Bound by the Mist (Mists of Eria) (31 page)

His guarded gaze quickly concealed a flicker of worry. “You still hold resentment, and you should. The very existence of my world shaped your life. Your suffering – it saddens me. But I cannot change it, no matter how I wish otherwise.”

She sighed. Tormenting him wouldn’t be right, though letting go of the past was no small thing. “I know, Relian. Believe me, that’s a conversation I’ve had with myself many times since coming to Eria. I can’t blame you. I can’t even really blame the veil after what you told me. And I’m starting to accept that. Yes, my life wasn’t ideal, but neither my childhood nor teenage years were the horror story some people live with.” Her lips twitched. “I think I’ve turned out remarkably normal, considering everything. It’s the circumstances around me that are insanely weird.”

His hands slid down her arms. “Does that mean you can move on from the past without it defining your future?”

More metaphysical talk. She groaned. “Can’t you ever just speak plainly? But to answer your question, yes, that’s what I’m attempting to do. I won’t ever forget the past, but I no longer seek to place blame.”

His arms went around her, anchoring her against him, and he rested his chin on her head. “That’s all I can ask.”

Her body melted as he placed kisses on her hair and just held her, nothing else. They stayed that way until many minutes passed, and it was time to rejoin the others.

***

“Where were you?” Maggie whispered.

“Talking to Relian about you know what.” Cal answered back quietly, aware of the stares they engendered by whispering at the table, where everyone partook of a huge feast.

“You’ll have to tell me later how that went.”

“Oh, I will, and you won’t believe it. I still can’t.”

“Oooh, this promises to be good. It better be.” Maggie’s previous decorum went right out the window along with the wine that went down her throat. “That pompous yellow-haired faerie showed me off like a pampered pet. Do you think humans are coming in favor now? Ha, every fashionable elf will want one. Will we get a jeweled pillow along with a matching collar?”

Next to her, Relian tensed. She shot Maggie a chiding look before turning back to him. What she saw dismayed her. His shoulders shook fractionally, and he coughed discretely in the hand that covered his mouth.

Relian laughed at his father’s expense? She glanced toward the king, but a visiting dignitary sitting to his left engaged him in conversation. Her relief soon took a nosedive in the form of Lord Avrin, who was seated on the other side of Maggie. The appraising look he directed at her friend spelled trouble.

Avrin’s light voice carried an amused tone. “I can’t speak for the king, but if every human is like you, Lady Maggie, I could see humans becoming a very popular fixture in our world.” His voice lowered. “As a fashionable elf myself, I think you would look striking clothed in a jeweled collar, reclining on a pillow.”

Maggie’s eyes flew to Lord Avrin, and her spoon dropped back into her bowl of soup. Her mouth wordlessly opened and closed.

Cal blinked. Had he just propositioned her friend? Well, it seemed he liked Maggie but maybe not in the way she first supposed. He’d escorted Maggie out of the king’s study when they barged in that one day. Now he served as her dinner companion and popped up more frequently than she could ever remember. Maybe elves weren’t so different from humans after all.

This was the first time she’d heard anything so overtly sexual in a public setting. Relian had said some very risqué things in private. She shivered. They sounded so sensual when he said them. Goosebumps covered her arms at the thought, drawing her attention to the fact that it wasn’t a good time to think about those things right then.

She focused back on Maggie and Avrin. Maggie was in the process of stuttering her way through something that resembled a response. “O…oh? I wasn’t really volunteering, thank you very much. I mean, I was just…. Yeah. I mean no. Definitely not volunteering.”

Thankfully, Maggie finished there, not saying anything else. Cal wanted to bury her face in her hands. Her friend had to run her mouth, and now look where it got her
.

The sight of the very proper lord stumping her forward friend marveled her. She nearly smiled in heady relief because she’d actually begun to wonder if all elvin men were abnormally stiff when it came to teasing and the like. Well, except for Kenhel. No one could ever call him so. The king, either. He did so like baiting Maggie.

