War Bound

by Tara Grayce

  Guards would not do any good should Escarland turn on them. If that happened, they would be better served by Farrendel’s magic than with guards Weylind could not afford to spare. Not that Farrendel truly believed he would be called on to fight against a betrayal by Escarland’s royalty. Essie would not allow it. But that did not satisfy the part of him that panicked over any risk like this.

  Since he could not allow Weylind to see his fear, he forced his face neutral and gripped Weylind’s shoulders in return. “I will.”

  But Weylind did not release Farrendel. If anything, his grip tightened, as if he was loath to let him go. “I am trusting the Escarlish king with the protection of my family. Your magic is strong, but even you cannot stand alone against their army should they turn on you.”

  Surely King Averett of Escarland would not risk war—a war he had sacrificed his own sister in a marriage alliance to prevent—by allowing injury to either Farrendel or Jalissa.

  Farrendel glanced at Essie beside him, her focus on his and Weylind’s conversation now after Rheva’s short farewell.

  Essie stepped closer, wrapping her arm around Farrendel’s waist as she faced Weylind. “My brothers will keep him safe. I know you don’t trust them, and you probably don’t trust me a whole lot either, but war between our peoples is the last thing Averett wants. Nor does he want to have me grumpy with him over not liking Farrendel. So your family is safe.”

  Essie? Grumpy? Farrendel tried to picture it. The few times he had seen her grumpy, she usually turned weepy, then back to talkative and sunny fairly quickly.

  Essie sighed and shook her head. “I’m talking too much again, aren’t I? You’re giving me your bewildered look. Which, honestly, doesn’t look a whole lot different from your panicked look or your indulgent look, but I can tell.”

  Here he had thought he was doing an admirable job of keeping his expressions to himself. The public train station was hardly the place to be expressive.

  Weylind gave him an almost pitying look before he released him, as if he still felt guilty about pairing Farrendel with such an exuberant human. Now was not the time to give yet another correction that, no, Farrendel did not mind being married to Essie in the least. She would never be tame enough to truly fit among the elite of elven society, but Farrendel would not want that for her.

  King Weylind moved to Essie, hesitated a moment, then gripped her shoulders. “Look after him for me, isciena. This is going to be harder for him than you know.”

  Farrendel stiffened but could not allow either of them to see the way those words twisted. Weylind understood. He knew how Farrendel struggled with change and new places.

  Would Essie be as understanding? She had only seen him at his best in places where he felt as safe and controlled as he ever could feel. She might consider his nightmares his worst, but the ones she had seen so far were the manageable ones.

  What would she think if he lost the tenuous balance he currently maintained? His life had tilted out of control once before, and it had taken all of his family’s tenacity to drag him back to this level of sanity.

  Essie glanced at Farrendel before she returned Weylind’s gesture with her own, smirking as she did so. Farrendel tried to imagine what she was thinking but failed.

  As Weylind stepped back, Essie muttered under her breath. “Elves love their cryptic warnings.”

  As it did not seem something that required his response, Farrendel remained silent.

  His sister Melantha was next, and the last person left for farewells. She gave him a quick embrace of his shoulders, her black hair dark against the deep red of her dress.

  Farrendel gripped her shoulders, not sure what to say. He had always been closer to Jalissa than Melantha, since Jalissa was a mere hundred years older than him rather than two hundred years as Melantha was. But Melantha was the strong sister. The one who had carried the burdens the tragedies in their family had left to her.

  Melantha’s gaze flicked to Essie, and for a brief moment, her mouth curled before she tamed the expression. “Do not let yourself be tainted by the humans.”

  Farrendel gritted his teeth, forcing the churn in his chest to still. He had argued enough with Melantha over this already. He did not want to part now with yet another argument.

  She did not linger for a reply, even if he had found one. Instead, she glided away, skipping over Essie entirely.

  If Essie noticed the slight, her smile did not waver. Farrendel suspected her smile performed the same function as his impassive expression. They were both a mask to conceal emotions best kept hidden from those around them.

