A Fistful of Earth: Chronicles of Marsdenfel #2

Year 533, New Calendar - part I

Year 533, New Calendar

Mars-Greyn Pass

Late Autumn

The two varieties of elf are separated by more than their types of magic. Our languages, cultures, and sensibilities differ, as well.

Had he lived to see me born, my telfin grandfather would have killed me at birth.

—Endellion Yunan,
former Queen of Marsdenfel

· · · • • • · · ·

Teivel snorts when his rider draws up on the reins to stop instead of letting him pass me. “Nonsire.”

Cobbleson. But Prince Aidan’s never called me by the right name, and I doubt that’ll change anytime soon. Sett’s a solid piece of flesh beneath me, not even flinching when my magic or feral sides protest being off the ground.

Not sure whose idea it was or who brought them, but when I entered Grehafen last year—after spending an extra week in Marsdenfel to help Tuelzi and Resa and the rest of the injured (and making sure that Dakadza didn’t abruptly decide to disregard me as lulni)—Prince Whimsy handed me Sett’s reins with a grimace. “Good luck finding another mount that’ll bear you.”

“You hush!” Pickle scolded him, then added to me: “You can keep him. It. Whatever you want to call a gelding. Since you and Aidan can’t stand each other’s company, you might as well have better transportation for escaping each other.”

Evonalé herself had been astride Rowan at the time. I hadn’t even needed to give her a pointed look before Evonalé added, “And I might as well be prepped to run in case some kobold decides to try to kill me, again.”

So far, there have only been a few small attempts, nothing like the all-out attack where King Hastheem sacrificed so many of his illegitimate children.

But Prince Aidan knows that, so I fill him in on what he doesn’t know in the roundabout three months he’s been gone, this time: “Some river to the north looks to be flooding; a few villages and more farms will suffer for it. The highwayman plaguing the northern borderlands is short his head, and Pickle’s been mighty emotional lately. Have fun.”

Sett steps directly into the boundary between the realms. The magic gives me goosebumps and makes my stomach lurch, and the warding wants me to pass. Woe betide the one without an amulet of passage—and the proper gender and magic to go with that amulet.

Knowing two ancient mages had its benefits. I’d never even heard of amulets of passage being keyed to specific persons—but it makes sense, considering how the elfin Bynd is keyed to the royal family of Marsdenfel.

“Nonsire.”

Cobbleson. I bite my tongue and turn. “Yes?”

Aidan ignores my breach of etiquette by failing to call him Highness, but he isn’t my prince, and he’s never been much of one for propriety, anyway. “What do you mean, emotional?”

I shrug, ignoring the caution and hope I hear in his voice. “Mayhaps she’s stressed about the attempts to kill her, or anxious over having a kingdom of her own, or irritable because her husband and lady-in-waiting can’t stand each other. I don’t know.”

His brown eyes flash at my dodge. It’s not that I can’t stand him—he don’t trust me. I’m just polite enough to accept my part of the blame.

“She isn’t with child, then.”

I smile politely, without teeth. “That be something to ask her, Whimsy. Not me.”