Claimed by the Elven King: Part Four (3 page)

“It has long been suspected that Sethian’s mother was a human
transmuted to look completely like an elf and the realm fed the lie that the
king had decided to take a second wife from among the
Lithvir Sidhe
royal family when the queen chosen for him from my own people failed to produce
a child after several thousand years. It was a very unconventional decision as
the
Lithviri
rarely interact with our two peoples, much less intermarry.

“The king went to great lengths to make certain that her blood was
never examined, and when she died, he tended to her body himself and held her
wake only a few marks later rather than wait the traditional complete
moon-cycle. It was also strange that although she was supposedly a member of
the Nalldir royal family, not one
Lithvir
Sidhe
attended her
wake.”

The queen paused, and the smile that stretched her lips was unnerving,
as though she knew she was about to drive in the knife. “She conceived within
their first year of marriage, though Sethian was to be their only child. Now
that you have conceived just as quickly, the suspicion is even more plausible.
You have proved more perceptive than I had initially thought possible, so I
believe you have noticed that the king’s features are very different compared
to the
Sidhe
men around him. The ancient texts mention this as a
characteristic of a true half-blood.”

I reluctantly nodded. His face did look a little less alien than all
the other elves I had seen.

“For a half-blood to conceive a child with a human—could that child
even be considered a
Sidhe?
You must understand that the people will
never accept such a creature to sit on the elven throne.”

“It seems the only way ‘the people’ would even know that my baby was
different than they expected was if
you
told them your suspicions about
Sethian’s parentage,” I said coldly. “Suspicions, I might add, that you can’t
even prove.”

The queen’s eyes narrowed. “The elven realm is no place for a human.
You cannot possibly understand the turmoil you will cause once your pregnancy
becomes public. The very act will open the gates for more of your kind to flood
this realm to introduce more tainted children to those who are too desperate to
care. The healers of my people are so close to finally finding the method of
safely removing the human genes from our genome. Are you so selfish to deny all
the women of this realm a chance to have a child of their blood?”

Her words hit me like a well-aimed slap to the face. No matter that she
had chosen to deliver them in the bluntest way possible, it didn’t take away
the uncomfortable fact that there was some truth in them.

“What is it you want me to do by telling me all this?” I demanded,
suddenly feeling as tired as I had yesterday and unwilling to play this game
with her any longer.

The look of triumph in her eyes that she couldn’t quite hide had me
instantly regretting my words. “What is right. Return to your own realm, on
this very day before the king returns to these rooms.”

I sucked in a sharp, startled breath. “Even if I wanted to, which I
absolutely
don’t
just so we’re clear, I can’t exist completely in the
human realm anymore because of the changes to my body, right?”

“My family has a mage with the ability to return you to your previous
form. The king will be told that you miscarried, that you came to me heartsick
and asking for help to leave the realm, unable to bear the thought of facing
him.”

For a long moment, I stared at her, frozen in utter disbelief of her
audacity. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what having such an extreme
transformation to my entire body would do to a baby at such a fragile stage of
development. That she would even propose something so horrible as calmly as if
we were discussing a change of clothes was just so…so…

“Get out!” I snarled. To hell with court etiquette! There was no way I
was going to let her get away with even
thinking
something so despicable.
“I don’t care if you
are
the queen. If you’re not out of this room in
two seconds, I’ll scream for the guards! I may not outrank you, but my baby
does
.
If it’s for the heir’s welfare, then I’m sure no one will object to my throwing
you out of here, least of all Sethian! How
dare
you even
suggest
something
that would hurt
my
baby!”

The queen suddenly stepped towards the bed and grabbed my upper arm
before I could flinch away. “Hurt? I am trying to
help
you, you foolish
child!” she hissed, squeezing my arm tightly. “There are many things the king
has failed to tell you out of his own selfish desire for a child. He knows very
well the trouble this half-blood child will bring to the stability of the elven
court. Why do you think that he keeps you locked away and guarded as closely as
the royal coffers? You have no idea of the forces that are currently moving
around you. Soon you will be begging to be sent home!”

“Your pregnancy will change
everything.
”

I wrenched my arm from her grip, Sethian’s words from last night
echoing ominously in my mind. “I hardly call two guards on the door extensive
protection. Forget your games of intrigue and just tell it to me clearly
because right now all I see is a desperate woman trying to scare me into doing
something unbelievably stupid.”

I knew I should stop, that I was probably going too far. There was no
telling what this powerful woman could do to me, but once my anger had been
unleashed, it was impossible to hold my tongue, especially when I had no real
desire to.

If looks could kill, I would have been dead
and
mutilated a
million times over. Yes, the line had definitely been crossed—on both sides.

“If insults are my thanks for trying to help a human then this will
definitively be the last time,” the queen spat as she turned on her heels and
stalked towards the door, wrenching it open. “Take a knife to the throat of one
of those Maelenas sisters and you will see that you truly know
nothing
.”

The door slammed so violently behind her that I thought the walls
around it would crack.

The queen was right about one thing. The last few minutes proved that I
really did know absolutely nothing about the elven realm, but now that my eyes
had been opened wide, I was determined to change that fact, starting with a
little question to Saeria and Rinwen concerning knives…

The moment I heard the door to the front entrance slam equally as hard
as the bedroom’s, the bedroom door swung upon, admitting three
very-worried-looking elven women.

“I’m okay,” I was quick to assure them as they hurried over to my side
again. “The queen just didn’t like what I had to say, is all.”

“I don’t think I have ever seen her show that much emotion,” Lariel
said, tilting her head at me with an implied question.