Relian also certainly said things to make her go pink and turn her into a puddle of sexually frustrated goo. She shifted in her chair to relieve the heated pressure building up between her legs. No, so not going there right now, though she wouldn’t mind if he did. Stupid feast and stupid Relian for making her wait, never mind she’d agreed with him on that choice. But how could he be reserved one moment and so uninhabited the next? He had more effing personas than an actor, and elves claimed that humans were flighty with their emotions. What a double standard. It was so familiar and
human.

A moment of realization dawned. The full spectrum of emotions had been there all along. It was as Relian mentioned: his people merely hid their feelings more carefully and probably didn’t show them to strangers overmuch. Though elves were often formal and refined, they could let loose with the same aplomb as humanity. For all their differences, elves were surprisingly similar to the people she’d known all her life.

What other wonders would the rest of the evening hold? She had enough surprises on her already overflowing plate. Any others wanting to make an appearance could calmly wait their turn until tomorrow.

Chapter 28

“What!” Maggie screeched. “They actually believe you have something to do with the magic going a.w.o.l?”

Leaning against the railing of her chamber’s balcony, Cal winced as she turned to her friend. Maggie’s vocal cords left her ears ringing. “No, not with the magic disappearing, per se, but with the solution.”

Maggie folded her arms and adopted the same pose as Cal, one foot propped up on the delicately carved-balustrade. It was a posture that screamed doubt. “How? I fail to see how you can change anything.”

“Join the club. But that’s all they have, and they’re holding onto it tenaciously.”

“So just because our worlds are connected somehow, and they can’t find a solution to the troubles of their world in their own dimension, they foresaw the answer coming from our world, and you’re it? God, we’re screwed.”

Cal cringed. “It wasn’t quite put that way. They think I have something to do with the solution, not necessarily that I’m the whole answer.”

Maggie made a disparaging sound. “Well, that’s a relief. Not putting too much pressure on a girl, then. You’re a normal woman with no magic tricks, real or otherwise, up her sleeve, but hey, I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”

Cal buried her face in her hands. “Our worlds are royally screwed. They’re not floating up shit creek. They’re sinking like a fifty-ton turd in it.” She didn’t have any special abilities. How would the bonding change anything for Eria? Looking up, she pursed her lips. “Relian is also seen as part of the equation. We seem to be a package deal to them.”

“Like you can’t have one without the other?”

“Yeah.”

“Sheez, it looks like they’ll never let you go. Not that I blame them if they’re right. This is so much bigger than either of us. What are two paltry humans to them if one of them can play a part in saving the world?”

“Worlds.”

Maggie snorted before a bright smile covered her face. “Hey, since it looks like you’ll truly be going nowhere, you can accept Relian.”

Cal started. “Accept?”

Maggie flashed her a look that said playing dumb wouldn’t work. “Bond with him. You know, their equivalent of getting married. You know you want to. You’re crazy about him.” Cal tried to protest, but she cut her off. “Don’t even think about denying it. I know better.”

Pouting, Cal eyed Maggie. “Whatever, Mom.”

***

Chapter 29

“I’ve heard too many reports of the darkindred on the move.” Kenhel leaned back against a tree that flanked the outskirts of the training fields and shook his head, frowning at his sword. “We’ll have to act before they’re allowed to breach more borders and barriers. You know many of our nobility have small fiefs and haven’t the manpower to fight the enemy amassing outside Eria. There are enough within our borders without more breaking through.”

Relian frowned. “And with each one slipping over our borders, one or more of our people disappear. They’ll defeat us through conversion alone if they aren’t stopped soon.”

A grim smile came to Kenhel’s lips. “We kill all we get our hands on, even though they were once our brothers and sisters. The older ones still fool some of the soldiers, looking like lost relatives who’ve escaped captivity relatively intact.”

“That is why it’s so much easier to kill the young ones. They haven’t developed the strength for such ploys yet.” Relian grimaced. “Such a simple ploy, and one we know too well, but it works for them. Why would they stop? Some poor fool will always want to believe what his eyes see, even though his mind knows it’s not logically possible.”

“We need to think about rising up the national army, Relian, not just bits and sections of it. We need a concerted effort.”

