by Tara Grayce
“Get ready, Brina.” Essie murmured, not taking her eyes off the repeater gun. She couldn’t fire yet, not with Farrendel standing between her and the gun, his magic shielding him in humming, jagged lines.
Farrendel took two running steps toward the repeater gun, his magic lashing out ahead of him.
But he was too late. The trolls cranked the repeater gun. Bullets spat from it in a continuous stream, all directed straight at Farrendel. At the same time, all the trolls spun, faced Farrendel, and also concentrated their fire directly at him. The icy wind and stones bombarded the shield of his magic.
It was a killing field directed at Farrendel from three sides.
His magic shrank to protect him, flares bursting so constantly Essie couldn’t see Farrendel inside the tornado of his magic. The repeater gun hammered, and the explosions of Farrendel’s magic boomed. Essie’s ears rang.
Essie pointed her gun at one of the trolls in front of her, vulnerable to her fire now that Farrendel’s magic wasn’t between them. She tightened her finger on the trigger, aiming at his chest. She couldn’t think of it as taking a life. She couldn’t feel at all.
She squeezed the trigger. The musket bucked into her shoulder, and the acrid smell of gunpowder sliced into her nose.
The troll crumpled to the ground.
She held her breath for a heartbeat, waiting for some lurch in her chest. Some visceral or emotional reaction.
There was none. It had no place for it here. Here there was only noise and numbness and Brina beside her holding out the second, loaded musket.
Essie took the other gun, handed over the one she’d just fired, and picked another target. Aimed, concentrating only on the square of dark brown shirt where she’d send the bullet without looking at the troll’s face.
But as her finger tightened, a cry of pain cut through the thunder. Farrendel’s magic blew outward in a wave before it winked out, nothing but a breeze against Essie’s hair and a prickle against her skin.
Farrendel collapsed to his knees, three spots of blood growing on his middle and lower back.
IT WAS NOT a conscious decision. Essie snapped her gun around, aimed, and squeezed the trigger. The troll cranking the repeater gun staggered, blood blossoming at his shoulder.
One of the elf guards got to his knees to shoot but toppled as gunfire erupted around them again, this time aimed back at them. Farrendel’s magic didn’t protect them this time. Something zipped overhead, so fast the noise only registered after it was past. Dirt flew as bullets struck. A horse whinnied in pain.
More roots burst from the ground, but ice coated them before they could wrap around any of the trolls.
Only Essie could effectively fire back. Any elf that attempted to shoot now would take his life in his hands.
Essie reached blindly for the second musket. Her hand connected with wood and steel, and she yanked it from Brina’s grip, aiming as soon as the gun’s butt settled against her shoulder. One of the other trolls by the repeater gun was reaching for the hand crank. This time, her bullet struck him in his chest. When he went down, he stayed down.
She held out the empty gun. It was taken from her grip, and the other gun smacked into her palm so quickly air had barely brushed against her hand before it was filled again.
As Essie aimed for one of the two remaining trolls by the repeater gun, Farrendel staggered to his feet. Essie fired, and the third troll fell before Farrendel launched himself forward, both swords taking the last troll in the chest.
Farrendel’s magic sparked to life, but it was only a few shivering bolts taking out the stray bullets still flying in his direction.
Essie swapped guns again, fired, repeated, taking down the trolls closest to Farrendel.
Without Farrendel’s magic suppressing their fire and the elves’ arrows to deter them, the trolls were charging forward. Twenty feet away. Fifteen feet. Sunlight glinted on drawn swords and raised guns for one last volley.
Essie swallowed and raised the musket again. They were going to be overwhelmed. Nothing but a mere ten feet stood between her and a troll raising a large war ax as he charged. She fired, and the troll stumbled, but the trolls behind him pushed forward.
She probably should keep her gaze fixed on the advancing trolls. But if these were her last moments, she didn’t want her last memories to be just of charging enemies. As she swapped guns yet again, she glanced toward Farrendel.
