by Eric Vall
Deya led us toward the sitting room, and I noticed her tighten the knot of her skirt nervously as she went.
When we entered the room, the fog that settled as a ceiling glowed a ruddy orange, and Qiran stood up so quickly he knocked a small table over.
“Deya,” he breathed, and he stumbled a little to get to her.
The beautiful elf curled happily into her father’s arms, and I considered how much I’d learned about the man and his family since the last time I’d told him off and stormed out.
As shitty as he’d been to the four of us, I felt a little bad for him now. He’d apparently been loved by a woman as amazing as Deya once and had learned the hard way that the elves show no mercy.
Then he noticed his daughter’s apparel, and my moment of reflection was halted.
Qiran’s face flushed as his deep purple eyes flared, and I could see his grip on Deya’s shoulders tighten. He immediately looked past her and leveled his gaze on me instead.
“I need a word with Mason Flynt,” Qiran said through gritted teeth. “Alone.”
I swallowed hard when Deya sent her father a small bow, and she took Aurora’s hand as the women quickly made themselves scarce.
Dragir crossed his arms and posted himself against the wall near the fireplace, and Qiran stood in silent fury for a long moment.
The room began to feel smaller and smaller, but I cleared my throat and attempted to direct the conversation. “I heard House Kylen has fallen to House Syru,” I started. “Aeris was less than interested, so we decided to come down and do what we can to defend your House.”
Qiran still didn’t speak, but Dragir shifted slightly. “House Quyn thanks you,” he said pointedly. “Any assistance that might ensure our survival is of course valued by myself and my father.”
I nodded, but my pulse had started to sputter under the look the head of House Quyn gave me.
“Mason Flynt,” Qiran finally said. “You have taken my daughter from me and--”
“I didn’t take your daughter from you,” I quickly corrected. “She chose to come with us. I had nothing to do with her decision, and she’s a grown woman. You can’t just … ”
I trailed off as Qiran’s serpentine eyes narrowed into slits.
Dragir sighed. “I told her to go,” he admitted. “I helped her pack and got Ruela ready as well.”
Now, the leader’s anger was derailed, and he gaped at his son. “How … how could you hand Deya over to a--”
“To a man who would protect her?” Dragir cut in. “Easily. She is safe, no? He brought her to the elven capital, and yet she returns to you. Save your strength and do not waste your anger on Mason Flynt. There are more important things to discuss.”
“Yes, there are,” Qiran shot back, and he pointed an accusing finger in my direction. “Have you lain with my daughter?”
He spat the question like a death sentence, and I noticed Dragir raise his brows from his place against the wall.
I made sure to keep my gaze steady and my voice calm. “Of course not,” I lied.
“Not once?” he demanded. “You have not laid a hand on my daughter in any way?”
“Never,” I said, but my heart began to slam in my throat, and I wondered if Shoshanne had double checked on those teeth marks lately. I continued anyways and blindly hoped the healer had it all under wraps. “If you have an issue with the outfit, you can take it up with Aeris. His tailor made it, not me.”
I rode out the panic for another long and silent stare, but to my relief, the leader eventually lowered his arm and seemed to relax by a degree.
“Perhaps,” he allowed.
Qiran moved to return to his seat, and I took the opportunity to try and catch my breath without it being too obvious that I needed to. Then I noticed Dragir watching me closely.
“Any sign of them?” Qiran asked his son. The leader’s face was creased with worry, and his hands kneaded themselves to control their light trembling.
“Nothing yet,” Dragir answered. “We will know the moment they begin to head out, and the men are prepared and waiting.”
Qiran nodded nervously. “And the families?”
“They made it to the eastern village by nightfall,” he continued. “They have ten dogs with them, and the oldest are armed. They should be well guarded.”
I furrowed my brow. “You have another village?”
“We have a small fortress within the caves at the edge of the sea,” Dragir explained. “It belonged to my mother’s family. Once the battle is over, we can send the guards to escort their families back safely.”
