After the children went to bed, the other humans joined us, but most of them went upstairs long before we did. In the end, it was just Rachel, Albert, Caleb, and me. The parents had wanted to stay longer and have some adult time, but exhaustion got the better of them. Even the Creen had gone to bed, leaving a barrel of ale out on the buffet for us, tapped. Oh, and snacks. They left a platter of cold meats, pickled vegetables, cheese, and bread for us. That was kind of them as well. We especially needed the bread.
“I wish we'd known about you,” Rachel said to me. “You would have been popular, you know? Having a man with magic in town? It would have been a relief.”
“Would it?” I shot back. “Or would you have been afraid of me? Or put a lot of pressure on me?”
Rachel pursed her lips. “I suppose you're right. You may have been ostracized out of fear or expected to protect us.”
“And I wasn't trained. I was teaching myself back then, learning little by little in secret.”
“That sounds rough, Ember,” Albert said. “I'm sorry. We all thought you were an odd one, keeping to yourself like that. Your parents were so friendly and yet you barely spoke. We wondered what you were up to alone in that house after they died. And there you were, cut off from us not because you wanted to be but because you were forced to. It must have felt like a type of prison.”
I sniffed, my emotions loosened by the ale. “Thanks, Al. That's nice of you to say. Yeah, I felt really alone after my parents were murdered.”
“Hey.” Rachel leaned forward and dropped her voice to a whisper, “How can you be with that Ladrin? Isn't that hard on you?”
“No one's here but us,” I whispered back to her.
Everyone chuckled.
“And yeah, it was hard at first. Especially since he's a Wolf Ladrin. But Xae has been through some shit too. He lost his entire village.”
“He's the only Wolf Ladrin left?” Rachel gaped at me.
“No, his village, not the whole clan. There are a lot of Wolf Ladrin in the world.”
“Then it wasn't his village that attacked ours?” Caleb asked.
“No, of course not,” I said. “Even if it had been, Xae wouldn't have been among them. He doesn't agree with that crap.”
“Well, and he was here, right?” Caleb asked. “He's been a Wraith Lord for a long time.”
I blinked. “Oh. Yeah. Yes, he has been. He was here when Fress was attacked. And when the Emperor heard about the attack, he was very upset. Evidently, he thought the Wraith Lords had put an end to attacks like that.”
“Why haven't they?” Albert asked. “I lost my sister in that attack.”
“They're trying. Still are. I can attest to that. There are only so many of us, and Corrupted attacks take precedence over others.”
Albert grunted. “They shouldn't.”
“Al, think about it,” Caleb said gently. “We lost a lot of people in the Ladrin attack. I lost my mother.” He swallowed roughly before going on, “But compared to when the Corrupter came, it was nothing.”
Albert grimaced. “I don't know. We survived the Corrupter.”
I slumped over my mug. “Yeah. But you went on to attack and maybe kill other people. In the greater scheme of things, more lives were lost from the Corrupter attacking than the Ladrin.”
“More immortal lives,” Al muttered.
Rachel grimaced too.
Caleb looked at me as if to say,See? You're it for us.
“Lives are lives,” I said. “And in war, the people in charge have to look at numbers. They can't be swayed by emotions.” I should have told them that the Corrupter was killing humans now too, but I didn't want to add to their worry.
“Aw, Ember, just let us complain a little,” Albert said. “This isn't our war. They started it and they have continued it. We are just pawns.”
My stomach clenched. He was right. An immortal started the war. The Corrupted rebelled against the Emperor and discovered he could use humans as soldiers. And yet, Al wasn't completely right.
“If you want to complain, here, with just us, that's fine,” I said. “But I think you know the truth, Al. One evil man started this war. One man has been using our people as pawns because no one would follow him. Because of that, humans were forced out of the big cities and into communities of our own. He made them fear us. And fear makes people do bad things sometimes. Just as I'm sure it would have made all of you do bad things to me if you'd found out about my magic sooner.”