  Jalissa pivoted and embarked on the train, her guard trailing behind her. Essie made a waving motion with her hand but halted. It must have been a human gesture Farrendel had yet to learn.

  After a final nod to his family, he steered her onto the train. The dark green of the cushioned seats contrasted against the silver of the train’s walls while large windows looked out onto the forest and kept him from feeling too enclosed.

  As he sank onto one of the benches, Essie perched on the bench next to him, peering out the window. “I’m excited to be awake this time. I missed seeing much of the Tarenhieli forest last time. It will probably be a shock to you when we reach Escarland and see our rolling, treeless fields stretching out to the horizon. Though, I guess you will have the same problem I had back then. We will arrive in the evening and cross the kingdom in the dark, so you won’t see much except for the last stretch before Aldon, and that’s rather urban.”

  The train eased forward, gliding smoothly down the rails as it picked up speed. Essie leaned even closer to the window, coming within inches of plastering her nose to the glass.

  Across from him, Jalissa quirked one eyebrow. He let his own smile flicker onto his face for a moment while Essie’s back was turned. Yes, he fully expected Essie to chatter the entire train ride. And, no, he did not mind. As long as Essie was talking, she did not demand a response from him.

  The last time Farrendel had left for a diplomatic meeting like this, he had come home married to a stranger to form a marriage alliance between Tarenhiel and Escarland. Now he could not imagine his life without her in it.

  Essie turned out to be a very adaptable, understanding human, but what if her family was not of the same disposition?

  What if he could not convince her family of how much Essie meant to him? He could not even fully convince his own family of how right Essie was for him.

  After two hours of alternating between staring out the window and regaling them with past trips she had taken and sights she would like to show them in Aldon, Essie flopped back onto the bench and glanced between them. “Aren’t you bored? The two of you have barely moved in two hours. What do you normally do on a long trip like this? Our trip to Lethorel took most of a day, but I napped during that one as well. I’ll probably nap later, but not right away. Do you have any games you like to play?”

  Jalissa started, as if the suggestion was an immense relief. She gestured to the row of drawers set below the benches. “I believe there may be games in one of these from when we were children.”

  Essie immediately plopped onto the floor and started searching through the drawers. When she located the games, she pulled all of them out until she held one up. “Elven checkers. I know how to play this one. Though, you guys might use different rules than my family does.”

  Elven checkers? Was that what they called the game in Escarland? Farrendel reached to pull the folding table from the wall to set it up in the aisle. “It is eshalma here. Jalissa?”

  Jalissa lifted her shoulders. “I suppose I will play.”

  After they had set up the game, a board with eight points and played with colored glass marbles, Farrendel played the worst eshalma game of his life. Essie was too fascinating the way she chattered through the game, exclaiming over good plays whether they were hers or someone else’s, and bouncing in her seat in that way that said she could not sit still even if she tried. With Essie
, he did not mind being distracted.

  As Essie made another play, her focus on the board, Jalissa met Farrendel’s gaze, her mouth twitching before she gave a small huff, glancing toward the ceiling.

  Farrendel raised an eyebrow back. Right now, he did not care if his sister was laughing at how much he was staring at his wife. As Essie would probably curl up and fall asleep on his shoulder once she wound down for a nap, Farrendel being unable to take his eyes off Essie would not be the worst offense against propriety.

  As evening descended, they neared the border station at the Hydalla River, which formed the border between Tarenhiel and Escarland.

  Essie had indeed fallen asleep against his shoulder. Her head rested heavy, cutting off circulation to his arm. But she was warm against his side. Her breath wafted against his neck, fluttering the collar of his shirt.

  As much as he wanted to let her sleep, she would want to be awake for crossing the border. With his free arm, he gently shook her. “Essie, it is time to wake up.”

  Her breath caught, then she made a groaning noise in the back of her throat before she pushed off him. She swiped her hair from her face and rubbed at her eyes. “Are we there already?”

