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I could take myself as far away from that accursed man as I could possibly get.
Arven
Delphine didn’t stay long enoughto even get her drink. The hostess returned, stricken that Delphine was gone. I gave her a reassuring smile and claimed that my companion had simply gone to the bathroom when we both knew that wasn’t true.
I also couldn’t stay, though. There was something that I had to do. I downed my drink and attempted to swallow Delphine’s, but the concoction was too syrupy sweet for my tastes. In the end, I left the hostess a big tip and stepped away to the bathroom.
Using a mortal public restroom as a space to step in-between felt grimy and wrong, but I stepped into the stall and appeared in an even worse place. Ash floated in the air as if the fires had never really gone out. The entire domain reflected the devastation it’d endured.
Why was this the first time I’d set foot in Eveningwind since the fall?
The trees were barren, nothing more than gray sticks against an even grayer sky. The grass grew in sad patches, much of it yellowed from the lack of sun. I lifted my attention to the sprawling palace ahead. The observatory that had once reached high into the sky with a telescope atop it was now pocked with holes.
The telescope was gone, which made me wonder if whoever had attacked had sold it. I swallowed my assumptions and stepped forward into the palace. The front gates hung by a thread, much of the wood rotting and crumbling now.
The wolpertinger in my pocket gave a frightened squeak. I reached to comfort the little beast, but even I was offput by the air in here. It reeked of devious intent, not a smell that I’d encountered in my previous visits back when Eveningwind had been a place of study.
I could recall seeing Delphine across this very foyer. She’d had her hands clasped in front of her, and her head bowed shyly. I’d been curious, but not overly stricken with any kind of feeling for her.
No, the version of Delphine I knew now did that.
I could still feel her lips on mine from the kiss in the warehouse. Her touch had scrambled my mind and awakened my beast. Now it growled hungry demands for more from a woman who I could not convince to love me in any way.
I yearned for her, to hold her close like that again. The thought of the elven guardsmen hurting her had brought my rage-filled beast to the surface faster than any other battle ever had. I knew that if they so much as laid a hand on her, I would have ripped them apart. She would have seen the real beast beneath this glamour.
As I walked past a broken mirror, I let it fall for a heartbeat. I saw the bright red horns that protruded from my forehead. They were tipped with black as if I’d stained them in ink. A pair of tusks pressed at my bottom lip. If I were to smile, they would dominate my features.
I’d become this to save my people. Looking around at the ruins of Eveningwind, I realized it hadn’t been enough. Through my promise of marriage to Delphine, Eveningwind had been my people, too.
And I’d failed them.
That was all I could think of. I walked past empty rooms, the contents likely salvaged and sold for profit. Even Heiram’s study was empty. The shelves had been picked clean. Only a few books remained, open and face down, like no one cared for their contents. I picked them up and found Heiram’s handwriting inside. They were his personal notes and findings.
Delphine’s father had been a brilliant man.
I closed the book and saw the bloodstain on the front. My vision turned red. I had to breathe through my nose to keep the beast back. It slammed into my skin and tried to tear its way out. Nothing could keep it contained if I stayed here.
It was a small, blue object that helped me snap back. The beast retreated as I took in the little bit of blue crushed under a pile of stone rubble. I went and knelt, sniffing the air as I did. It reeked in a familiar way. Though I knew I’d come across this scent recently, I couldn’t quite place it.
I plucked a small blue wax seal from the rubble. There was no remnant of the letter it’d been attached to, but I recognized the insignia from the crates in the warehouse. Hell, I would have recognized it anywhere as a lord of the elven kingdoms.
Locke Balefire’s emblem had remained on this wax seal for decades. I could hardly see Heiram contacting someone like Locke. We all knew that the man wasn’t the best of us. He was a stain on the elven name that we ignored because we had bigger problems.
It seemed as though we’d made a mistake in overlooking the Balefire court. He’d had something to do with this. I wasn’t sure why I was so confident. Perhaps if I went back to the warehouse and saw what had enraged Delphine so much, then I would understand.
The way she’d blamed me…Did she think I’dorderedthe assault on her home?
I wanted to shrug it off until I ventured deeper into the home and found the raggedy remnants of a flag bearing the insignia of House D’Or. The red banner had the familiar golden shield on the front. My stomach dropped anxiously. I tore the banner from the rubble and held it aloft.
There were small mistakes in the shield, little errors that one would only notice if it were held right up to the eye. The lines were uneven, hastily painted on instead of embroidered. I ran my thumb across it, and the dried paint crumbled under my rough skin. They were forged, but that meant someone had attacked Delphine’s home undermyname.
Rage roiled through me like the curling tongues of a roaring flame. I swallowed it down, but the heat still found its way to my throat.
I understood why Delphine had taken one look at me and thrown something at my head. I knew why she looked at me with such loathing. To her, I was the cause of everything awful in her life. I, the man who should have taken her in and protected her, was the one who’d destroyed everything she’d loved.
Why had someone done this? Why tear us apart before we could even learn to love each other? It made me question what secrets the Eveningwind court had held. If Heiram had information on a power that someone else had wanted, then that would make sense. However, that didn’t answer why someone would fly my banner as they laid waste to the court.
The wolpertinger on my shoulder nudged my cheek and made a small questioning sound. The heat licking the inside of my skin banked ever so slightly as I turned my attention to the small beast. It put a paw to my cheek and looked up at me with wide, concerned eyes.