“If we survive,” Qiran added, and his voice shook slightly. “If we do not, they will be found before long, and the women and children will be unprotected. Send some of your men to--”
“They will be fine,” Dragir interrupted as he stepped closer. “We cannot spare even one of our men, father. The dogs will be plenty. And we will not fall.”
Qiran trembled more by the second, so I stepped forward as well.
“Don’t worry,” I told the leader. “You have a large army and three mages to join your side. All of our weapons are at your disposal as well. You’re not so at odds as you think.”
The head of House Quyn looked at me, and his fear shone clear in all of his features. “I have never been to a battle,” he admitted. “I do not like violence. I only wish to keep my House safe.”
I nodded. “I’ve been to many,” I told him with a grin, “and I’m still alive.”
Qiran kneaded his hands in silence, and then he looked toward Dragir. “See they’re properly armed with some of our own blades,” he said, “and send for Deya. I want her here with me if anything begins.”
Dragir sighed and looked as if he’d had this conversation many times already. “You are not sitting in here, you will be found and killed.”
“I wish to remain as I am,” Qiran stubbornly insisted.
“Then you will be found and killed,” his son said again. “I will expect you to retreat to the fortress within the next hour. Let the men know when you are ready, and I will escort you both myself.”
Dragir and I bowed to the leader before he could argue further, and we left the glow of the sitting room behind as I followed the elf back into the night. Dragir turned for the hidden trail beside House Quyn, and he kept a stern eye on me when I ducked under the dense leaves.
I thought he was behind me on the nearly blackened trail, but he suddenly appeared right at my side, and I jumped when I noticed him. I had a sinking feeling I was about to be gutted and left in the woods, so I let my hand rest on my holster as I slowed my pace just enough for Dragir to pass me up and lead the way.
“Where did Deya and the others go?” I asked.
“They’re laughing rather loudly and getting their things from your Mustang,” he replied.
I raised my brows. “You can hear them from here?”
Dragir shook his head, “I could hear them from the main house,” he explained and ducked under a branch to enter the warriors’ village. “They’ll join us soon, I would imagine. Deya is very nosy.”
The last time I’d been through the small roads of the village, the place had been irritatingly at ease. This time, the sleek coated dogs roamed everywhere while warriors strolled in threes and were in constant conversation. I saw them exchanging weapons and sharpening their blades right on the front steps of their huts, and several argued as they gestured widely and spoke in their native tongue.
I could sense the tension of impending battle in the air, and my veins gladly fed off it as my adrenaline began to build. After mucking around with the Elite, I was more than ready to kill some brutal fucking elves again.
So, I followed Dragir closely through the torchlit streets while the warriors bowed here and there, and this time, he returned a few nods as he passed. Eventually, the noise of his army faded when we neared the back of the village, and Dragir turned down the last road with the three deserted houses.
The notion of how secluded I wa
s with Deya’s brother dawned on me again, and I glanced over my shoulder at the abandoned road before I ducked into the last house. My heart pounded while I listened to Dragir rummaging through the pitch-black room, and when the first torch was lit, I jumped about a foot without meaning to.
Dragir cocked a brow. “Are you sure you have been in many battles?” he asked. “You seem to jump a lot.”
I nodded.
The elf made his way around the room with a strange level of calmness about his demeanor, and when he came to the last torch, he spoke in a low voice.
“I know you lied to my father.”
Chapter 19
“What are you referring to?” I asked as casually as possible.
I thought I saw a shadow of a smile on Dragir’s face, but the flicker of the flames made it difficult to read his features.
“You slept with my sister,” he said bluntly, “and apparently tried to take a bite out of her shoulder.”
“Okay, fine,” I sighed. “I can understand your opinion at the moment, but I’m not about to let you gut me, and I think that’s fair.”
Dragir’s face took on a sinister cast as he turned from the recently lit torch. “What makes you believe I would gut you?”