  “Yes.” The windows behind Jalissa showed the broad expanse of the Hydalla River, its ripples flecked with the orange of the sunset.

  Once the train eased to a halt at the station, they waited on board as their luggage was moved from the train to the boat. It took only moments to board the boat, and then they were moving into the current, headed toward Linder Island, a barren, rock island in nearly the center of the river.

  Essie rushed to the bow railing, focused on the Escarlish shore with her face turned to the breeze. Farrendel joined her, but he glanced over his shoulder at the Tarenhieli shore growing farther away by the moment. He forced away the churn deep in the pit of his stomach.

  Unlike the last time he had been there, Linder Island now had a jetty for their boat. A string of roots grew out of the water up to a tiny, one-room structure built on their side of the island. The roots connected to the rest of their root-system communication system. Farrendel had heard the humans used wires to achieve the same message transfer.

  The boat docked, and the gangplank lowered. Farrendel hesitated, but Essie gripped his first two fingers in a handhold and all but dragged him off the boat.

  Across the minuscule island, a stone building had been built on the Escarlish side with a wire running to the top of it. A steamboat waited next to their new jetty, smoke belching from the stacks.

  This was the result of the treaty between their peoples. Their two communication systems met here, on this island, where the soldiers stationed here could pass messages back and forth with a quick walk.

  A far too quick walk. Farrendel barely had time to brace himself before Essie was tugging him across the way.

  An Escarlish captain met them beside the stone building. “Princess Elspeth. It is good to have you back on Escarlish soil.”

  Farrendel was not sure how Essie would want him to present himself. He settled for standing straight and still beside her, hoping he appeared non-threatening. Beside him, Jalissa held her head high, her expression neutral.

  “It’s good to be back.” Smiling, Essie glanced past him to the steamboat tied to the dock behind him. “Is the boat ready to leave now?”

  “Yes, Your Highness. We’ve kept the steam pressure up so we can leave immediately.” With a sideways glance at Farrendel and Jalissa that was too quick to discern his thoughts, the captain led the way to the steamboat.

  The steamboat was painted a crisp white with black lettering in Escarlish naming the ship the Swift. Red wheels studded with paddles stuck out of the boat on either side toward the rear while the smokestack rose black against the sky, a bright red strip decorating the top.

  Jalissa grimaced up at the plume of smoke puffing from the ship’s smokestack.

  When Essie glanced at Farrendel, he forced himself to attempt a smile. But he could not hold the expression in place for long before the tightness of his shoulders ran tension into the rest of his muscles.

  Essie led Farrendel, Jalissa, and Jalissa’s guard up the gangplank onto the steamboat. The crew retrieved their luggage, then the steamboat shoved off Linder Island.

  In the bow, Essie leaned against the rail and bounced on her toes. She pointed. “The outpost is flying a royal pendant. It could be for me, but I think one of my brothers is here to meet us. I wonder if it’s Julien or Edmund? That isn’t Averett’s standard, so it can’t be him.”

  Farrendel forced his breathing to remain steady, even as he glanced over his shoulder at the blurry smudge of the far, Tarenhieli shore. In moments, he would be on Escarlish soil for only the second time in his life. His kingdom’s survival might rest on the impression he and Jalissa gave the Escarlish dignitaries. He trusted that Jalissa would make the correct impression, but would he?

  He had not made a thorough study of human customs. What if he offended them?

  All too soon, the steamboat eased to the dock. Smoke puffed into the sky as the paddle wheels reversed to slow the boat before it lightly bumped a piling. Soldiers rushed to tie the boat in place.

  Jalissa joined Essie and Farrendel, her face set in a serene mask. Her flowing, deep burgundy dress highlighted the rich, brown-black of her hair and eyes. She would show the humans exactly how stunning and composed a princess of the elves could be.

  If only Farrendel could keep his own bearing as poised.

  Essie tugged her hand free of Farrendel’s. When he glanced at her, she clasped his hand with all their fingers, palms together, in the human way of holding hands. “We’re in Escarland now. This is perfectly acceptable, and even expected, here.”

