Page 107 of Fate Calls the Elf Queen

“Was that snake… real?”

“As real as anything else.”

“What would have been more brutal?”

“Love, you know a quick death is the easy way. I could have nailed them to the wall by their wings, then cut off those wings, used magic to make them suffer with an immense amount of pain, and then sliced into a very important artery that would make them bleed out but slowly.”

Layala simply nodded and stared ahead.

“No gasp? No, ‘Hel, that is terrible’?”

Layala only thought about the mug of half-full ale she left behind. Pity. Her head already swam from it. Her legs even felt watery.

“Anyway, the bartender told me what those dragons did for a living. He also said that your old estate is only about an hour’s walk from here. I couldn’t remember its exact location. It’s been two thousand years. I wasn’t even sure it still stood.”

Layala perked up at that, lifting her chin up toward him. “Myold estate?”

“Well, yours and War’s old Manor estate.”

“Why would you bring us there? Wouldn’t it be… awkward?”

“As opposed to watching you and him together in person for the last several weeks?”

“Maybe if you told me what it is I need to remember, I’ll remember, and we can go back.”

“You won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“What happened after the Cliffs of Amonlee? Where did we get married? Can you levitate? Can you turn to shadow? Do you know the name of your sister and who she was?”

Layala stalled, putting a hand to the side of her head as if it would help her think. “I had a sister?”

“My point exactly,” he said over his shoulder, never stopping his pace.

She hurried to catch up to him. “I know what happened after the cliffs.”

“Why don’t you tell me on the way then.”

The Past

Valeen paced back and forth on the balcony outside her chambers. Three days before, Hel left her standing on the cliffside, leaving things more confusing between them than before she met him there. She knew it was foolish, wrong. She should have never opened this door. She should have left it latched, locked, and barricaded.

Now she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Every moment of her day drifted to his last words, “You’re afraid,” and she was. She didn’t believe she feared anything anymore, not death, not the loss of anyone or anything, but she was terrified of Hel.

She couldn’t live life like this. She must confront him and put a closure to whatever she’d opened up. It was simply the unknown, the “what ifs” that ate away at her.

She’d end it.

Tonight.

Pulled by her winged horses, they flew through the darkened sky and across the border of her territory into Hel’s where it was also night. If he had sentries in the trees below they didn’t attack or sound an alarm. The lights of small towns and large cities glittered below in patches surrounded by trees of green and others with maroon and red leaves. It had been so long since she’d ventured this way, she forgot about the colors.

A castle built on top of a rocky hill a thousand feet from the ground level, was only accessible by the winding road up the side of it or flying. A thick fog surrounded its base, and seemed to grow thicker the closer she drew. With a tug, the horses took a downturn and glided over the wall and onto the stone courtyard. The guards didn’t move from their posts. And there were several other carriages, some pulled by horses, others small wyverns, or hippogriffs.

She tossed the reins and hopped out, boots clacking with each step up to the front doors.This is a bad idea, she chanted with each breath. The two guards on either side of the front entrance bowed.

“Goddess,” they said at once then quickly pulled open the heavy black double doors.

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