“No!” I cried as I held him to my chest. “No!”
He fell limp in my arms.
“No.” I gasped, staring at the handsome male before me. At his lips that would never give me that quirked half smile. His eyes that would never be filled with mischief as he called me his Little Baker.
I searched for something, anything. I looked to the mural, fire flashing on the magical painting. To the queen who earned the love of a king. To the king who endeavored to earn the heart of a human, then turned to hate and death. Who cursed our lands forever.
“No!” I sobbed into the echoing chamber. Love a gaping wound in my heart. An ache rising like yeasty bread. “Elden!”
I stared at the first Elf King on the wall. His eyes full of love toward his wife. Love could mend, bring people together, but in an instant, become a poison. Just as I’d allowed the love I felt toward my father to poison my heart against the elves all these years. But I would not go down the same path that King Theronvere trod.
I would let love and compassion fill me from now on. I would not close off my heart to this love who sat so vulnerably before me. I would work. I would fight—for him.
A mighty warmth filled my chest with a great rushing of winds, stronger than before. I clasped my hands over my breast and gasped as a golden light burst forth from me.
It was as if a great dark splinter had broken loose from the bindings of my heart, allowing it to feel…everything! At the same moment, a glow emitted from Elden’s heart, very much like the golden light of the mural in the queen’s art studio. The glow spread across Elden’s body, lifting him from my arms as it spread, until it reached his fingers and toes, vanquishing the black lines of poison along the way as a fresh rainfall cleared a muddy stream.
Then he fell gently back onto the couch. Whole and beautiful, and glowingly ethereal. My love.
I inspected Elden as he lay breathing and blinking. He was blinking!
“Elden?” I stared down at his sublime face. His exposed chest was smooth and clean and perfect—the inky black geometric lines banished forever.
Elden shot up from the couch, gasping. He inspected his hands, his arms, and chest, then looked down at where I sat, his mouth hanging open in shock. I shook my head in wonder. He was glorious, my Elf King. Elden stared at me then, deeply into my eyes as if the entire world hung in their spheres. A smile teased on his lips, then bloomed over his entire face. He wasbeautiful, effervescent. His white hair glowed in the flickering firelight, his open shirt crusted in blood, but his wounds completely cured. Gone.
As if a mighty sorceress waved an enchanted hand, all the gemstones in the castle burst forth with light. The large throne room outside the doors of our carved-out chamber erupted with a pure golden glow. The crumbled pillars and crushed floors stood out in strange relief to the rest of the immaculate corridor.
I spun, taking in the chamber and the castle with new eyes. The beauty, the details before lost, now here to discover. But in a flash, a mighty heat pressed over my leg like an oven mitt held too close to the oven. I yelped and grabbed onto my leg with surprise. Almost as soon as the burning seared through me, a cooling warmth trickled through my entire body, like a cool drink of water down a parched throat. I pulled up my stockings only to find that the splintering black lines of the infection were scrubbed clean.
“You are a wonder!” Elden laughed a deep throaty laugh full of awe, then he pulled me into an all-encompassing embrace. Through the rumbling of his neck next to mine he said, “You did it, Noelle. You saved us!”
The heat of his words sent a warmth down my back, causing my toes to curl. He set me down and looked into my eyes. Truly looked at me, his features softened by the caressing glow of the rumbling fire.
“Noelle, I know there is nothing I could say to hope for your forgiveness, but I…You have cured me heart and soul. You have mended the very fabric that binds me, and I love you.”
“And I, my Elf King, love you too.” I smiled.
I hadn’t made a love potion, not one like in the cautionary stories about magic, no. This potion was one of love. Of that good feeling you get when you cuddle a little puppy, or the love of a mother for a daughter, or the love between friends. Loveexisted in many forms. The love I felt for the Elf King and he for me, it was all of those things, but also new. It was ours. It filled my heart, though I had not tasted of the potion.
My heart pounded, and the room melted away, leaving only Elden standing before me, so tall, so strong. My pulse quickened as I leaned toward him. His smell of fresh pine and crisp snow was oh so delicious.
I reached up, and I wrapped my arms about his neck. Then, before I could think better of it, I hopped on the tips of my toes, as I’d imagined doing so many times before, and pressed my lips to the Elf King’s by the ever-burning fire of Winterthorn.
Elden matched me, meeting my lips with his own. He pressed in to me and I to him. He tangled his hands in my hair and I followed, reveling in the feel of his silky white hair on my hands. It was not a gentle kiss but one of hunger, of elation, of amazement. Warmth flowed from me like my own burning fire, melting my body into Elden’s with every kiss. I felt him, wanted him…loved him.
And he loved me.
Elden and I stayed in our new and tender embrace, not quite knowing what it all meant, but without a care?—
Until, with a gust of frigid wind and a howl, a mad yeti burst into the hollowed-out sanctuary. It roared in anger, spittle and hot air blowing out toward us.
The shade monster of the mountain had returned.
29
MISTLETOE
The beast roared again, sending a putrid smell of rot spewing through the room. Elden sprang into action, pushing me behind himself, his arm out in a shield.