I shifted uncomfortably. “The guy Deya was … fond of. The elf. He got gutted.”
“I didn’t gut him,” Dragir said with a small grin. “Ruela gutted him. She has her own list. That is out of my control.”
“Well, I’m not on Ruela’s list,” I informed him.
“I know,” he replied with a shrug, “but the elf was.”
Dragir headed for the racks lining his wall, and I kept my hand on my holster while he looked over his collection.
As I watched him make a few serrated selections and lay them gently on the table, it occurred to me Dragir must have at least been close by when the elf was killed. Otherwise, how could he know for sure it was Ruela who had done the gutting.
“What if the elf wasn’t on the list?” I suggested uneasily. “It could have been an … unfortunate accident. Ruela has her moments.”
Dragir sighed and pulled a large pitcher from the corner.
“Tell me this,” he said as he filled two goblets and set them on either side of the swords. “Deya finds the elf gutted in the woods, right? But she doesn’t know what he was doing there. He was supposed to be in Lyralus. He said this to her only days before. So, maybe he shouldn’t have been sneaking around our land, yes? Maybe this is why he was on the list.”
I slowly came over while Dragir drank from his goblet and sat down.
“You think he was up to no good?” I asked.
Dragir shrugged. “I don’t know, but Ruela knows. She always knows. Either way … not my elf. Not my dog. I didn’t gut him.”
I nodded and sat down, but I wasn’t wholly convinced he had nothing to do with it. Dragir must have noticed this, because he plunked his goblet down and looked at me.
“Why do you let this elf bother you, anyway?” he asked. “It was very long ago. Deya was only a child.”
I snorted, and the alcohol burned in my throat. “She was twenty-seven,” I corrected. “That’s definitely an adult where I’m from.”
“Where are you from?”
“Nowhere,” I said too quickly, and Dragir raised his brows. “Not far. Well … far, actually. You wouldn’t know the place.”
“You have a hard time lying to me,” Dragir pointed out.
“I do,” I agreed. “We’re alone, and you know I slept with Deya. Considering everything I’ve learned about Nalnora so far, you’re unnervingly calm about this. It’s freaking me out a little.”
Dragir finished his goblet and reached to refill my own. “I’m not going to gut you,” he said, and his tone was almost conversational as he continued. “I prefer slicing the neck, to be honest. It’s more fun.”
I considered this. “I like blowing their faces off,” I admitted. “The rifle is pretty fun in that way. Don’t tell Deya, though, she shocks kind of easily. I told her I go for quick and painless, which is usually true but … Nalnora seems to play by different rules.”
Dragir smirked. “Is that how you got Onym, then?”
The goblet was halfway to my lips, but I lowered it. “I didn’t kill Onym.”
“No?” Dragir asked, and he looked genuinely surprised. “Everyone thinks you killed Onym.”
“I didn’t,” I insisted. “Baroness Batanova killed him, I just didn’t stop her.”
“Everyone thinks you killed Onym,” Dragir assured me.
“Shit,” I sighed. “Well, I didn’t. Is that gonna be a problem?”
Dragir nodded. “Could be. Onym had many allies. Not of his House, but of his own. They’re quite upset.”
“Shit,” I cursed again. “Maybe you could fill a few of them in … ”
“No,” he said flatly and returned to his goblet.
“Why not?”
“Not my allies,” he said with a shrug. “Not my mage.”
I shook my head. “Is there anything you’re willing to acknowledge, or do you just drink and shrug all day and say fuck the rest?”
Dragir leveled me with a deathly glare. “My sister.”
I nodded my hearty agreement and decided to work on my drink in silence before I pushed my luck.
Dragir managed to finish his fourth goblet before I’d made it through my second, and when he spoke again, his bluntness caught me off guard.
“It is good Defender Solana made it out of Lyralus,” he said as he poured a fifth helping. “I figured they’d kill her first thing.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I would never let that happen.”
