Page 18 of Revenge of the Elf Lord

Castien’s brows rose. “Souls complain?”

Shalendra nodded. “Some souls complain a lot. I remember a few from my childhood. Nothing made them happy in their afterlife. I’m glad I never knew them when they were alive, although that’s probably a horrible thing to say.”

“Understandable.” Osiris scrubbed one hand over his bald head. “Ruling, even living, in death realms isn’t easy. I can’t imagine the difficulty for a child. How are you not introverted and morbid?”

Shalendra laughed, the melodic sound brightening the gloom around them. “Who says I’m not? I owe it all to my father when he took me to live on Midgard. France is a good medium-ground place to grow up. No gods or goddesses interfering and causing problems. I grew up surrounded by nature and loved every moment. My friends were mostly small animals, with a few larger ones, but we won’t tell my father about those. I had a vast playground filled with colorful flowers and green trees to explore.”

“It sounds idyllic.” Castien gave her a crooked grin. Witnessing the adoration in the dwarf's gaze created a momentary stab of jealousy, and a tightness surrounded Cyran's heart. Scowling, he massaged the irritation with his knuckles.

He couldn’t fault the dwarf, though. Shalendra was beautiful inside and out. She didn’t seem to have a mean bone in her body. From what he gleaned about the dwarf’s affection for her, his feelings were on a brotherly level, but he still didn't like it.

Shalendra had a way about her he didn’t understand. Truthfully, he didn’t like how she was getting under his skin. He needed to deliver her to her anxious parents and get on with his search for his stepfather, although his gut told him the two were somehow connected.

Knowing Haman like he did, figuring out the connection would be the tricky part. His stepfather loved mysteries, and the longer Haman Daralei was allowed to work his spells, the worse off the Nine Realms would be. Not to mention, the growing number of sick people back in Tarran’s village and the surrounding countryside.

Infecting the dwarves was something Haman would do without a second thought. Who knew how many he had infected? Cyran had no clue how long Haman had been free from his sleeping spell and could no longer doubt his stepfather was the reason everyone was falling ill. This had his fingerprint all over it.

Cyran crossed his arms over his chest and tamped down his growing impatience. “Can we return to my original question? Why are we here? I have other things to do and need to return Shalendra to her parents.”

The moment the words left his mouth, he regretted them. Voicing his real opinions never ended well for him. In his youth, he learned to brush things off and act carefree. When his father discovered something Cyran held dear, it had always been used against him, so he had created a happy-go-lucky persona as protection.

* * *

Shalendra glared at him, trying to ignore how handsome the annoying elf was. “While I am grateful you took the time from your busy schedule to rescue us, you are more than welcome to return to your important tasks. Castien and I will be just fine with Arawn and Osiris.”

Not even she was reassured by her statement, but now she had to stand behind it or look the fool. And she was determined not to look foolish in front of anyone, especially Cyran. Although why it mattered, she hadn’t a clue.

Arawn’s dark gaze studied Cyran. “What we have uncovered since our recent meeting with Hel, I believe, involves you, Cyran. Or, at the least, someone close to you… I cannot tell whether the person is a relation or if it's someone from your past. Hel, Osiris, and I agree that you are more a part of this than you realize.”

“How?” He scowled at the two gods. “Lamruil and Ailuin only asked me to rescue Shalendra and return her to her parents, nothing more. How am I involved in any of this?”

“That remains to be seen.” Osiris narrowed his kohl-lined eyes, their black pools mesmerizing as Shalendra stared into their depths.

As a child, she had always wondered if the Egyptian god looked like the brief images she had seen of him inside the many tombs her father had dragged her through on various trips. Now, though, she appreciated the likeness. It matched well with the artists' attempts in ancient times. She'd love to see Osiris with green skin, but since that meant she was dead and being judged, she could wait.

“We are only shown certain aspects of anyone’s story. The totality of their life is known only to that person and the father of us all,” he told her.

Shalendra groaned. “I can tell you are a god. You speak in riddles just like the rest of them.”

Osiris grinned. “Be glad I’m not from the Roman pantheon. Their inflated opinions of themselves and the riddles they love doling out are ridiculous. We Egyptians like to keep things precise and simple.”

Arawn grunted. “Really? Have you seen the hieroglyphs painted over everything in Egypt? We Celts have simple symbols and no riddles at all. In fact, we don’t like each other overmuch, so not much to talk about.”

Shalendra sucked her lips between her teeth to keep from smiling. She liked these two gods. Her gaze narrowed on Cyran, who stood scowling in the background. That male, however, was a conundrum. She thought he was hiding something, but she hadn’t a clue what and was unsure she cared to find out.

Did she like him? He was handsome enough and rivaled the co-regents with his looks, but other than that, she couldn’t decide. He was both prickly and mysterious, and neither was a good quality in her mind. Like her father, she liked a man with stalwart strength but also enjoyed a man who smiled.

This whole experience was strange to her. She had spent her entire life around only a couple of men and was now surrounded by them. Her idea of comfort was sitting in the library reading her favorite books. Never had she wished for an adventure.

To be thought of as an adult by those here would be nice. She was forever lamenting to Soliana that no one ever took her seriously. It was annoying. She needed to find her own strength of character, and hiding behind her books was the last thing she needed to do. It would not cure her lack of self-esteem either.

She swallowed, her stomach clenched with its seemingly constant anxiety. That was all easier said than done. Working on her lack of confidence in the last nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand years of her existence, she hadn’t made much progress.

In Elven years, though, she was still young—around twenty-five or six in a human’s life cycle. Being separated from her people had not helped. What little she knew about Elfkind had been told to her by Freyja and Idunn.

She exhaled. “All right, then. If Cyran is meant to be here, we must discover the reason. What got me in this mess was searching for my Uncle Olivier and Aunt Jessica. Somehow, Freyja discovered they had been held in Helheimr without my mother knowing or sensing them, which is…unusual. My mother knows everything that goes on there, as well as everyone residing or even visiting. Not that many people visit. I don’t think it’s allowed. Anyway, they were gone when we found where they had been imprisoned. We traced them to Svartáflheimr and had almost reached the mountain castle when we were taken prisoner.”

Arawn’s black gaze narrowed on her. “Did you see or hear anything that might help us?”

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