Mortal, and no one ever questioned it when he settled in Silstra. Then he walked into the butcher shop looking for a job and found his wife instead. Vic never told me when he told her or how, but she knew before the marriage happened and married him anyway.”

Elaran’s neck tensed. It was a sad story, but not unheard of. Surely Gerarda had told her of the families we were sent to discipline when such a union was discovered.

Elaran shook her head. “But she lived … After her child was discovered, her entire family would have been exposed.” Elaran took a step back. “She told the guards that she didn’t know. She begged them to spare her while her family paid the consequences of her actions?”

I bit my lip. It had not been a guard who had been begged to. It had been me. Though it was not Victoria who had been on her knees.

“I was the one dispatched to dispense the king’s mercy that day.”

Elaran’s eyes went wide and she stilled, little Julian nestling further into her shoulder to sleep.

“I told the Shades to take the family to the city circle.” I cleared my throat. “Aemon liked his punishments to be conducted in public for everyone to see. And fear. It was my blade that cut each of their palms; it was I who discovered Victoria was Mortal and the rest of her family was not.”

Elaran’s lips snarled. “She trusted you because you spared her.”

I scoffed. “No, she hated me for it. It wasn’t Victoria who begged for her life that day. She was so calm she would have tied her own noose if I’d asked her.” I kicked at the grass and looked up at the city. In almost thirty years, so much had changed and yet so little. “But her husband pleaded first. He swore that Victoria didn’t know. That his daughter, who was barely eight, didn’t even know. He swore he had deceived them all.”

“And she agreed to this?” Elaran pursed her lips in disgust.

“No. Victoria said nothing. But her parents came to her defense. They had never known the truth about their son-in-law or grandchildren. They corroborated his lie.”

“And you believed him?”

I shook my head. “Of course not. But why should all three die if I only needed to kill one?”

Elaran’s shoulders fell. “Oh, Keera.”

“Landyn was killed by my blade and hung in the city circle on my orders.” My voice sounded far away, like it wasn’t my memories I was divulging but instead some story from long ago. “I made sure the children didn’t see it. That was the best I could do for them. The son was given to a kind agent in Cereliath with a small plot of land to farm. He kept his wards’ paperwork up to date and allowed them some leave after each harvest so Victoria was still able to see her son.”

“And the daughter?”

I met Elaran’s gaze. She already knew what happened to young and able-bodied girls in the kingdom. “I let her have her last evening with her mother, and then Willa was brought to the Order to train.”

“What happened to them?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

“Idris was stopped by some guards on his way back to Cereliath. His paperwork was in order, but they insisted it was a forgery. He was beaten and left on the edge of his agent’s property.” I swallowed. “He didn’t survive.”

A tear rolled down Elaran’s cheek. “And Willa?”

“She trained hard. She was a favorite of Myrrah’s.” I smiled, remembering the ambling little girl who would leap from post to post in the training grounds dreaming of the days when she would get to join the Shield at sea. “She died during her Trials. I brought her body back to Silstra. I thought a mother should see her daughter one last time. Have the chance to bury her properly. She deserved that much.”

“How did she ever agree to work with you when you caused her so much pain?” Elaran’s words were not hard with judgment but rather breathy with disbelief that someone could be that forgiving.

I shrugged. I didn’t know the answer to that either. “I think because she was a mother to Halflings. She loved them with all her heart and saw what choices they had to make—she had to make—to give them the best chance. And then when that was ripped from them, how to make the best choice for their survival. She had been angry at needing to make those choices for so long that by the time I brought her daughter back to her, she could see that I was forced to make hard choices too.”

Elaran readjusted Julian on her hip. “How many Mortals have helped you along the way?”

I sighed, tallying them up in my head. “A few, but not many. It was too dangerous to give Mortals the chance to prove themselves. It puts everything in jeopardy.” I beat my palm against the hilt of my dagger. “But Victoria knew of many Mortal parents hiding their Halfling spouses and children over the years. She helped them hide in plain sight and move when they were close to discovery. She even managed to help some hide before the soldiers could get to them once their families had been found out.”

Elaran took a deep breath. “She was remarkable. To take all that pain and fight so tirelessly with it. With no care for the consequences.”

“She was remarkable.” I nodded. “But I think Victoria always knew the path she forged would end with her death. Yet she fought anyway.”

Elaran took a step forward, and I was grateful her questions were done. The best parts of Victoria were entangled with the worst parts of me.

“I always thought if we were brave enough to take the kingdom to war that it would end in so much bloodshed either there would be no Halflings left standing or no Mortals. I never pictured a world where our kin won and there would still be Mortals left. Mortals who might not want to fight us.”

I froze, unsure of what Elaran was suggesting.

But when she turned to face me, there was nothing but concern etched upon her face. My story had shaken her so completely a few loose curls had fallen from their twist. “What if we win and the survivors don’t want to leave but don’t want to fight? What do we do with them?”

I shrugged. I had no idea. I had barely begun to imagine a world where I survived winning the war, let alone had the power to make decisions like that. My entire life was a practice of balancing death, not life. I didn’t know if I was capable of making decisions that allowed people to do anything other than survive.

That’s all I had ever done.