Not Magic Enough and Setting Boundaries - By Valerie Douglas Page 0,8

fall, the goblin’s spear taking him from the saddle even as Dorovan himself had turned his bow upon it. His desperate race to reach Calon was nearly a match to Melis’. He could still hear her cry of grief as Calon fell…

He shook his head to clear it. Restless - that cry of agony still ringing in his head - he dressed in clean clothes from his pack.

The room was too small, too confining. It wasn’t for Elves to be held within stone, yet the storm outside raged ever more fiercely, as he found as he returned to the great room to look out through the shutters there. Even if he left the warmth here – took Charis out into the storm – it would be a day or longer before they would reach Talaena and there would be the storm to add to the difficulty. Even his innate magic would be hard put against it, not to mention the risk of injury to both himself and Charis. It was foolish to consider it.

Still, grief and sorrow moved in him.

Delae, too, found sleep far away - her thoughts caught up with worry, with calculation and cost. The storm looked not to abate for days and the food the refugees would eat would deplete their stores badly. Once the storm broke she would have to send someone to Riverford to purchase more against need - there would be more storms yet to come in what promised to be a very long, very harsh winter.

And if this was a harbinger of what was to come? If they were caught short, folk would starve. They were her responsibility. And yet coin was short.

Her cares ate at her. They weighed on her as she tried to find the balance between current need and future need.

For all her weariness, she knew she would get no sleep this night so long as she fretted.

It seemed a heaviness to the spirit hung in the air.

In only her threadbare robe and linen nightdress she wandered out to the great room, thinking of the tapestry that awaited her there and the distraction it would offer.

And was surprised to find herself not alone - Dorovan stood at the shutters looking out onto the howling winds of the storm-tossed night.

As it had in that first moment when he had crouched beside her, his beauty caught at her. More so now.

Dressed simply in an Elven-silk tunic and loose drawstring trews, it was clear he was as lovely in body as he was in face.

Lost in thought, completely unaware of her presence, there was something in his stance - his solitude, a slump of those broad shoulders, the slight bow of his head – that spoke of some greater sorrow than her own. She understood what it was to be alone with no one for comfort. When the grippe had come, laying waste to whole villages, it had taken her parents and so many others with as it passed, leaving no solace behind it.

What she couldn’t have, she would give.

Small slender fingers touched the back of Dorovan’s hand, so much in the way of his people that the simple gesture alone eased him, gave him a small measure of peace. It softened his surprise as he looked down to find Delae beside him, her vibrant hair atumble, her blue eyes compassionate, her expression gently questioning.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

She shook her head, all unknowing of what she’d done.

“No thanks needed. Should I ask?”

That courtesy was a surprise as well, giving him the room to withdraw if he so chose. He didn’t.

“I was with a party of Hunters - we lost one among us.”

His heart twinged at the memory.

To his surprise, he found himself taking the comfort she offered, his fingers threading between hers.

The pain was piercing, Delae could see it.

In comparison to the lands of men, those of the Elves were few and their numbers equally so as they weren’t as fertile. She also knew enough to know of the empathy they shared. To lose someone who shared that same kind of sense, who he would’ve known so well…

“Oh, Dorovan,” she said, heartfelt, “I’m so sorry. This then is little enough comfort to give.”

There was a shared grief in her eyes - sympathy and sorrow at his pain - at his loss.

“It is enough,” he said. And, surprisingly, it was. To find it here even more so. “Like enough to what my own folk would give to remind me that sorrows can be