Dragir shrugged and studied the grooves in the table. “Some things are not in your control,” he muttered. “She was lucky. You both were.”
There was definitely truth in this, but as I considered the words, a notion popped into my mind.
It might have been the alcohol beginning to buzz through me, but I couldn’t help but notice Dragir’s focus seemed to have drifted off, and he looked unusually tired all of a sudden. It was as if his last statement had more of an effect than any of the alcohol he’d practically been inhaling so far.
I shifted my goblet aside. “Do you know any other half-elves?”
Dragir took a long drink before he nodded.
“Where are they?”
“They killed her, of course,” he told the table.
I stared. “They … what?”
Dragir nodded again. “It was … forty years before they would allow me to lead my army again. Another twenty, maybe twenty-five, before they genuinely trusted me after … ” Dragir trailed off, and his face settled back into a tense mask. “Her name was Eluna. She was going to name the baby after my mother if it was a girl.”
“Holy shit,” I breathed.
I’d asked on a slightly tipsy whim, but I honestly never expected Dragir had been with a half-elf himself, let alone loved her. Imagining him as the happy father of their child completely floored me, and I worked to process this while Dragir finished his goblet in one more gulp. I did the same.
When he spoke, he kept his voice low and briefly checked the darkened windows. “This is why I cannot be kind to Defender Solana around the others,” he explained. “It has taken a lot for me to regain my place here, and I’ve paid greatly for my actions already. Like Deya, I have inherited a duty to my race.”
I shook my head and sat back. “Fucking elves, ” I mumbled.
Dragir nodded in agreement before he pulled my goblet over to refill it.
“You’re not going to kill me,” I decided when he’d finished.
“I am not going to kill you,” he said. “My sister is most likely in love with you, and despite the Elven Council’s hideous ideas, I am inclined to hope for her.”
I couldn’t help grinning as my tension finally began to ease, and I studied the elf who drank incessantly in front of me. “You’re a decent guy,” I told him.
Drag
ir only shrugged once more and stood to return to the rack of weapons.
“My father and everyone else will kill you, though,” he assured me. “Do not doubt that.”
“Yeah … I’m still working on that one.”
“By morning it may not matter,” Dragir pointed out, and he pulled three glaives from the rack to set them on the table. Then he made his way to another and chose three Halcyan blades to add to the pile, as well as a handful of daggers.
Dragir took a deep breath as he eyed the pile of weapons on the table, and then he looked at me.
“You endanger more than my sister by doing this,” he said in a low voice. “You realize what could come of it?”
I could tell by his expression that the point had been bothering him for a while, and I nodded.
“I do,” I assured him. “I’m not going to let anything happen to her, though.”
“And if there is a child?” he countered. “They will kill it, and Deya as well. The elves would rather let her die than allow such a disgrace to take place. Especially since she is treasured amongst our people.”
“We actually haven’t talked about having a chil--”
“But you inseminated her?” he asked as his eyes narrowed, but before I could answer he waved his hand. “Nevermind. I don’t want to know the details. Just think of her future, and what could happen to your child. Aurora is not accepted among our kind, but she is not hunted. Any child Deya gives you will be considered a curse on our kind, and they will hunt it to the end of our world.”
“You have my word,” I told him, and I lifted my chin defiantly. “This will never be Deya’s fate. I will protect her, and if she gives me a child, I will never let harm come to it. No one will ever lay a hand on my family.”
“We will see,” he warned and turned to pull another couple of swords from the wall.
Then he grabbed the glaive with the needle-sharp point and the hook that I’d admired the last time I was here, and I couldn’t resist taking it from his hands before he could lay it down.
Dragir smirked. “I’ve killed many elves with that one. The entire edge is serrated, but you can hardly tell unless you hold it up to the light.”
I lifted the needle toward the torch on the wall, and as the flames caught along the Halcyan point, I could just make out the hundreds of tiny razor-sharp teeth along the edge.
