Page 106 of The Orc Warrioress and the Elf Lord

“Well,” he said.

She was going to cry. Would she never see him again? “Things will settle down,” she said finally.

“They must,” he agreed. “In a few months time.”

“Well, in a few years, at any rate,” she said. “And you will be at Cirlahir? So, I can seek you there?”

He nodded. “I will.”

But he would likely be married, she supposed. He had talked about the sort of woman he had to marry, and it wasn’t her, and then she’d have to be his mistress, and she… “So, I will find you. This isn’t goodbye forever.”

He gave her a sad smile, as if he knew she was lying, lying to him, lying to herself, lying to them both. “Not goodbye forever at all. Just a pause.”

“A pause,” she said.

“Until then, warrioress.”

“Until then, my lord.”

30

IAHIR FOUND HIS brother standing out on the balcony overlooking the sea in the castle.

He’d just come from the stables, where he’d let Gathren’s horse go free. He wasn’t entirely sure why, he supposed, only that he couldn’t bear the horse to be there, a reminder of her, all the time. Best to free the beast, let it seek its own life somewhere.

It would be something if the horse would go to her, of course. But he did not think captured things truly enjoyed going back to their captors in the end.

Anyway, the horse was free, and Iahir sought his brother Adalir. He found the other elf looking out at the water.

Adalir was small and timid, the way he sometimes was. Iahir tried to speak to Adalir about what had happened, but his brother said he didn’t have any idea what he was talking about.

It was often like that, really.

While their mother’s sickness meant that she seemed to live in a fantasy world much of the time, Adalir seemed to always be in this world, but simply not to be Adalir much of the time.

Sometimes Iahir was not certain that the same thing afflicted his mother and his brother.

Sometimes, he thought that his brother would have been fine if his father hadn’t used him in his experiments. His father had subjected Adalir to all manner of awful and painful regimens when the boy was quite small, and Iahir thought this was why Adalir was the way he was.

It was pointless to be angry with his brother for something he didn’t remember doing.

“May I talk to the part of you who did do this?” Iahir demanded.

Adalir cowered. “Why do people say things like that to me?”

“You must notice you lose time, Adalir,” said Iahir. “You must realize that you are in one part of the castle and then you’re in another part and hours have passed. You must.”

Adalir stuck a finger into his mouth and began chewing on his fingernail.

“Perhaps if you acknowledged that they were there, it would help in some way. Whatever he is, whatever part of you he is, whatever fractured element of you, he is not all of you, just as this, whatever you are now, is not all you could be.”

Adalir straightened, meeting his gaze.

“Is it you, then?” said Iahir.

“If you’re going to be this way,” said Adalir, “the least you could do is learn our names.”

Iahir sighed. “Fine.”