  “I see.” Farrendel resisted the urge to glance around, his back prickling with discomfort. This was far too intimate a gesture for public, surely. But none of the soldiers were staring at them as if horrified by the impropriety. A few were staring, but their gazes had the calculating look of threat assessment Farrendel recognized.

  “Ready?” Essie’s grin was wide, bright as the sun beaming down through the broad leaves of his home.

  No, he was not ready. But he had no reason to delay. “Yes.”

  Swinging their clasped hands, Essie strode beside him down the gangway to the jetty.

  At the end of the dock, a delegation of soldiers awaited them. In their center stood a slim human man with brown hair cropped short in the style of the humans. Farrendel was not an expert at gauging age in humans, but this human man was young. Around Essie’s age or perhaps a few years older. He was dressed in gray, human-style trousers and a black shirt.

  “Edmund!” Essie squealed, dropped Farrendel’s hand, and raced forward. She leapt into the young man’s arms, hugging him tightly around the neck. He responded by lifting her from her feet, swinging her around.

  She had said Edmund was one of her brothers, correct? Farrendel strode after her, not sure where he should stand.

  The young human man, Edmund, set Essie back on her feet, holding her at arm’s length as he gave her a look over. “Are you all right? I couldn’t believe what Avie did. And without giving me a chance to properly investigate him.”

  The look Edmund gave Farrendel over Essie’s shoulder pinned Farrendel in place. It was not a glare but rather something penetrating and calculating.

  Essie stepped back and reached for Farrendel’s hand again, tugging him forward. “Edmund, this is Farrendel Laesornysh. Farrendel, this is my brother Edmund.”

  Edmund held out his hand to Farrendel, a smile on his face. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I can see by my sister’s smile that she already cares for you very much.”

  He could tell that from just a few moments? Farrendel studied Edmund right back. This brother of Essie’s was perceptive.

  And, there was a test in Edmund’s words. This was the kind of test with which Farrendel was familiar. It was the type of probing statement an elf would mak
e.

  Edmund’s hand remained in the space between him and Farrendel. As if he was expecting some reaction from Farrendel.

  Farrendel glanced at Essie. What did Edmund want him to do?

  Essie leaned closer and said in elvish, “This is a human greeting custom. You clasp his hand and shake it.”

  Clasp his hand? That was highly unsanitary. Farrendel had no idea where Edmund had been or when he had last washed his hands. It was a wonder humans as a race had endured this long, if they had no compunction against spreading diseases with every stranger they greeted.

  Farrendel swallowed, forcing himself not to stumble back. This visit to Escarland was going to be far more difficult than he had anticipated.

  THREE MONTHS AGO, Essie had left Escarland mostly married to a mysterious elf prince she didn’t know. A marriage of alliance, nothing more.

  Returning now, it was so much more, even if it was odd to have Farrendel on Escarlish soil, facing her brother Edmund.

  Farrendel eyed Edmund’s hand. Elves barely held hands with their significant others, much less clasped hands to shake with a stranger.

  Essie leaned in close and whispered, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

  It would be a fine line between encouraging Farrendel to learn her culture and yet not force him to do things he was uncomfortable with, like shake a stranger’s hand.

  Edmund started to withdraw his hand, but Essie glanced at him and shook her head. Edmund needed to give Farrendel just a little more time to decide if he wanted to do this or not.

  After another moment’s hesitation, Farrendel warily reached for Edmund’s hand.

  Edmund gripped Farrendel’s hand before he had a chance to pull away and gave it a firm shake before letting go.

  Farrendel quickly withdrew his hand. Behind his impassive mask, he had to be grimacing and struggling not to scrub his hand on his tunic.

  Jalissa swept down the gangway to the jetty, resplendent in her burgundy dress, the silk rippling around her feet as she glided forward.

  Edmund bowed. “Princess. Thank you for gracing us with your presence. With your help, I am sure our two kingdoms will be able to put aside our differences and build a lasting peace.”