Page 3 of The Dark Elf's Found Family
"That's amazing," Rhea breathes, and her enthusiasm seems completely sincere. "I've always wondered what it would be like to know a real writer."
I look around, curious where the shopkeeper is, when a sound makes me stop cold. My attention drops back down to Nya because she just…laughed.
Soft and slightly breathless, but unmistakably laughter, coming from my daughter's lips. Rhea has said something that struck her as funny—something about a particularly stubborncustomer who insisted on purple ink for writing grocery lists—and Nya is actually laughing.
The sound nearly knocks the breath from me. When was the last time I heard her laugh? Months ago, certainly. Perhaps not since before Syrelle's death, when the world still made sense and children could find joy in simple things.
I stand frozen, listening to that precious sound ring through the shop, afraid that any movement on my part might shatter this fragile moment of happiness.
2
BRYNN
The sound of Rhea's laughter pulls me around the counter, but it's the softer echo beneath it that makes my steps falter. A delicate sound, like wind chimes barely touched by a breeze. When I reach the display case, I find my daughter cross-legged on the floor beside a small dark elf girl perched on the stool I keep for tired customers.
The child is pale as winter moonlight, her slate-gray skin almost translucent, with wavy dark hair that catches the lamplight. She looks fragile in a way that makes my chest squeeze tight—too thin, too quiet, the kind of careful stillness that speaks of illness or exhaustion. But her eyes are bright with something I recognize: the tentative spark of a child discovering an unexpected friend.
"—and then Mrs. Kelven insisted the purple ink would make her shopping lists more important," Rhea is saying, gesturing wildly with ink-stained fingers. "As if the color of ink could make buying turnips sound grand."
The little girl's laugh comes again, soft but genuine, and I see how it transforms her wan features. For a moment, she looks like what she should be—an eight-year-old child finding joy inabsurdity rather than a shadow wrapped in expensive travel clothes.
Movement in my peripheral vision draws my attention to the man stepping out from behind the manuscript shelves. Tall doesn't begin to cover it—he has to duck slightly to avoid the hanging lamp near the poetry section. Dark elf, obviously, with that distinctive ashen skin and the kind of aristocratic bone structure that marks him as nobility despite his simple traveling clothes.
But it's his eyes that stop me cold. Violet-like polished amethyst, flecked with silver that catches the light when he turns his head. They're striking enough on their own, but there's something else—something that sends an uncomfortable twist through my stomach, like recognition without memory.
I force my expression into the neutral politeness I've perfected over years of running a shop. Friendly enough to encourage business, distant enough to discourage personal questions.
"Everything all right out here?" I ask, though clearly it is. My daughter looks more animated than she has in weeks, and the dark elf child seems to be emerging from whatever shell she'd wrapped herself in.
The man's attention shifts to me, and I catch the slight tightening around his eyes that suggests he's cataloguing details the way I am. Taking in my practical clothes, my ink-stained apron, the calluses on my hands from hauling crates and binding books.
"Your daughter has been very kind to mine," he says, and his voice carries the cultured accent of someone educated in the great cities. "I'm Ciaran Delyth."
The name means nothing to me, though the formal way he offers it suggests it should. I incline my head politely. "Brynn Corven. And you've already met Rhea, obviously."
"We're from Kyrdonis," the little girl—his daughter—offers quietly, glancing between Rhea and me as if testing the waters of this adult conversation.
"Long way to travel with winter setting in," I observe, moving back toward the counter so I can write down his order. "Passing through to Kantor?"
"Actually, we're staying for the season." Ciaran follows me, his long stride making the shop feel smaller than usual. "I thought..." He pauses, glancing back at his daughter. "The quiet will be good for both of us."
There's weight in those words, the kind that speaks of recent loss or upheaval. I've heard it often enough in my own voice to recognize it in others. I don't press—questions about personal business are the fastest way to lose customers in a town this size.
Instead, I focus on gathering his order. The parchment he's requested is good quality, the kind poets and serious writers prefer. Expensive, but not so much that it screams nobility. The purple ink, though—that's a luxury item, the sort of thing that marks a man as either wealthy or impractical.
"Poet, then?" I ask, wrapping the ink bottles in soft cloth to prevent breakage.
"Among other things." His tone is modest, almost self-deprecating. "Novels, mostly. Poetry when the mood strikes."
I pause in my wrapping. A novelist from Kyrdonis, traveling with a sickly daughter to spend winter in relative isolation. Either he's running from something or toward it, and neither possibility is particularly comforting.
But when I glance up, he's not watching me. His attention has caught on something in the corner behind the counter—the small stone sculpture I keep there, a delicate carving of an iypin mid-leap. The craftsmanship is exquisite, each detail of the creature's fur rendered in smooth stone, its expression captured with an artist's eye for both anatomy and spirit.
His mouth curves into the first genuine smile I've seen from him, though there's something wistful in it. "My brother used to carve pieces just like that."
The words hit me like cold water, and I have to concentrate on keeping my hands steady as I continue wrapping his purchases. "Did he?" I manage, proud of how level my voice sounds.
"Mm." Ciaran's fingers hover near the sculpture but don't quite touch, as if he's afraid of disturbing something sacred. "Always had a talent for it, even as children. Could make stone look like it was breathing."
