Lovely Dark Things

THREE (ISELEN POV)

"Wait, I'll pour you a glass of wine. Do you want a piece of cake?" Shurien watches me puzzled while I play the role of a good hostess but she nods slowly before looking at her daughter out of the corner of her eye, Ruby shrugs but remains silent and takes a cookie from the closest plate while I check that everything is ready. "We have snacks, drinks, a fire heating up the room, the rain is lashing the windows... I'd say everything is perfect," I whisper quietly, flopping down on the couch of our living room right next to the assassin and taking my own glass before looking at Shurien that's sitting in front of me. "Okay, tell us all about it."

"What's going on here?" my wife asks frowning, half amused, half exasperated because I'm a human weirdo, I guess.

"This is the way people gossip in my world: you gather with your family, eat, drink, listen to the news and later, you tell your group of trusted friends too," I explain taking a slice of cake while both elves stare at me confused. "It doesn't matter, I know what I'm doing... Now, Shurien, tell it all and with details. What does Helien know?"

"Well, according to the High Priestess, this story is not new, in fact, it's so old that most dark elves had forgotten about it," Ruby's mom leans back on her seat crossing her slim legs and I clear my throat awkwardly. I still can't get used to the fact that my mother-in-law looks like my wife's older sister, she's a beautiful lady... and wanders all over the fortress wearing skimpy clothes, as most acolytes from the temple do. "They're twins, can you believe it?"

"I'd never heard about the Witch King's sister, a daughter of My Lady and the Great King, this is amazing... How did elves forget that she existed?" Ruby asks in disbelief, shaking her head and her mother smiles.

"That's because we never believed it was possible. Listen, you know light elves were not happy when they found out that the Great King wanted to get married again because they idolized his first wife, but they understood they needed an heir and My Lady came from a noble family so they accepted her reluctantly. They didn't hate her at first, you know. They didn't like her, that was all. Over the months, they began to suspect that she had knowledge of dark magic and too much influence on the Great King's decisions but, at that time, there was a truce in the war against chaos demons, they were too busy rebuilding their ruined cities to care about the domestic affairs in the royal palace."

"And what happened later?" I ask with curiosity.

"The Queen went into labour and the long-awaited heir was born..." Shurien answers sipping her wine.

"And Eldire?" Ruby asks with curiosity too, leaning forward to take another cookie while her mother smiles, she looks happy being the centre of attention while remaining silent, taking a long, dramatic pause.

"She was born too, obviously, only the midwives that helped the Queen to deliver her babies took her and hid her."

"But that's... how they could do something like that? That's terrible... No one noticed? Why did they kidnap her?" I ask outraged.

"At that moment, the Queen had powerful enemies in the kingdom, jealous of her influence over the King, her beauty and vast knowledge, only she didn't know it yet. The leader of the opposition party was the High Priestess of Avelorn, the princess, the sole survivor of the Great King's first family."

"I bet she was green of envy," Ruby growls quietly and her mother smiles again.

"The princess' allies pretended to be the perfect courtiers, always respectful, and the Great King trusted the women helping the Queen during labour. That's why, when the Queen woke up from a deep sleep induced by drugs they gave her and told her husband that she'd had two babies... he didn't believe her. His daughter, the High Priestess, told him that the Queen was confused, tired, she'd had a long and difficult delivery... The midwives confirmed her words, swore that there wasn't another baby despite the Queen kept saying that she'd had twins, that she felt two hearts beating inside her... They told him that the Queen was suffering from what they called 'the madness of new mothers,' or something like that."