He was stumbling toward the charging trolls, facing her now so that she could see the blood soaking the front of his tunic in a way the troll blood splattered across him didn’t. As if sensing her gaze, he looked up, his silver-blue eyes meeting hers.
It sent a jolt through her, making her wish for all sorts of impossible things. If only she’d used the word love that morning instead of taking the coward’s way out and saying care. What would it have been like to kiss him?
She should’ve kissed him. She’d thought she’d gone into this battle with no regrets, but battles had a way of bringing out all kinds of regrets she hadn’t known were buried in her chest.
But she also could see the things she didn’t regret. She didn’t regret marrying Farrendel or letting herself fall for him or coming to love his kingdom. She didn’t regret the moments that had led here, to this battle, beyond the fact that the massacre here would probably start a war between both kingdoms she loved.
Hopefully Farrendel could read her regrets and her love in her eyes. Separated as they were on the battlefield, they wouldn’t even get a moment for a semi-romantic goodbye.
Something hardened in his expression, and he took one, shaking step forward before going down to one knee. Magic built around him, crackling stronger and stronger until a hum filled the air. His skin glowed faintly blue, his hair swirling as if it lifted on a breeze.
Farrendel’s magic blasted outward in lightning-like streaks of pure power. The force of it pressed Essie against the dirt, her chest squeezing so tightly she couldn’t breathe. In front of her, Ashenifela squirmed, a frightened squeak of sound blowing from her nostrils for the first time the whole battle. But even the mare was pinned to the ground under the weight of the power hurling through the air.
This magic held such a wild, raw fury that it tore the air apart. Something exploded with a boom that shuddered through the ground. The trees around them groaned as if they too were in pain under the onslaught.
Then it all went still, the power sizzling into the sky before dissipating, leaving behind the smell of lightning and burned flesh.
All the trolls lay in dead heaps on the ground. Ash and gun smoke drifted.
Farrendel met Essie’s gaze again before his body went limp and sagged to the ground.
“Farrendel!” His name tore against her throat, raw from gunpowder and magic. She jumped to her feet, leapt over Ashenifela, and scrambled over the remnants of the sapling palisade, her musket thunking on the ground as she dropped it.
She probably should look to make sure all the trolls were dead before she charged across the open. She should wait until King Weylind gave the signal that everything was safe.
But she was dashing across the battlefield, dodging fallen trolls and slipping on loam slick with blood. Her vision had narrowed to the ground immediately in front of her feet and Farrendel’s body lying there, bloody and still.
Essie crashed to her knees next to him, pressing her hands against his stomach as if her two small hands would be enough to halt the bleeding. There was so much blood she couldn’t tell where the wounds were to apply pressure.
He was alive, his chest rising and falling.
He was dying. Tremors coursed through him. Blood flecked his lips with each exhale.
She pressed one of her bloody hands against his chest. She was begging and babbling and crying so hard she wasn’t even sure what she was saying besides the ringing of his name over and over in her ears.
He couldn’t die. He mustn’t die. Not like this. Not now. Not Farrendel.
His eyes flicker
ed open, and he reached one shaking hand toward her. “Essie...” Her name was a breath gurgling between his lips.
She gripped his hand and hugged their clasped hands to her heart. “Don’t die. Please don’t die. I love you, Farrendel. I can’t...”
She couldn’t get the words out. The light in his eyes was fading, his grip on her hand slackening.
No. He couldn’t die. Not like this. Not in some troll ambush. Not when they were so close to being able to say they were well and truly in love.
She tightened her grip on his hand, her other palm over his heart. “Did you hear me, Farrendel? I love you. You can’t die now. You have to live. We’re supposed to have a love like Daesyn and Inara. Of one heart. That’s what we vowed. This isn’t how it is supposed to end.”
Something tugged deep inside her chest, like it had during their vows in the elven wedding ceremony, but deeper. Stronger.
