Page 3 of Revenge of the Elf Lord

She understood his loathing of anything underground and created the perfect environment for him to flourish in his studies. She filled it with a cauldron and every tool necessary to develop medicines and spells. She also gave him her father’s medical library and supplemented any missing tome with a new copy.

While most people regarded money and power as treasures, these items were his. It had been his mother’s dream for him to forge his own path in life, and she never wanted him to follow in her husband's footsteps if that wasn’t his desire. Since her death, life had not been the same, and he missed her terribly.

Stepping inside the room, he immediately noticed the clean air, so whatever caused the stench downstairs had not permeated up there. With a deep inhalation, he breathed in the different herbal scents from the last poultice he made. It was a calming blend for a stressed pregnant mother with two twins. The sage, lavender, and hint of mint worked like a charm.

He enjoyed mixing simple treatments and more complex medicines. The peace this gave him sparked the idea of setting up a small store in the village. He wanted to provide elves with a place where someone like the pregnant mother could get immediate relief instead of waiting several days for him to create a new batch. Now, with the twins’ offer and help, he could do both.

Inhaling one more calming breath, he forced his legs to move. While he would love nothing better than to escape to the past or give his store idea more thought, he returned here for a more critical task. One he was reluctant to do.

He had dreaded this moment for decades, but with the recent developments throughout the Nine Worlds, he could no longer ignore his stepfather’s vast library. He would need more potent magic to determine where the girls were and who took them.

He grabbed his medicine bag from the nearby hook and stuffed it with the remaining magically preserved herbs, other medicinal plants, a few already mixed tonics, and other supplies. After slinging the satchel over one shoulder, he pictured the cave in his mind and allowed his magic to send him to the cave.

Closing his eyes, he felt the rush of wind as he sped through spacial time. When the cold breeze swirling around him stopped, he opened his eyes and stared at the heavy wooden door in front of him. Ornate iron decorated the door face, elegant in an old-world style with the filigreed design twirling from top to bottom. The door’s beauty belied the evil held within.

Before he changed his mind, he laid his palm against the wood, positioned so the tips of each finger touched metal, and mouthed the containment spell, not daring to make a sound.

Open the seal.

What’s hidden, revealed.

Hold safe and secure.

One whose purpose is pure.

He could not afford for anyone to learn the access spell to the cave. Too many lives depended on this remaining his dirty, little secret.

The heavy door silently swung open, and he stepped inside the spacious cavern. His gaze scanned the space, but everything seemed to be as he left it so long ago. Returning to his stepfather’s laboratory was the last thing he wanted to do, but now, with trouble brewing in several magical realms, he had no choice.

Ignoring the ornate bed where his Haman's body lay in a magical stasis, the most challenging sleep spell he had ever achieved, Cyran strode to the bookshelf at the cave's far end. He skimmed over the titles, knowing each book by heart as he looked for the ones he knew he would need on this journey, wherever it led. Finding three of the four books, he frowned. The last, and probably the most important, was an ancient spell journal. He scanned the shelves again, but the tome was not there.

With a frustrated sigh, he turned to stare at the bed. If Cyran had his way, it would be a permanent stasis. His youth and inexperience hindered him at the end of the Elven war—and a definite novice to have done what he did, but to save lives, he’d had no choice.

Staring at his stepfather’s sleeping face, he focused on the shadows beneath his closed eyelids. They looked sunken, as if in death, but he knew differently. On that fateful day long ago, Cyran somehow managed to trap Haman with one of his own incantations written in the now-missing book. Cyran was still surprised it had worked. Haman’s regular spells never worked—at least, not without a bit of magical tweaking. It was the darker spells his stepfather gravitated toward, and those always worked.

To everyone on the outside, this man was dead. Because of past events and Haman's proclivity to the black arts, Cyran would never recognize him as his stepfather.

He walked to the nearby cabinet and opened each door, continuing his search for the missing tome. “I know I put it back…” he muttered.

“Of course you did, but I don’t like you pilfering through my belongings. It’s rude,” a familiar male voice said behind him.

Fear spun him around, his gaze landing on the now-empty bed, then darting to the wraithlike figure standing a few feet from the open door. He forced all tenseness from his body and emotion from his mind, knowing Haman would use it against him, and casually crossed his arms over his chest. “How did you escape?”

Haman stepped closer, his shadowy form solidifying and showing him as the perfect elf Cyran remembered from childhood. His long brown hair flowed down his back, and his beard was trimmed with crystal beads woven in the short strands. Like most other elves, he looked as young as Cyran, even though he was centuries older.

“You forget who taught you. It was only a matter of time before I found the counterspell. Stasis only affects the body, not the mind. It took me almost two hundred years, but since awakening, I have perfected several of my experiments and even figured out where we went wrong in the war. I look forward to proving my theory,” Haman said in a condescending tone.

“You know nothing about today’s world, which is vastly different from the one you knew.” Cyran raised his chin in defiance of the man standing before him. “You know nothing about me or who I have become. I am no longer the little boy you trained. Your ideals have never been my own.”

His stepfather shrugged. “A pity that, but the moment you uttered the stasis spell and trapped me in this cave, you ceased to be my son.” Haman lifted his hand, his fingers splayed, and his palm faced Cyran. “I rescind the blood magic I gifted you upon your birth. You are now nothing more than a fatherless elf, destined to succeed at nothing.”

A dark red glow surrounded the older man’s finger, each tip snapping and popping like ten tiny fires, then faded away. “You failed, Cyran. As I predicted before the war—both the Elven war and the world war on Midgard, gentleness and joy have no place in any realm. Those with the most power will always win.”

Cyran smiled, letting his magic burn deep inside his chest as he stared at the husk of the man he used to call father. “You do not control me and will never have that ability. While I grew up saying you were my father, it was King Glanduil whom I loved. He had more compassion and kindness in his pinky finger than you have in your entire body.”

He raised his head, letting Haman see the disdain on his face. “He may not have been my father by blood, but he raised me into the man I am today. My magic and healing abilities come not through you but through my mother’s blood. You never once considered her powers to be of any worth, but she was an incredible healer. When your potions failed, she cured the patient and never said a word to you.”

“You lie.”

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