Once I find it, I will be one step closer to saving the continent from the darkness that threatens to fall on us all. No more will we be left waiting for the ax to fall, cutting off the beast’s bindings and setting it free from its ancient prison. We will be free from this monster. If what the…
I shut my eyes, blocking out the following words. It stabs at something inside of me to see the way he feigns care for either me or his people. He sent me to lie with an evil woman so that I could break into her vault, steal her personal correspondence, and then kill her.
I had been so convinced that my father asking me to go to Zlosa and seduce the Giant Queen was for the good of my people. Back then, I was so sure that I could serve the troll court well, return home, and then move forward. I was taking too long to recognize a mate. What was it to seduce someone if it meant saving my whole world?
For so long, I kept it far from my mind, thinking I wouldunderstand when I was king. Tirin’s face appears in the hazy dark behind my eyelids. He was barely old enough to be a hunter when Rholker came, demanding I kill my own people or risk a war.
See?my father hisses.You are just like me.
I press my lips in a line and whisper aloud. “No, I am not. He offered himself up for something he believed in. You spent years, decades, fashioning me as your blade. You whetted me against cruel orders. I chose none of this—I could never ask someone I loved to make the same choices,pater.”
My father’s voice doesn’t respond. How could it? He’s a figment of my imagination. I do not even know if a shred of his soul continues on in Vidalena.
When I was forced out of Iravida, my mother wasn’t even dead—his brain was just addled with power. With a desire for something.
A part of me wishes that I had told my mother. She died before she knew what I had done.
What was donetome.
A vision of white skin, kept out of the sun to ensure an unblemished complexion, swooping scars around yellow eyes, and intimately bare feet forces its way to the forefront of my thoughts. Lijasa’s pleasant face is framed by carefully arranged red hair and a golden crown of Enduar gems sits atop her head. She sits on her bed, smiling and watching me undress.
I slam the scroll down, and drag a hand over my face. My eyelids are heavy, and a yawn breaks through my defenses. Something deep inside of me nags at me to sleep, but my father’s voice returns and grows in volume.
Weak.
Weak!
WEAK!
“Gods on their stoney thrones,” I growl and pick up anotherscroll. The words of Ta’Reht dance before my eyes as I search for solace in the divine. Somewhere. Anywhere—for it is in times of calamity that gods take on their truest uses. Divine beings could purify the righteous indignation of their people with terrible power, or to avenge the honor of their own names. Sometimes, they might graciously seal the sorrows of their followers with a thousand salty tears and simply provided hope.
We need some fucking hope right about now.
As my eyes scrutinize each word with careful detail, my father’s voice goes quiet and Lijasa’s slow smile fades. One line in particular directed at the humans sticks out to me.
Which god or goddess begets a race and leaves them without power?
Which god, indeed,I think, continuing my perusal of the scroll. I had nearly forgotten about the swamp ogres, as it had been so long since once had been mentioned.
The story of Nicnevin and Endu feels important, deep in my soul. Awareness pricks at the back of my neck as the words blur together, and understanding takes the forefront. The weaver of my inner consciousness is nearing the satisfying zenith of a thought.
The library clock’s song strikes a gentle tune, marking four in the morning. It shocks my thoughts back to the elves.
I realize that Liana was already serving under my father when he decided to steal thisartifact.
My mind lights up, and I stand, delighted to finally have made it somewhere, anywhere. Grabbing my father’s scroll, I push out of my chair, half mad with exhaustion and not caring when the chair crashes to the ground.
When I find Liana and the other council members in the throne room, I lean against the doorframe.
“Why the hell aren’t you asleep?” barks Liana when she sees me.
I feel Ulla, Fira, Salo, Vann, and Svanna’s eyes snap onto me, but I only look at the bejeweled elder.
“What was the Elvish Artifact?” I demand.
Recognition flickers over her face, then her mouth falls open, and her eyes grow wide.
Chapter 2