I sagged against the headboard wearily. Talking with the queen had been
as draining as a long, uphill hike. “Let’s just say that she just gave me a crash
course in elven politics and was unhappy when I didn’t want to play along.” I
turned from Lariel to the sisters. “She also hinted to something interesting
about you two.”

When both Saeria and Rinwen stiffened, it was as good as admission.
Encouraged, I pressed on, “Did my lord husband assign you both to me as
bodyguards as well as my ladies-in-waiting?”

They exchanged a look before Saeria sighed, looking resigned. “His
Majesty is going to be very angry when he learns the queen told you this. He
had been quite emphatic that you were to never know.”

“He probably just didn’t want to worry me,” I reasoned as Lariel
stuffed a couple of my pillows behind my back. “The queen was trying to make a
point about my ignorance or else I don’t think she would have brought the
matter up at all.”

“No matter the reason, it was still forbidden to tell you,” Saeria
said.

I shrugged. “It’s not like I mind.” I looked at them curiously. “Are
you hiding a bunch of knives or daggers on you?” Their dresses looked so thin
and airy that I couldn’t see how they could conceal anything as large as a
dagger.

Rinwen sat on the edge of the bed and held out her hand. “Watch,” she
instructed.

Then her entire hand glowed a bright, white light, and a second later,
a rather large, jewel-hilted dagger with a black, shiny blade that looked like
obsidian appeared in her hand.

“Wow, so you can manipulate space just like the king,” I said,
impressed.

“No, nothing like His Majesty,” Rinwen replied. “My power is very
limited. This dagger is the largest object I can phase into another dimension.
Saeria can conceal objects as large as a long sword. Our family’s strengths lie
in protection and combat rather than what you would call elven magic. Our
father is the head of His Highness’s royal guard. Our mother is quite the
archer and huntress.”

Come to think of it, this is the first time either one of them had
mentioned their parents. They had often brought up their older brother and an
occasional cousin or uncle, but it had never crossed my mind to ask about their
parents. Lariel’s family served as either tailors or scribes in the palace, so
I guess I had just assumed that Saeria and Rinwen’s family did something
similar.

“I would very much like to meet both of your families sometime,” I
said. “Oh, but my lord husband wants us to keep my pregnancy to ourselves for
now, so it would probably have to wait until after he presents me to the court
and announces it publically.”

Lariel nodded. “That would be best.”

“Speaking of, that was another thing the queen came here to discuss
with me,” I said, watching their expressions closely, “how the court will react
to the news of my pregnancy.”

The fact that their expressions didn’t change at all was quite telling.

“Did you know?” I asked. “About your ancestors having children with
humans being the cause of your infertility?”

I don’t know what changed, but suddenly Lariel no longer looked even
remotely like a teenaged girl, her true age making itself known through the
eyes that stared back at me with the weight of centuries. “We did, but it does
not matter,” she replied quietly, solemnly. “What use is there blaming anyone
for something that was impossible to foresee? All we can do now is move
forward. Before you arrived, we couldn’t even do that. Now we have the chance
to grow again, maybe not exactly as the beings we once were, but still
Sidhe
all the same.”

If only Limira could have heard all of that
, I thought, my lips
stretching into a smile. “I think so, too.”

I knew he was behind me before I felt his arms encircle my waist, alerted
by a strange thickening of the air around me. I turned away from the vast ocean
I had been admiring, its waters reflecting a bright orange as the sun slowly
sunk below the horizon, and smiled just as brightly up at Sethian as I leaned
back into his embrace. He would probably scold me for being out of bed, but
after lying in bed all day, I had started to get a bit of cabin fever and
flat-out told my friends that I was getting up to watch the sun set out here on
the king’s balcony as I had often done on my own over the past month. Our
balconies luckily faced the same direction, so the same gorgeous ocean view was
available to me here. It had become somewhat of a comfort to see that the sun
still looked the same here in the elven realm.

“You know what I am going to say, don’t you?” Sethian said, the
amusement in his eyes taking the sting out of his words.

“Fresh air is good for me, too,” I said firmly, turning completely
around inside the circle of his arms. I wanted to see his face better while we
spoke. “Besides, even the healer said it was fine for me to get up. She also
did something like you did to ease my nausea when my morning sickness started
to come back, something more permanent, she claimed.”

He nodded. “Yara tended to the last of our pregnant women centuries
ago.”

“No wonder she seemed so—enthusiastic.” When the woman had placed her
hands on my abdomen, they had shook, she had been so excited, but it was
nothing to the joy she had expressed when she announced that she could feel the
baby’s “essence” and that it was vibrant and strong.

At one uncomfortable point, I had thought for sure that the healer was
about to start crying just like Lariel had. It had made me wonder if she had
never been able to have children of her own. Not that I would have dared asked.

“I hear that the healer was not your only visitor today,” he said, his
eyes daring me to deny it.

The guards, damn them, must have blabbed to him since none of the girls
had left my side for longer than a few minutes all afternoon. The fact that the
queen hadn’t seemed worried at all about me ratting her out to Sethian really
worried
me
, so I hadn’t really decided whether or not I was going to say
anything to him about the awful things she had tried to get me to agree to.
There had to be a reason for her fearlessness, and I wondered if she actually
wanted
Sethian to know she had done these things—as a warning, to hurt him, the list
of possible motives was endless.

I had suddenly found myself playing a game full of potentially
dangerous pitfalls without knowing the rules, and I was scared.

“You must have ears in all the walls,” I mildly accused.

“Whatever Limira came here to say to you must have really upset you if
you do not wish to speak to me about it.”

I sighed and pressed my face into his chest. “She was really upset
herself when she came to talk to me, so I’m not sure I should say anything
about it at all. It couldn’t have been easy for her to hear about my
pregnancy.”