The Tale of Five Heirs

Epilogue I

Tamara's royal robes rippled as she opened the library door and motioned for Kelvin to enter. Kelvin sighed. He wasn't sure if he could ever get used to Tamara being Queen. Thankfully, she had insisted that he refrain from referring to her as "your majesty." There was no way he would've remembered about that.

"So why do you think Yago's plan to make you queen is related to the elves?" Kelvin asked, turning to Tamara as they entered the library.

Tamara pointed at her ornate silvery crown. "Well he gave me this, it's elven made, like my helmet, and he kept talking about ancestors and heirs and things. What do you know about the elves?"

"Well, they're long gone now. Historians aren't really sure what's true and what's legend, but apparently there was once an elvish queendom where Aranthopolis is now. When us humans arrived on Terrelor we lived with the elves for a while, but eventually tensions rose too high and the elves and humans went to war. The humans won, and elves were driven to extinction. It's not a proud part of our history by any means."

"Hmm," said Tamara, walking with Kelvin down one of the long aisles, the bookshelves looming over them. "My theory was that Yago was elvish, but he was talking about going home, to others of his kind perhaps. Is it possible there are elves still living somewhere? And how could we tell if Yago was one?"

"Anything's possible," Kelvin replied. "Not even Norray has explored the entire world. As for what elves were like, I know they had pointy ears, and they were immortal, or at least lived a lot longer than we do. They also had some magical abilities, although it's not clear what. I think some were fire mages like you."

"Do you remember what Yago's ears looked like?" Tamara asked.

"Strangely, no," said Kelvin.

"Isn't that always the way it is with Yago," said Tamara, sighing. "Anyways, thank you, I've got to go. As Queen there's an annoying number of important matters I have to attend to, especially now... The battle caused a lot of damage."

"Oh alright," said Kelvin. "Happy to help." He watched as Tamara turned and left.

Kelvin looked up at the book shelf. It was all so curious. He had long since accepted that Yago's actions made no sense, but now to find out he'd had an agenda all along? It was strange. Kelvin began to walk down the aisle, running his finger along the spines of the books. He may as well keep researching elves for a while, just to satisfy his curiosity. He inspected the book his finger was on, before continuing down the alphabet towards E.

Presently he arrived at the right shelf, and pulled up a small step ladder so he could reach the correct section. Elves elves elves. There wasn't much on the subject. No large tome of elvish history as he'd hoped, but there, wedged between Eldritch Beasts and their Black Arts and Emaciation: The Starvation Story of Harold Gorwich's Exploration of the Eastern Wastes, was a small book called Elves and their Antics: A book of children's stories by Awkwyntch McThumple. Kelvin gingerly slid the old book off its shelf and casually flipped through it. It was obviously very old, and the author, Awkwyntch McThumple, was a Larchman from the northern Weedle region.

Kelvin stepped down from the step ladder, sat down on the floor, and began to read immediately. The first story in the book told of a group of elves living in a valley in Eitgraven, the northern continent where McThumple was from. The story concerned a royal family with an elvish queen, her human husband, and their two children, a human princess and an elvish prince. The princess was the heir to the "The Throne of Terrelor." The throne of Terrelor wasn't actually a throne that existed, Terrelor was not united in a single queendom, although the Aranthian Queendom was probably the most powerful regime on the continent, Kelvin thought, at least from the perspective of a Larchman up north.