Relian nodded. “You’re the commander of the guard for a reason. Once you give your recommendations to my father, he’ll give them his due consideration. Do you want me to call for a council?”

Kenhel’s playful smile came back in full force. “It’s already done. The council is to take place tomorrow, since so many are already in attendance.”

Relian slid Kenhel a wry look. “I see my father’s infernal plotting has a positive side to it. Taking out two problems with one arrow, though I like it not when that arrow is aimed at me.”

Kenhel snorted. “Yes, it’s ever his way to be efficient. But have you informed Lady Cal of either problem yet?” At the sheepish look on Relian’s face, Kenhel slapped his hand against his thigh. “If she’s to stay here, she needs to be informed of the enemies lurking within and outside our borders.”

“She’s aware of the existence of the darkindred, but that’s about it. She’s swimming under what she already knows. I fear to burden her with more.”

“That’s no longer your choice. In human years, in human eyes, she’s an adult. We should also treat her as such. The time for secrecy has passed. If she’s to be our princess, she needs to be in full possession of knowledge crucial to the kingdom, not what we choose to tell her. Her place here is all but guaranteed.”

Kenhel’s familiar words hit him like a blow. Cal argued for her adulthood in a land of elves where even the teenagers were older than her. “I know, but I just want to protect her.”

“I know you do, but you can protect her without sheltering her. She’s not going off to fight the darkindred. You are. Our soldiers are. We do it to protect our families. You
are
protecting her. But you can’t keep the truth from her. Anyway, she is bound to ask questions. If she doesn’t, then her lively friend will.” Kenhel grinned at mentioning Maggie.

Relian groaned, imagining the determined Maggie digging about for information. “I’ll tell them soon but after the ceremony is over.”

“You’re doing something that would have been taboo not very long ago.” Admiration and glee tinted his voice.

Relian glanced up from the sword he cleaned. “Why would it have been taboo? Have we become so stagnant that we can’t accept change unless it is forced upon us?”

“I think that nearly happened to us as a people. Let me phrase it this way. Would you ever have considered a human otherwise?” Kenhel never glanced up from where he sat, one shoulder buffered against the tree. His own sword was gleaming from his efforts.

Relian turned an annoyed face toward his friend. “How could I have considered one when there weren’t any here?”

“Exactly. They are there, and we are here. Segregation sanctioned and enforced by us. We effectively removed ourselves from their sphere of life.” Kenhel shook his head, finally looking up. “Sometimes I wonder if we didn’t remove ourselves too completely.”

Relian’s heart caught in his throat. “Are you saying you think this situation, this imbalance, has been brought on by us?” His voice didn’t sound as doubtful as he wished. He remembered Cal’s words about his people and mind games. Because of their long years, his people had a tendency to dissemble. A mortal did not and would not suffer it gladly for long. They didn’t have the time. But could he and his kind fault humans for their impatience?

Kenhel put aside his blade. “I don’t think we’ve helped it by any means. Am I saying we’re totally to blame? No, but we can’t overlook our part. Humans are ever changing. Their governments and way of life are often in flux. Nothing stays long in a vacuum for them. They change too much, while we change not at all. Our government is still led by the same king. The councilors rarely change. Our way of life rarely changes. Is there anything wrong in and of itself regarding these facts? Taken separately—no. Taken together—that is a different story altogether. Complacency is a way of life for us now—elf and human alike.”

“What makes you so sure?”

Kenhel threw a grin in his direction. “You and your lady.”

His mouth went dry at the thought of Cal. “Myself and Cal? What? Why?”

“You don’t know, do you? Everybody sees it, even those who don’t want to. Two different people, from two such different worlds, who complement each other perfectly. Who would’ve thought such a thing possible?”

Relian almost dropped his polishing cloth. He strongly cared for Cal, but had his people actually recognized the intrinsic depth of their relationship?

“The veil knew what it was doing by bringing elf and human together in this case. Now we all must wait to see what arises from it. Maybe you two are a bridge of sorts.”

“I don’t think the human world is ready for us or we them, not according to what Cal has said.”