The Unforgiving Heir of a Cursed Kingdom (book 2) - on a temporary hold -

Chapter Four - Ether

I'm a captive of a rogue elf tribe. 

The girl who captured me is called Annalise, and despite those innocent freckles and childlike nose, she's not sweet in the slightest. For a second, I almost thought she was Clarisse, the sweet elven girl from Nwatalith, but I've long since accepted the deaths of those in my village. And the age difference between these two also revealed that they aren't the same person.

Questions are useless here. Though I've always lived in a village and made friends with others from neighboring villages, I've never seen a gathering of people such as this. And they don't respond when I ask them about their origins.

Masked and camouflaged from head to toe, and skinnier than even Pluto, they resemble knots and sticks tied together more than living, breathing beings. It's hard to claim them as my own kind, especially when they've done nothing but ignore me. They only speak to me when they have questions of their own, the first of which was: "Who is the fairy you travel with?"

Of course, I tried to lie. With all my might. 

My tongue swelled, my face grew hot, and my vision blurred, giving myself away shortly after saying: "I'm not traveling with any—" 

The attempt to lie alone revealed the truth easily.

Just before Ronan arrived, they pushed my tongue back with a cloth and tied the ends behind my head, then knotted my hands together. Just like me, they can sense the presence of a foreigner in the ancient wood. He smells different, has different blood in his veins. He's tasted dark magic. All things I've long-sinced noticed, but they have not, so they realize his approach sooner than I do.

My wounds from earlier in the morning hadn't yet healed, probably because of my lack of magical energy, food, or both. So this certainly added to the drama factor when Ronan peered down at me from his... situation. 

He hasn't spoken to me yet. Instead, he asks questions from beside me (to no avail). I'm still tied up and gagged so I cannot speak. This is probably for the best, since he can lie and probably will to get us out of here. But these elves know that, too.

We sit opposite each other beneath a burlap alcove held in place by three large branches. The masked elves have set up camp in a peculiar spot in a wide-open field, with minimal branches for cover. Several of them sit atop carved stumps around the edges of the main camp area, which consists of several alcoves like ours and three woven hemp tents that surround a sputtering fire. Their conversations are low and rumbly.

Ronan jabbers on, pestering Annalise, who carves pieces from her wooden spear next to him. Up close, she's much more beautiful. But when she growls in response to Ronan, her sharpened teeth remind me that beauty is a weapon, especially for those of us who can wield raw magic.

What scares me most is how unpredictable this group of elves is. Their eyes... like the Elder elf, they're gray. Void of color.

My hand itches for my dagger, but I cannot reach it. Annalise notices my momentary struggle. 

"You seek to betray us?" she asks, her tone flat. 

I blink at her. "Betray a group of rogue elves who won't answer any of my questions? Who won't tell me what their mission is here? Who kidnapped me?" When she squints at me, slowly running her sharpening tool along the tip of the spear, I groan. "We are on the same side! If we weren't I'm fairly sure you'd have killed us both by now!"

Annalise lets out a deep chuckle. Another scrape down her spear and the wood peels and curls beneath the sharp edge of the tool. "You have valuable information we seek. Once you answer us, we can determine whether keeping you alive is wise, or if we should have killed you the second we smelled him enter our sacred grounds."