Dead Man's Deal The Asylum Tales - By Jocelynn Drake Page 0,146
only the sound of the wind in the trees. I could see the dark elves within the shadows created by my orbs, but no one made a sound. They waited to hear the decision of their leader.
“Quite brave of you, warlock, to come to our home alone,” one Svartálfar called down to me from the edge of the opening. He was a large man with a shock of white running through his long black hair. His voice wasn’t soft and melodious like Reave’s, but rough and coarse like a piece of splintered wood. “While I’m sure you’re powerful, we do have you outnumbered. You may kill some of us, but you won’t kill all of us before we get you.”
With a wave of my hands, I rose in the air until I was eye level with the old king, but hovering in open air. “I have no wish to slaughter your people. I want only Reave.”
“Ah . . . but as much as I hate to admit it at times, Reave is one of my people. He’s proven to be useful, so I find myself reluctant to hand him over to you.” The king’s face was sharp and angular, lined with deep scars. One long scar slashed down through his left eye, leaving it a blind milky white. Unlike those of the Summer and Winter Courts, the kings and queens of the Svartálfar weren’t born to their roles. To rule the dark elves, you took the position by force and you defended it until another stole it from you.
“Would you give him in trade for a service rendered?” I asked.
The question gave the old king pause as he stared at me skeptically. “What service would you offer?”
“It has come to my attention that the elves have been cursed with a rather nasty spell over the past several decades, long before even the start of the Great War. I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
The king was perfectly still, as if he was made of marble, but there was a tension in that stillness that said I definitely had his attention. There was movement deep in the shadows behind him and I had a feeling that it was Reave, but I couldn’t see the figure clearly.
“You’ve been having trouble bearing children,” I continued in an even voice as if I were trying to put him in a trance. “More and more years pass between the birth of offspring. Your people are dying, going extinct without the need for a long, bloody war. The Ivory Towers will wipe all the elves from this world without needing to fight you.”
I cocked my head to the side as I stared at him, a new thought coming to my mind. “That’s why you’ve risked coming so close to the Summer Court. You’re desperate for children, so you’ve decided what? Steal members from the Summer Court to bear children? That must have been a hard decision, to willingly mix your bloodlines.”
“I don’t see how we’ve been left with any other choice.” The king’s voice was low, but there was a strong undercurrent of anger and hate boiling among his words. Despite the close relation between the three courts, there was no love between them. “As you’ve already said, great warlock, my people are fading away with no offspring to fill these woods. So, what’s your service? You’ve come to break the curse you set upon my people.”
“Unfortunately, because of the nature of the spell, I can’t undo it,” I admitted with a shrug. “However, I’ve spoken with someone who can. She’s already unraveled the curse and your people are free to repopulate the earth without being forced to sully your bloodline.” I was hoping that I was telling the truth. Gaia had said that she would meet with the Summer Court elves today and undo the spell. I was hoping that she could not only fix it in one day, but that she was going to help all the elves, including the dark elves. The only thing that was working in my favor was that the leader of the Svartálfar couldn’t immediately prove me a liar.
The king laughed, a cold sound that scraped along my arms and sent chills down my back. “Seeing as you are fixing a mess that your people made, I don’t see how I should feel obligated to give you anything.”
“My goal was to help the Summer Court. I didn’t have to help the Svartálfar, but I have.”