hardly care if you wear it as a symbol of our marriage. It is merely to protect you from other elves performing the Knowing on you. Should someone else learn your true name, it could be dangerous.”
“Would someone hurt me?”
“No queen or king is without enemies,” he answers gravely, nodding back toward the legion behind us.
“Who—” Before I can get the question out I’m silenced by what looks to be a general approaching.
Her skin is a rich brown and her long tresses are black, streaked with bright blue. Her eyes are the color of churned-up sea. A sword is attached to her hip and her movements are clipped and rigid. Three cords are attached to embellished pauldrons on her shoulders. Decorative buttons are pinned over her breast.
The buttons remind me painfully of the ornate pin my father was given when he first became a council member. I take a deep breath, trying to choke down a sudden wave of emotion. I’m struggling to find my footing in a new world. I can’t have some buttons be the thing that has me a weeping mess in front of the Elf King and his soldiers.
“Your Majesty.” She bows her head.
“Take the queen to her apartments and see her dressed as is fitting of her station. We can’t wait a moment longer. It grows colder by the hour.” The king’s words condense into white puffs as if for emphasis.
“Yes, my liege.”
The Elf King wastes no time leaving me in his dust with this woman.
“Wait!” I call after him. He pauses, glancing over his shoulder. One dark eyebrow arches. “What’s your name?”
The thin line of his mouth splits into a smirk, as if he also can’t believe he married someone who didn’t know his name. “You may call me your king, or your majesty, or your liege.”
I’m not taking that answer. No. Not for a moment.
“What would I call you if I was your friend?” My question gives him pause; his face relaxes into something I’d almost say is vulnerable.
“I don’t have friends,” he says faintly. Others may interpret the tone as cool indifference. But I hear a hurt I don’t yet understand drifting through his words.
“Your subjects then?”
He grimaces at that, but finally relents. “King Eldas. I will see you in an hour. We will begin then.”
Chapter 7
“Begin what?” I ask. I know his tall ears can hear me. But he doesn’t stop again. He turns a corner in the dark tunnel ahead of me and is gone.
I am now alone with an unfamiliar elf, who leads a legion of more unfamiliar elves, in an unfamiliar land of wild magic. The Human Queen merely exists. It seemed so unfair. But now that the butt that’s in that throne is mine, I’d be happy to just sit and catch my breath.
It’s been a long, long day.
However, if I’m only meant to sit…what “work” is there to do?
“Come along, Your Majesty.” The way the elf general has to force the formality through gritted teeth tells me that, even if she knew the Human Queen would arrive, she’s not exactly pleased to be answering to a human now. “I’ll show you to your royal apartments.”
As she goes to leave I notice a gash, gnarly and scabbed over, on the hand she rests on the pommel of her sword. Infection reddens its edges. “I can look at that,” I say, without thinking.
The general stops, blinking several times at me. She finally asks, “Look at what?”
“Your hand.” I’m already rummaging through my satchel. I used up some supplies with Emma, but I should still have—
“It’s merely a training accident,” she says dismissively.
“Well, it’s getting infected and it won’t be any trouble for me.” I find the jar of salve I was looking for. It’s good for minor injuries.
“We have a castle healer for such things,” the general says before I can even get the jar from my satchel.
“Yes, but I have—”
“You are a queen,” she interrupts me in a low and intense tone. Her eyes dart back to the knights still several paces behind. “Healing someone like me is beneath you.”
Beneath me? Healing and helping is…beneath me now? The words grate against everything I’ve ever known.
Suddenly, the grays of this place are darker, more shadowed. Everything takes on a dingier and duller edge, if that were possible. I’ve been taken from my home, my people, my family, and now they’re going to take me from the one thing I’m good at? The one thing I’ve worked toward?