Page 59 of The Broken Elf King
Flora was holding a plate, looking like she was about to whack her husband over the head on my honor. When she saw the state of her husband and processed what he’d said to me, she lowered the plate and stared at me with hope in her eyes. “It’s her?”
He nodded. “She’s dyed her hair but it’s her. I was there. I saw her bring him back from the dead.”
“Can you?” Flora asked. “We can pay you, not much but anything we have is yours if you can bring our baby girl back. We buried her out back last month. The pox took her.”
Flora’s bottom lip quivered and I shook my head violently. “No, you don’t understand. I didn’t bring him back from the dead, and I can’t do any more healing or I’ll die.”
Flora’s mouth popped open in shock, but Reeves fingers squeezed my shoulders. “She’s lying! I saw her breathe life into the king!” he shouted, and the tears stopped flowing. Now the menace was there.
Fear sank into my gut. What would these people do to me? Did they really think I could bring back the dead? A month-old decaying body? The Maker created us, and when we died we joined him again. We didn’t come back.
Right?
Flora must have seen the falter in my eyes. She pointed to the flowers. “The village brought me flowers, but why would I want to watch them die too? I want my little girl back. Can you at least try?”
Reeves wasn’t letting go, and I was stuck between my desire to actually attempt to help this poor couple and my will to live. Raife said I had a death wish, but I didn’t. I was just a sucker for people in need.
“Flora, Reeves, I’m going to be honest with you both,” I said, and Reeves’ grip loosened a little, as if he sensed I was going to help them. “I just got this gift a month or so ago and I’ve already used most of it up. With every Breath of Life I give, I lose some of my own life. It turns my hair white, which is why I dye it. When all my hair goes white, I will die, having given all my life away.”
Flora sank into herself as if understanding my plight. Reeves just narrowed his gaze. “Almostused it up, so you don’t know how many more breaths you have left?” Reeves asked.
I swallowed hard. “No. And I don’t know if I can bring back the dead either. I’m not the Maker. Raife was near death, not dead.”
Silence descended onto the room; this family was stuck in the darkest grieving period of their life. They weren’t thinking clearly, they saw a way to bring their little girl back, and by the wild look in Reeves’ eyes he would do anything to see her again.
Reeves looked at his wife then. “Lock the door and go down to the room and rest.”
Oh Hades.
My stomach dropped. I bucked backwards, but his grip dug in like an iron clamp.
Flora’s eyes went wide. “What are you going to—?”
“I won’t hurt her, you have my word,” Reeves told his wife. “Go on now.”
“No!” I screamed. “Please, I—”
He spun me, tucking my back against his chest as his hand came around my mouth.
“Reeves!” Flora stepped over to him but he cut her down with a look I couldn’t see.
“I’m getting our baby girl back. Stay inside.”
That’s all it took for Flora to abandon me. Her questions stopped, her footsteps stopped, she gave up. She wanted her daughter back more than she wanted to protect me, and I understood that.
I respected it even, to a degree.
With a deathly grip, Reeves dragged me outside kicking and screaming. I tried to headbutt him, bite his fingers, kick him in the balls. Nothing worked. The man was built like a horse and stronger than one too.
“Maybe the Maker gave you that gift so that you could bring people back. Maybe he sent you to me,” Reeves said.
I tried to shake my head vigorously, but he kept his hand so firmly around my lips I could barely move. He pinned my neck in place. It took my eyes a second to adjust to the sunlight of their backyard.
“Stop fighting me. I won’t hurt you. I just want my princess back.” He was crying again; I could hear it in his voice.
I froze against him, not because of what he said but because my gaze had just landed on the gravestone at the fence line of their small backyard. Small sprouts of grass had poked up through the dirt mound of her burial, a sick reminder that even in death, life goes on. Why someone would want to bury their child in their own backyard, I didn’t know. I could never stare at that mound of dirt all day and do anything productive.
It’s so small, I thought.
