Elden unclasped his coat, then lifted his shirt beneath. I helped him pull his tunic over his head as he hissed in pain. Hot steam rose in the air around Elden’s exposed form. I inspected the Elf King’s back with a poorly hidden grimace.
Puffy scars etched numerous trails down his back. Black veiny poison fanned out from them like corroded spiderwebs. The bite on his side was the worst of all. This ran deep with black like a poisoned river. Elden turned to face me and my hand flew to my mouth. The black veins inched across his stomach, around his wide chest, toward his heart.
The blight was worse than before. Infinitely worse.
Elden hung his head, white braids swinging down past his shoulders. “It’s getting closer to my heart with every step toward the mountain. I fear I will not make it to Winter solstice. I may not even reach the mountain.”
I pulled Jel’s potion from my satchel and handed it to Elden. He took a swig, then proceeded to wrap back into his tunic and jacket.
“You will make it,” I said with as much conviction as I could muster. “Here. Eat this.” I handed him the rest of my pancake, then proceeded to cook up the rest of the batter. “We need to fill our bellies so that we’re ready for what is to come. And then I will teach you everything I know about Christmas, and you will be so wildly excited by that that you will forget all about the solstice and want presents and stockings and maybe even hope for a visit from Father Christmas.”
Anything to distract the king from his pain.
Elden chuckled as he winced. “What is so special about your human Christmas?”
“It’s not just for humans.” I noted, encouraged by the question. He was open to hearing about it and I was not about to let this moment go to waste. “It’s about peace, hope, and love. It’s about spreading good will to all.”
“To all?” Elden raised a white eyebrow.
“Yes.” I stared into his golden eyes for a breath. “I think we forgot that somewhere along the way.”
We ate our fill of apple and nut buttermilk pancakes, then broke camp and packed up for our big day of travel. I fed an apple to Sapphire, who I swore lowered her back for me as I attempted to saddle her enormous form. Even Elden raised an eyebrow of surprise.
Somehow, a small seed of hope lingered in my heart at the conviction in Elden’s words.“You will master this.”I fed that hope as we rode through the winding forest toward the looming mountain of Winterthorn trying to banish the image of Elden’s black chest from my mind. I would need it.
22
CHICKEN PIE
Winterthorn approached ever closer, a purple jagged scar on the horizon. Beautiful. Majestic, really. But I knew an ancient Elf King lurked there as a shadow beast. I knew we only had days, not weeks, before Elden’s sickness spread and he became the very thing he fought so hard to overcome.
Sometimes when I blinked, I thought I could see the blackness of the blight spreading through his jacket across Elden’s back and chest with hungry talons.
The pancakes sat fluffy and full in our stomachs as we rode through a Winter Wonderland. Blankets of snow and facets of crystal ice coated the trees. But the closer we traveled to Winterthorn, the more swaths of forest were decrepit, broken and black. No snow touched the warped blackened trees, as if the blight was too evil and dark to hold the cheery white fluff. The blight smelled of rot and sulfur.
We traveled further, entering an enchanted wonderland of crystal snow. It was beautiful, untouched by man, elf or blight. The sight cheered me.
I spoke quickly, hoping to banish the gloom of the blight which met us so often on our journey. After all, I had a not-so-secret mission to warm the king’s heart toward Christmas.
“The baking at Christmas time is my favorite,” I gushed. “You can basically cook and eat anything you want without any guilt because, well, it’s tradition!”
Elden laughed at this. Our horses puffed out hot breath, the evergreen trees surrounding us covered in a thick blanket of rolling white snow.
“Eggnog, caramel corn, molasses cakes, and fresh baked apple crisp with cream.” My stomach growled despite the many pancakes I’d eaten this morning. “There are snowball fights?—”
“We have those as well,” Elden’s eyes gleamed. “Fights as epic as any war we’ve ever fought through the centuries.”
“Oh, really?” I smiled, imagining the proper Elf King throwing snowballs.
“Oh, yes.” Elden’s lips curved into a grin. “You see, Little Baker, the most important way in which to win a snowball fight is to use the element of surprise.”
It was then I felt a hard ball of cold slam into my chest. “What?”
But Elden had already hopped from his horse and was running behind a very large tree. I wiped my glove at my chest, coming away with the snow of a very well-packed snowball. He must have been gathering the snow from the hanging branches beside us. Not to be out-done, I slid from Sapphire’s back and led her over to the other side of the trail, as two more snowballs pelted my back.
“Hey!” I called, laughter bubbling up from my throat. I gathered handfuls of snow and made as many balls as I could, then peeked out from behind my large tree. Elden’s horse was tied up across the trail, but where was the male? I searched forhim, squinting my eyes, when another snowball hit my shoulder from behind.
“No fair!” I spun around and found the king standing not two trees away with an armful of snowballs. I picked my piddly snowballs up and started chucking them, running for the Elf King, screaming a mighty war cry. Elden’s eyes flew wide with surprise, a playful smile on his lips, as he ran from me.
