Rajani shrugs. “She is. More or less.”
Nahina narrows her eyes, looking from the princess to the white coast ahead, and back at the gaunt young woman. “Deal.”
“Excellent.” Amara smiles as though she’s just tricked the fisher girl out of her soul, and she looks away to survey the white land.
“Gen?”
I almost don’t hear Rajani call my name. I’m staring back at the sky again, where the gateway was. “It all happened so fast. It was like I was racing toward a finish line, and now I’m half a league past it, and don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore.”
“What?”
I look back at Rajani. I can tell she wishes she could leave the controls and come sit by me, so I get up and stand beside her. “I just… I’ve been trying to find my mother for so long now, trying to get some answers out of her, and just when I do... bang! I’m gone. I’m here.”
“I’m sorry, everything was happening so fast, and I was scared, and Amara said go, and I wasn’t thinking,” Rajani babbles.
“Hey, it’s not your fault,” Xiang says, standing up on her other side. “It was crazy back there. You’re the one who rescued all of us. That was amazing.”
She blushes. “Thanks.”
“Thank you.” He smiles and holds her hand for a moment, and she smiles back.
“No, no, no touching heartfelt moments.” I wave my hand in between them. “You can flirt on your own time.”
Xiang looks up, all shocked and innocent. “I wasn’t flirting!”
Rajani smacks him on the butt. “I was.”
I smile, but it fades. “I guess… I guess she’s not who I thought she was. My mother, I mean. Or maybe, she’s exactly who I thought she was, only more so. Angry and crazy, yeah, but at least for the right reasons. I guess that counts for something.”
I shake my head and find myself looking back at Amara, who has once again wrapped herself in several layers of coats and blankets. Her smirk has vanished and she simply looks small and cold, and this makes me feel a bit better. “Mother was looking for Raven. I suppose, since she was planning to kill him, it’s better if I find him first.”
“Undoubtedly,” Amara agrees, and shivers.
“And you think Lozen’ll be all right back there by herself?”
“In truth, I have no idea,” the princess admits. “But she fended off both you and Miss Nakaroa while lying semiconscious on the ground, so I’d say the odds are in her favor.”
I nod. Honestly, I don’t think anything can kill my mother, but it helps to hear it from someone else, just to know I’m not crazy for thinking it. The little faerie clinging to my hair swings gently against the back of my head, and I still feel good, mostly, but there is a dull pain hovering behind my eyes. I massage my eyelids, saying, “All right then. I guess I found out as much as there was to find out. So let’s go find Raven before my head explodes.”
Continued in
ELF SAGA: BLOODLINES
Part Two: City of the Dead
About the Author
Joseph Robert Lewis enjoys creating worlds in which history, mythology, and fantasy collide in new and exciting ways. He also likes writing about heroines that his daughters can respect and admire, characters who blaze their own paths with bright minds and unbreakable spirits.
Joe was born in Annapolis where he learned to not drown while at sea, and then went on to study ancient novels, morality plays, and Viking poetry. Outside of the world of fiction, he works with a lot of smart people to write and publish books about technology, software, politics, economics, and history.
Other titles by the author:
Aetherium – a series of steampunk fantasy adventures
Angels and Djinn – a series of epic fantasy adventures
Daphne and the Silver Ash – a fairy tale
Elf Saga: Doomsday – an epic fantasy adventure
The Kaiser Affair (The Drifting Isle Chronicles) – a steampunk thriller
Ultraviolet – a YA dystopian thriller
Zelda Pryce – a series of YA urban fantasy adventures
Get your free copies of THREE fantasy books when you sign up for the author’s mailing list.
Click here to get started:
http://www.josephrobertlewis.com/blog/free-books/
Elf Saga: Bloodlines (Part 1: Curse of the Jaguar) Page 12
