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Chapter 32
She was leaving.
She was really leaving.
He’d felt it the moment she made the decision, a raw feeling of resignation and determination. A despairing sense of doom overshadowed him as he forced his attention away from Anrid in the corner of the Hall, where she and Trap oversaw the preparations to transport Medda. Instead, he fought to keep his focus on the dark elf delegation gathered around him and Math in a half circle, like a murder of crows.
Talos glowered at him, as if he knew that Jael’s attention lay elsewhere.
“You’ve come all this way to help us,” Math said in a coaxing sort of way, as if he were speaking to one of the goblinborn who didn’t want to do as he was told, “and you’re to immediately leave? Why come if you didn’t have anything helpful to tell us about the problem with the Bifrost?”
“I have what I came for.” Talos slanted a quick look in Math’s direction before returning his steely focus to Jael. “The Bifrost is your problem.”
Jael scowled right back at him. “And the shadows infecting our Bifrost are coming from Gelaira…which makes our problem your problem. You’re not leaving with Anrid until you tell me more about these shadows.”
Talos’s eyes narrowed as a nasty sort of smile twisted his thin lips. “You think you can stop the girl from coming with us?” He seemed convinced to the contrary as he crossed his arms over his chest, daring Jael to defy him.
“Her name is Anrid, and you bet your blue skin I can stop her! I am master of Imenborg, and you are my guests.”
Math coughed a warning.
Jael shrugged off the cautionary hand the apprentice laid on his arm. “What? His skin is blue: I’m merely stating a fact.”
Half a dozen dark elf mouths pulled into angry frowns. The older elf, the one they called Teague, raised a hand, as if seeking permission to interject. “If I might say, I think perhaps we should all take a breath and consider the larger implications—”
“That will be all, Teague.” Talos cut him off without a flicker of expression.
The older elf snapped his mouth shut, but something frustrated glinted in his pale eyes. What had he been about to say? What implications did he refer to?
“Once we are back in Nestra,” Talos continued, nonchalantly, “I will send our best experts to consult about your shadow problem. I suspect we may be able to offer some insights you’re too…inadequate…to come up with on your own.”
Jael’s teeth ground together, but Math cleared his throat before he could respond. “Thank you, that is most kind.”
“I believe she’s ready to travel!” Trap called from the other side of the room.
The dark elves dispersed, dismissing Jael without a hint of deference to his position. He spun to storm after Talos and demand the continuation of their disagreement, but a firm hand caught his arm and held him back. He opened his mouth to snarl at Math, only to realize it wasn’t his apprentice who had hold of him. A pair of pale eyes set in a weather blue-gray face stared hard at him, expression dark, troubled.
“There is more at stake than you know,” Teague murmured. He appeared as if he wanted to say more. But something beyond Jael’s shoulder caught his attention, and the elf clamped his mouth closed and hurried away without saying anything else.
What could he be referring to? What else was at risk that he didn’t know about?
Jael shook off the troubling questions and followed the others toward the women across the room. They had Medda cocooned in a makeshift sling supported by polls. Even though it had been hours since the accident, the goblin child had shown no indications she might awaken soon. Jael had been hoping against hope that she would wake on her own and give Anrid a reason to stay. But even that hope was to be taken away from him. He kneeled beside the child and touched her cold hand with a few of his fingers. He wished he had the power to instill some of his own strength into her, to give her the will to fight a little longer, to hold on. He could only hope that the dark elves would be true to their word, and that they did indeed intended to take Medda to see their healer.
He stood and turned to face Anrid; the girl would not look at him. She fussed with the bag slung over her shoulder, although it appeared the flap had been securely fastened.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she said, still without making eye contact.
He took a deliberate step closer to her so that only a small space separated them. “Will you?” He whispered the words.
Still, she did not look at him. “I promise,” she replied, equally as soft. “I will come back to bring Medda home. But beyond that...”
She didn’t need to continue. He knew that she did not intend to stay. For some reason he would never understand why she had chosen the dark elves, who cared nothing for her, over the goblins who loved her fiercely. If only he had the courage to tell her how fiercely. In fact, he opened his mouth to tell her then, to pour out his heart and dump the organized boxes of his thoughts into a messy heap on the floor at her feet. But at that exact moment, Talos cut between them. He jostled Jael backward with his proximity.
“It’s time to go.” He caught Anrid by the elbow and pulled her after him.
Jael wanted to clobber him, to take another go at his perfectly straight nose. Talos treated her like she was a thing, a possession, as if she didn’t have any thoughts or feelings of her own. Why would she choose to go with him? Why put herself into his power when she had another choice?
The answer to his question, of course, was that she didn’t care for them—for him—as much as they cared about her. She would rather risk a life in the unknown than stay here with the life she knew she could have at Imenborg. Still, he watched her walk away, her arm held captive by a dark elf hand. He watched when she cast a last, hesitant glance over her shoulder. Her eyes skittered over him as if afraid to linger too long.