Essie gasped as pain tore through her middle, and her head spun with the effort it took to simply draw in a breath. Her heart beat hard and painful inside her chest.
Jalissa sank to her knees next to Essie. She glanced from Farrendel to Essie and back, her eyes widening. She placed a hand on Essie’s shoulder. “Whatever you do, do not let go of his hand. Not unless you cannot take in another breath.”
What was happening? What was this? Essie fought, dragging another gasp into her chest.
Jalissa glanced up, and only then did Essie register King Weylind standing on her other side, looking down at her and Farrendel with a stricken expression. Jalissa’s grip tightened on Essie’s shoulder, as if through that contact she could give Essie strength to draw in another breath.
Queen Rheva rushed up and knelt next to Jalissa. She spoke in elvish, but Essie couldn’t seem to concentrate enough to understand what she was saying.
Essie blinked, but black spots were dancing across her vision. Each breath was hard, as if the weight of a boulder pressed down on her chest.
Queen Rheva rested a hand on Farrendel’s forehead.
Pain flared inside Essie, white and crackling. There was a cry of pain. Hers or Farrendel’s or both, she didn’t know.
She was sinking, blackness hovering, the only sensation besides pain and pressure was the feel of Farrendel’s warm hand still gripped in both of hers.
She was on the ground. Damp, cool earth pressed against her cheek, the sensation soothing. Until that moment she hadn’t realized how hot she was. Burning. Sweating.
Hands lifted her. Fabric replaced the earth against her cheek. She didn’t have the strength to open her eyes. It took all her will to drag in yet another breath and hold on to Farrendel’s hand.
He was next to her. Her body bumped against his as the fabric beneath her moved and swayed. Voices in elvish spoke somewhere in the haze above her, but she couldn’t decipher the words.
Breathe. In. Chest aching, throat burning. Out.
It might have been minutes later. Hours later. Days later. They were jostled and transferred to something softer, steadier than before. More voices. More pain flaring before something soothing and cool washed through her.
And with that, she lost her grip on her last thread of consciousness.
SOME PART OF HER seemed to have a memory of a soothing rocking motion. Whatever it had been, it had stopped, though she couldn’t say if the motion had stopped hours or minutes ago.
Essie blinked, bringing a silver, arching ceiling into focus. Trees filled the bank of windows across from her.
She was in an elven train car, though the train around her remained still. Were they parked at a platform? Had they made it all the way back to Estyra? How long had she been out?
This wasn’t one of the seating cars she’d ridden in before. The mattress beneath her was soft while blankets were piled over her, as if she’d been tucked in and cared for while she slept.
She started to push the blankets away but halted. Her right hand was free, but her left hand...
She turned her head. Farrendel lay on his back next to her, still asleep, his chest rising and falling with gentle, steady breaths. The blanket had fallen down, revealing his bare chest and stomach covered with bandages. Someone must have taken the time to wash the blood from his skin and face, though a few flakes still clung to his hairline and dusted his hair as it spread across the pillow.
Whatever was in that elven shampoo and conditioner, it apparently could keep his hair tangle free even through an entire battle. It still looked nice, even with the dried blood. Hers was probably a tangled, frizzing mess. The ends of her hair were flopped over Farrendel’s in between their pillows, hers a burnished red against his silver-blond.
She was still gripping his hand like she feared he’d die the moment she let go. Something in her chest still felt connected to him, but breathing was easier. What had happened back there on the battlefield?
They were both still alive. That was the main thing.
She eased onto her side so that she faced Farrendel. He didn’t stir, his face tipped partially away from her, giving her a good look at his pointed ear.
He was still asleep, and her fingers were itching with curiosity. Essie reached out and ran her fingers through Farrendel’s hair. The strands slid across her fingers, not a tangle or split end. Maybe it wasn’t the conditioner. Elves had magic hair. That was simply the only explanation.
His breathing remained steady. He didn’t stir at her touch on his hair. It made her feel daring.
