Page 4 of Dark Elf Makes Five

"Even children's hands?"

"Children grow into adults." I move back to the table, placing my palms flat against its surface. "Tell me where they are."

She blinks rapidly, and I wonder if those are tears threatening to spill. "In the village. The old Miller's cottage at the edge of⁠—"

"Halvren." My voice carries easily through the hall's vaulted ceiling.

Footsteps echo from the corridor before my steward appears in the doorway, grey hair slightly mussed from sleep but his posture as straight as ever. "Yes, my lord?"

"Take two men and retrieve this woman's siblings from the village. The old Miller's cottage."

Halvren's weathered face shows no surprise at the unusual request. After forty years in my service, little fazes him. "At once, my lord."

"And what of this one," the guard who caught Kessara asks me.

I give her a once over. "Take her to the kitchens. It's obvious she needs something to eat."

3

KESSARA

The kitchen gleams with polished copper pots and scrubbed wooden surfaces that put our ramshackle cottage to shame. I sink into a chair at the sturdy oak table, running my fingers along its smooth grain. Forty minutes ago I was scaling the estate wall with stolen fruit weighing down my sack. Now I sit in the heart of the very manor I'd violated.

The cook emerges from behind the massive stone hearth—a woman with iron-grey hair and hands that speak of decades wielding ladles and rolling pins. She sets a bowl before me without ceremony, her face revealing nothing. Steam rises from the thick stew, carrying the rich scent of beef and herbs that makes my stomach clench with desperate hunger.

I grab the wooden spoon and plunge it deep, not bothering with manners or small bites. The broth sears my tongue but I barely notice, too focused on the chunks of tender meat and soft vegetables that fill my mouth. Real food. More than scraps or thin gruel stretched to feed four mouths.

The grand doors crash open with a sound that reverberates through the manor's stone corridors. Children's voices pierce the air—angry, frightened shrieks that freeze my blood. I drop the spoon with a clatter and bolt from the kitchen, my boots sliding on the polished floors as I race toward the entrance hall.

The two elven guards Lord Morvath dispatched look like they've wrestled wild animals. Their usually pristine uniforms hang askew, hair disheveled, and one sports what look like teeth marks on his forearm. Between them, they wrangle three thrashing bundles of fury that I recognize instantly.

Bran dangles upside down from one guard's grip, his face flushed red as he swings his fists at anything within reach. The guard holds him by one ankle like a sack of grain, dodging the boy's attempts to land a punch.

"Let me go, you pointed-eared freak!" Bran snarls, his voice cracking with adolescent rage.

Tobin wraps himself around the other guard's leg like a determined barnacle, his small teeth bared as he attempts to bite through leather boots. The guard tries to shake him loose with the patience of a man clearly reconsidering his career choices.

Lysa is trapped in the arm of the guard that holds Tobin, humph-ing with each swing of her little fists and kick of her legs.

The sight is comical.

"Put him down, elven bastard!" Tobin's voice cracks with fury as he lands a solid smack against his captor's thigh.

Lord Morvath emerges from the corridor behind me, drawn by the commotion. His grey eyes take in the scene with what I can only describe as fascination rather than annoyance. The corner of his mouth twitches upward.

"Is it really so difficult to collect three human children?" His voice carries a hint of amusement that makes my cheeks burn with embarrassment.

The guard holding Bran shifts his grip, looking thoroughly defeated. "My lord, these are a particular breed of slippery human. This one nearly escaped through a window, then tried to brain me with a cooking pot. It took considerable effort to secure him."

A low chuckle rumbles from Lord Morvath's chest, the sound echoing through the vaulted ceiling. The rich timbre of his laughter catches me off guard—I expected cold displeasure, not mirth at my siblings' defiance.

Bran's face turns a deeper shade of red as he dangles from the guard's grip, his eyes blazing as they lock onto Lord Morvath. "Who are you anyway, laughing elf? I want to know your name before I beat you to a pulp!"

The guard holding him winces and adjusts his grip. "Perhaps we should gag this one, my lord."

Lord Morvath steps forward, his imposing figure casting a long shadow across the marble floor. The amusement never leaves his ghostly eyes as he regards my furious brother with what seems to be genuine interest.

"I am Zerion Morvath, lord of this manor and overseer of this town." His voice communicates the weight of authority, each word precisely enunciated. "And you are?"