Page 34 of The Nymph King

“I can gamble with my own judgment,” Ellisar continued. “I cannot ask Vathis, my soldiers, or the Norn people to stake their lives on it. They need something they can see and verify for themselves.”

“Apparently smashing glass into my own face isn’t dramatic enough?”

Ellisar stole a glance at the shards on the floor. “It proves you have powerful magic.”

“The crown pushed the glass out of me. I barely felt it.”

“And?”

Imani lifted her chin. “And most people cannot do that.”

“No. But unusual magic does not make you Essenheim’s queen.”

Irritation rose. “Neither do shadows, I suppose.”

He gave her a once-over. “Now, those make you interesting.”

“How comforting.”

“They also make you sound like an Eldritch elf.”

Imani reeled back as Ellisar regarded her more closely. “You didn’t know?” he asked.

“I know very little about Eldritch elves. Only that I’m half one.”

“Then know this much. Shadows are not unique to you. Other Eldritch elves wield Under magic. Whatever you are doing with yours may be exceptional, but it proves something about your blood and your power. It does not prove that Essenheim chose you.”

“Just admit that you can’t go through with it,” she sneered, desperately wanting to steer the conversation away from her father. “I regret suggesting such an idea, if we’re being honest with each other.”

He chuckled darkly. “Does the queen have a heart somewhere beneath all that fierce armor?”

“As black and shriveled as it is, it seems I do. And I’m going to find another way.” She put a hand on her hip, daring him to challenge her.

Ellisar’s mouth twitched as he reached up to push a loose strand of silver hair away from his forehead. The movement pulled his sleeve back several inches.

A mark crossed the inside of his wrist, and Imani spotted the Norn sigil next to his own. She had spent enough time staring at her own heartmate brand, resenting what they represented, to recognize one even when age had changed it. Ellisar’s was faded compared to hers, the lines pale against his skin rather than vivid with an active bond.

Her hand dropped from her hip. “You have a heartmate?”

He glanced down at his wrist, his face unreadable. “She’s dead.”

The answer was so blunt that Imani almost regretted asking.

“Oh.”

Ellisar tugged his sleeve back into place. “I loved her.” His expression remained blank. “But that does not mean I intend to spend the rest of my life pretending I died with her.”

Imani blinked a few times. She had known elves who never recovered from losing a heartmate. Her own grandmother had been transformed by grief until little remained of the woman she had once been. The bond was supposed to be singular, permanent, the sort of magic that divided a life into before and after. Yet Ellisar stood in front of her, the evidence of that loss hidden beneath his sleeve, and spoke of surviving it as if survival itself had been a decision.

“You make that sound simple,” she murmured.

“It wasn’t,” he said with a huff. Ellisar glanced toward the broken mirror, then back at her bloodied hands. “There were years when surviving her death was the only thing I managed.”

Imani adjusted her own cuff, aware of the heartmate brand she carried. It struck her that Ellisar might understand her better than she had assumed.

He walked toward the window, glass crunching under his boots. “What do you know about the Lochheim Kingdom?”

Imani’s mouth gaped at the abrupt subject change. “Are we still talking about you touching the Crown of Life?”