She traced her finger over his ear. It didn’t feel all that different than a human’s ear, warm when she’d been expecting it to be cool, but pointed instead of rounded.
“Why are you touching my ear?” Farrendel’s voice was groggy, and he remained perfectly still, his words the only indication he was awake.
Essie snatched her hand back. This was awkward. There really wasn’t any good way to reclaim her dignity. Not after he’d woken to her fondling his ear. Ugh, that was embarrassing. “I...um...your ear is pointed. I’ve been curious ever since I married you and...sorry.”
He turned his face toward her, his eyelids drooping sleepily. “Do all humans find pointed ears attractive?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I do, apparently.” She curled her fingers, resisting the urge to run her fingers through his hair again. She never would’ve pegged herself as the type to be attracted to men with pointed ears and hair longer and silkier and better styled than her own, but there was just something about elves...
Or maybe it was just Farrendel. She loved him from his looks and his scars to his quiet, almost shy demeanor that hid his thoughtfully caring heart. She even loved his fierce, terrible magic and the protectiveness that went along with it.
When she was with him, she felt so completely free to be herself, a freedom she never would’ve guessed she’d find in the reputedly staid and stuffy elven court. He never told her to stop chattering, quiet down, hush, remember to act like a demure princess. Even her mother and brothers had at times admonished her for speaking too much or too loudly. They’d done it out of love, but it had still chafed.
But Farrendel didn’t tell her to stop talking. He told her to talk more, to talk freely. To spout out the first thing that came to mind because he found that trait endearing instead of annoying.
Somehow, his encouragement to talk made her want to listen. To stop talking occasionally so that he would have a chance to.
And he had. Her lack of judgment had given him the freedom to speak. She could hardly remember the way he’d been when she’d married him, barely speaking to her at all besides a word here or there.
Farrendel struggled onto his elbows as if he was trying to push himself upright. He grimaced, sucking a sharp breath between his teeth, and collapsed onto the pillow, pressing a hand against his bandaged stomach.
Essie shoved onto her elbow. “Do you need me to get you anything? A drink? Painkiller? I don’t know where anyone is, but I’m sure someone is around who can fetch the physician. Or healer I guess you call them.�
� She shoved aside the blanket, letting go of his hand.
He gripped her forearm. “No, please stay.”
She halted. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I am fine.” His eyes were clearer, less sleepy than they’d been a moment ago. Now that he was lying back down, he didn’t seem to be in terrible pain. “I am used to being healed more than this when I wake up. It is fine.”
Essie eased herself down next to him, though she remained propped on one elbow to keep a better eye on his expression. “All right. But the moment you look like the pain is getting to you, I’m going to find the healer.”
If she could find someone. She still didn’t know why they were stopped, where they were, or why they seemed to be left so alone. Not that she minded the privacy, but she would’ve thought Jalissa and King Weylind would hover with how hurt Farrendel had been and still was.
Farrendel reached for her hand. “You saved my life.”
“I did? I kind of thought you saved mine. That last blast of your magic was incredible.” Essie ran her thumb over the back of Farrendel’s hand. “I thought we were all going to die there. But I guess I did save you when I shot the trolls by the repeater gun. None of the elves could shoot back without exposing themselves to fire.”
Farrendel reached his free hand up and touched her cheek. “How are you doing? It was your first battle.”
How was she doing? Essie shifted closer to Farrendel. “Honestly, I haven’t thought about it much. I woke up only a few minutes before you did, and on the battlefield when you were hit, I just did what I had to do.”
“If it hits you later or you have nightmares, I will be here.” Farrendel’s thumb was soft and gentle as he stroked her cheek.
“I know.” Their faces were only a few inches apart now. Essie’s breath hitched in her throat, and her heart was pounding. A different sort of pounding than it had been doing during the battle. She ran her fingers through Farrendel’s hair. “When I thought we were all going to die, I regretted that I’d never kissed you. I know you elves aren’t ones to kiss before you truly love someone and all that, but I—”
