I did not mention that we’d only ever slept one night out of doors, and that was on our way back from a particularly distant village where we’d been selling our baked goods. We hadn’t planned on staying out so late, so the night under the stars had been very unplanned. I’d slept in the rickety carriage whilefather read the map of the stars to me. Now that I thought back on it, it had been a magical night. My father, mother, baby Daisy, and the stars twinkling above. But it had been in the heart of summer, not this cold winter I found myself in the center of.
Elden raised an eyebrow and pursed his lips, but did not say a word about it. “I had Rafia pack a bedroll and tent for you. It should be in your saddlebags.”
And so it was. I unrolled the strange canvas contraption and just…stared at it—a confusing bundle of wooden poles and rope and stakes. Elden was already halfway through setting his up. With his black hair and the dark stubble that had begun to creep around his face, he looked ever more like the rugged huntsman from my fairytales.
I attempted to turn my blob of materials into something that resembled Elden’s perfect tent, but failed miserably. A chuckle sounded from the direction of the Elf King, and in a heartbeat, he was beside me. Woah. I’d forgotten how quickly the elves could move.
“I’m hopeless with these,” I said, defeated by the canvas beast.
“Since you had the honor of teaching me how to build a fire, I shall repay my debt. Here, you hold this section and place the wood just there.”
Bejeweled emerald evergreen leaves and green boughs swayed in the cold night air in the middle of the enchanted forest. I followed Elden’s instructions, and within minutes my tent was erected. He was a kind and thorough teacher. He didn’t build the tent for me, but taught me step by step as he’d taught me magic. So why was I having such a hard time learning it? What was I missing?
I unrolled my bedroll and brought my saddlebags into the surprisingly roomy tent. Magic had made it much bigger on the inside. What else was it enchanted to do?
I wrapped my jacket around myself a bit tighter, though the cold didn’t truly touch me. Elden collected some firewood and started a small blaze outside. I joined him in front of the fire.
“This will be our last night to risk a fire.” Elden’s deep voice rumbled through the wood. “Tomorrow we will be too close to the mountain. Too close to the place of shadows.”
A shiver traveled down my spine. “What protections do we have?”
The shade creature I’d come across was fast and vicious and there was another near the peak of Winterthorn. Did Elden expect to fight it off on his own?
“Our tents have many enchantments. Among many other things, they are weatherproof and invisible to anyone but the two of us. Here.” Elden sat beside me in the cold grass before the fire and held out some jerky.
“Thank you.” We chewed on our dinner of dried meat, cheese and bread in silence. I sat mesmerized by the stars that gleamed above. They twinkled like glittering jewels through the velvet blanket of night sky.
Elden followed my gaze up at the stars, “It is said that the stars glow more fiercely over the Undying Lands as a promise to our people. If we remember our vows, then we will be protected and blessed in this land.”
“Where is that said?” I asked. “I’ve never heard of any vows.”
Elden nodded and laid on his back under the veil of stars. I followed after him, stretching out on the soft, cold grass, my face pointed up to the thick black mantle of the night sky.
“My people were not always of this world,” Elden said.
I knew this. Knew many of these old myths and legends.
“They say we come from the stars. From a dying world beyond the heavens,” Elden continued as we stared up into the swirling galaxies of twinkling stars. “We came to this world and brought many gifts. Magic was among them, gifted to thehumans in exchange for the land in which we sought to rebuild. Our two peoples made a treaty. A promise.”
“I don’t think either of us kept our word,” I said.
“Yes,” Elden nodded thoughtfully. “It seems that the agreement has been breached. This is why my father sought out humans with magic for years to undo the curse.”
“But what of the maids?” I couldn’t let this go. It was too much, too twisted and wrong.
Elden let out a great sigh, his breath puffing out in a great misty cloud. “It is time I tell you. My father believed in the old tales. Our first king, my grandfather, was…married to a human woman.”
“What?” I reeled. An elf married to a human? It was unheard of. This myth of a human queen married to the Elf King had been completely lost to human folklore, if it was indeed true.
“Elayna was the first queen of Ravensong.” His deep voice resonated through the cool grass causing chills to spiral up through my back. “She and my grandfather ruled both human and elf alike on this continent. Their union promised peace to all. Then something happened that brought a great curse upon our lands and ripped the magic away from the humans all in one dreadful moment.”
“The blight.” My own hot breath curled from my lips and leapt into the air. What happened all those years ago in the mountain? And how did I have magic now after all of these long centuries? Me? A human?
“Yes. But the elves’ magic wanes as well. Less and less of our kind are born with the gift.”
“I thought all of the elves had magic.” And they could have saved my father that day two years ago.
“No.” Elden answered. “Only one in twenty had magic before, but now that number has dwindled down to one in a hundred, maybe two hundred.”
