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Her physical distress did not abate when they finally broke through the barrier. However, the sight of the landscape beyond offered a welcome distraction.
The clouds in the sky parted, enough to reveal a deep blue expanse that was littered with more stars than she'd ever seen. Beneath the twinkling expanse lay Viranhildr, the heart of the elven domain.
The depictions she'd seen did not quite do it justice. It was nothing like the human capital she'd grown up in, where the natural world had been stripped away to make space for buildings and cobbled streets. The elven city was incorporated into the landscape, with as many trees dotting the mountainside as houses. She could see two rivers, or perhaps one wide, diverging river that cut through the city. It fell down the slope in certain places and collected into a vast, glittering reservoir at the basin of the mountainside.
At the top of it all was a citadel. Awash in the colors of night, it appeared cast in blue, but Cera knew from pictures that the smooth walls would be the color of ivory under the light of the sun. The tips of the spires that rose up at all four corners would be pure elven silver.
"Is that where I will live?" Cera asked, her hands now fidgeting in her lap.
"It is where the high lord lives," responded one of the elves.
Cera took that to be a confirmation, though she couldn't be entirely sure. She, her sister, and their mother had been confined to the castle, but that had been for their protection. Or, more accurately, protecting the king's most valuable assets. Many in Atera would have risked the king's justice in order to get his hands on a catalyst.
At least, that's what she'd been warned. Cera thought the worries were overblown.
Catalysts were only valuable because powerful men desired them. Not only men with the sort of power of her father. He was a king and a wealthy merchant, but his true strength lay in his soldiers and his navy. As a human man, a catalyst was nothing more than a bargaining chip. But to an elven lord, a nightflier coven, or another rare, magical entity, a catalyst represented an invaluable opportunity to breed.
Only charlatans claimed to understand the unique magic woven into the bones of a catalyst. Most could agree that they possessed something akin to a primordial spark, an echo of creation, if one wanted to be poetic. In reality, it meant that they were born gray of eyes and hair, like a dour canvas waiting for inspiration. Their magic was not something they could conjure. They were functionally human, with a single caveat. The sons they bore would always take on the race of their father, be he a human, an elf, or even a centaur.
Despite their scruples about pure bloodlines, there were historical records of elven lords taking catalysts as their concubines. Supposedly, they were more fertile than elven women, who seldom bore more than a couple of children across their generous lifespans.
High Lord Isael Eshval, the elvenaesolinwho ruled over all pureblood elves, was rumored to have been trying to produce an heir for centuries. Cera was far from his first choice, something that he'd made abundantly clear on the one and only occasion that they'd met.
It had been ten years since that day, but Cera had not forgotten him. His face was always in the back of her mind, and from time to time it surfaced in her nightmares. How could she forget the face of such an unbearably beautiful man? How could she forget the face of a man who had regarded her with such abject revulsion?
She had never thought to see him again after that day. Even her scheming father had considered the match doomed after Isael had taken one scathing look at Cera and stormed out of the castle. And yet, here she was in the heart of his domain, soon to become his latest concubine.
The High Lord
For all its beauty, the city of Viranhildr was eerie in its calm. The streets, although impeccably maintained, were empty. The windows of the buildings were not made of glass, but some sort of thin fabric or paper. The soft glow of candlelight emanated from many, but for all Cera could see, they might have been inhabited by phantoms.
Even being as sheltered as she was, she recognized the strangeness of it. The few times she'd left the grounds of her father's castle, the city streets had been clustered with humans and animals, all coming and going in a great hurry. In her room, the sounds of the city routinely made their way to her, the wind carrying the cries of beggars, the clop of hooves beating against stone, and the trill of instruments.
But as ghostly as Viranhildr seemed, the city held a strange vitality. Despite the chill and the ear-popping elevation, every tree she saw was in full bloom. The air smelled sweet and clean, without a hint of smoke or refuse. Walls were blanketed in ivy, creeping vines, and flowers. And though the sounds of people were absent, the rush of flowing water was always present as they ascended toward the pinnacle.
She caught her first glimpse of the city's populace as they reached the gleaming gates of the citadel. With nary a word exchanged, two guards in glimmering armor pulled back the gates, allowing the carriage to pass through. Cera could have sworn that one of them was a woman, preposterous as it seemed.
Tucked away within the high walls of the citadel was a city within a city. The landscape was less organic, though there was deliberate effort to wedge small gardens in between what must have been the lavish domiciles of the elven elites. While the streets were lit with pale lanterns, the homes were all dark and devoid of sound.
"Where is everyone?" Cera couldn't help but ask. She didn't know if her uneasiness was due to the quiet or a lingering effect of breaching the barrier.
"They are gathered for twilight commune," said Maewyn, as if that were explanation enough.
Cera didn't remember reading anything about that. Most of the books she'd read about the elves had been written by southern half-elves who'd never set foot in their ancestral homeland of Esryia. Thousands of years earlier, there had been a civil war among the elves. The infamous elven kings had been deposed, their subjects forced to flee south as the northern continent fractured into powerful lordships.
The elves that fled south had managed to hold their own, until the rise and proliferation of men. One by one, the scattered tribes had been conquered, either at the tip of the spear, or the lash of the whip. Centuries of slavery and interbreeding with humans had robbed them of their traditions, their longevity, and their magic.
Her father had recently purchased one such slave, intent on sending her along with Cera as a servant. The girl had known less about elven culture than Cera and hadn't spoken a lick of any language except Ateran. When the cadre of Esryian elves had come to collect her, they'd patently rejected the addition of the slave, informing the king that Cera would be given a proper lady's maid. Unspoken was the disdain with which they'd regarded the girl, as if her very existence was an afront to nature.
As they moved deeper into the citadel, Cera wished that she had insisted on bringing the girl. She didn't know if it would have made a difference. It was rare that her desires held any sway. Still, she might have tried. Then, she wouldn't have been entirely alone on the journey, and in her new home.
Guards were the only ones waiting for them outside the citadel walls. They offered stiff words of welcome, all directed at Cera's companions. A few glances were spared Cera's way, though they didn't linger.
The elven women led her into the citadel, passing first through a large chamber with vaulted ceilings. The room was startlingly bright, given the late hour. The lanterns that lined the walls were not encased in glass, nor did they hold flames. They were more like beacons around which were clustered dozens of white motes of light. Cera thought they might be fireflies, but she'd never seen one that cast such a powerful glow.
Before they could progress beyond the large room, they had to remove their shoes and wash their feet. Cera didn't like it one bit, and she was particularly surprised when Maewyn fell to her knees to clean Cera's feet. She struggled to keep her balance, waiting in awkward silence and trying not to kick or giggle as the elf took care to clean the spaces between each of her toes.
It was difficult to quell her discomfort as they made their way down a quiet hall. The intricate murals that lined the walls should have held her attention, but all Cera could think about was how cold the marble floor was against her wet feet.
