“Aldaar was there?” Elden interjected, his mouth hanging open in shock.
“I was never far from the child, Majesty.” Serrina dipped her head. “He believed he could talk to the beast, make him remember, and for a few days, it seemed to be working. There were moments where the beast would calm at Aldaar’s voice. Then, just last night, a great wind blew through the palace. Every gemstone glowed brilliantly. Aldaar had taken to sleeping across the room where we kept your father. Once the blight was lifted, your father and Aldaar spoke for a few moments before…he passed to our ancestors.”
“I’m so sorry.” I placed a hand on Elden’s shoulder. “I know you wished to see him.”
Elden blinked, red rimming his eyes. Then a smile grew on his face. “Father was not alone, not in the end.”
“There is another matter.” Serrina cleared her throat and shot me an accusing glare. “It seems that one of the baker’s human friends followed her across the Falls and was trapped in the Evergate without the blessing of the king.”
I blinked, reeling. “One of my friends?”
“A Samuel Hawking.” Serrina answered briskly. She’d been there in the human village when I’d been taken from my family. She’d noted the young man who cried after me, anger and recklessness in his eyes.
If he had found me right after I’d arrived, I would have gladly tried to run home to the human realm with him. How could a heart, my heart, change so much in such a time?
“Where is he?” I asked, worry warring with fear. “What has happened to him?”
The king gripped my fingers tightly as Serrina said, “He is ill and in prison, awaiting his fate.”
I blinked up at the king, still not able to wrap my mind around it. Sam had followed me here. He’d tried to save me. “And what will be his fate?”
Elden stared into my eyes, which must have been huge and pleading. I was going to be sick. It was well known that no human could pass beyond the Evergate without a blessing from the king. So, what happened to the individual who attempted it?
“The penalty for trespassing is”—Elden lowered his head, white hair spilling around his shoulders in a cascade—“death.”
“Death?” I stepped back once, then again. Death for my friend Sam, who brought me eggs every morning? Who played with my dolls when we were ten just because I wanted to? Who brought me the last bluebell of the season?
My heart pounded as my breaths came in quick gasps. “It can’t be so. It just can’t be.”
I looked from the king to the bodyguard and back again, searching for any kind of hope.
Elden’s face offered no such kindness.
“But we stopped the curse. We renewed the treaty. Surely there can be free trade and travel between our peoples again?” I asked through a closed throat.
Serrina stared at me with a blank expression. Elden’s eyes searched mine intently, his mouth working slightly. “When someone enters the Evergate without my magic, they accept the consequences. This magic is beyond me now.”
I dropped my head and the king’s hand from my grasp. Sam. His very name filling me with a sense of loyalty and pride.
I raised my chin to meet the Elf King’s sorrow-filled gaze. “I wish to see him.”
31
TRUE LOVE
My eyes burned, tears welling. I attempted to blink back the emotion, but it was there all the same.
Elden nodded a little too formally. “As you wish.”
Following behind the king’s long strides, I felt the connection between us pulling tight.
The invisible string under great distress.
I didn’t realize our new love would be so fragile. One word from him and our connection would be severed forever. But I still had hope. Somehow, the hope made this all seem so much worse.
I followed the king and his guard down several curving flights of stairs, the gem lights growing dimmer the farther down we reached. A dark foreboding crept over me. I was heading towards the dungeon, toward where they kept Sam. What would I find once I reached his prison cell?
We arrived at a room carved out of stone, each cell a cave dug into the bedrock the castle sat upon, like an anthill full of chambers. A fitful cough sounded from a cell on the right. I hurried over to find a long bed carved out of stone protrudingfrom the wall, Sam laying atop it. And Lila, the maiden, with her hand in his.
