Page 80 of The Broken Elf King
“My lord!” Cahal was on the other side, sounding panicked.
The barking of far-off scent dogs rang throughout the forest, so I allowed Raife to guide me through the opening. Then he came through himself.
When we stood up in the farmlands of Archmere, I nearly collapsed in relief.
We made it!I scanned the space to take in all that was happening. My aunt was consoling poor Natasia as Raife guided me away from her, a clear twenty-foot distance.
“You can’t let her be alone,” I told him. “Her thoughts are too dark right now.”
Frankly, I was afraid she’d tried to end her life. That’s how I’d felt only moments ago.
Raife nodded. “I’ll have her under round-the-clock surveillance at the infirmary. And I’ll start your aunt’s first healing tonight,” he said. “But I can’t let you near her right now. You need to be alone and rest. That always helped my mom.”
I threaded my fingers through his and squeezed his hand. “Thank you.”
I was slightly embarrassed about my behavior a moment ago, saying he didn’t love me and all that other stuff.
Raife squeezed my hand in return and then got me in the carriage. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and then disappeared. A moment later my aunt was there, climbing in.
She sat across from me, and stared at me in the dim carriage light. I wondered what she would say. We were finally alone, and she’d just been torn from her home in the middle of the night indefinitely. She found out I was fake-married and then had consoled a poor girl who’d been tortured.
She looked me right in the eye and gave me a lopsided smile. “If you’re queen, what does that make me? Surely a duchess or something?”
I burst out into laughter, which turned to tears of relief. My aunt’s lighthearted personality was another one of my favorite things about her. Stepping over to sit beside her, I lay my head on her shoulder, snuggling next to her as I would when I was a little girl. Her energy was cool as a breeze in winter, and I nearly sighed in relief, taking that into myself and allowing it to relax my frazzled thoughts. Sleep was pulling at my limbs but I tried to keep my eyes open as I heard Raife barking orders to his men. He was calling the Bow Men troops up to defend the wall just in case Zaphira decided to come over. Then he asked Cahal to take the girl to the infirmary.
My aunt sighed, and I could feel her sudden anxiety fill up the entire carriage, which had me alert.
“He’s going to bring war to Nightfall, isn’t he? That’s why you had to get me out?” she asked.
I pulled my head up and looked at her. Her friends were there, and my childhood friends, and war wasn’t good for the people—it never was—but the queen had to die. She’d killed his entire family and almost poisoned me.
“Yes. Queen Zaphira will die. I will make sure of it.” I surprised myself with how much I’d taken on Raife’s duty.
My aunt just nodded, as if she expected as much to eventually happen. With that, we both rested our heads on each other, and then I drifted off to sleep.
When I woke up, it was only for a moment as Raife was slipping me into our bed in his room. Then again, I woke for a second time, in the middle of the night as the bedroom door shut and I saw him sleeping on the chaise lounge. I remember the pang of sadness that sliced through my chest that he wouldn’t sleep next to me, but I was too tired to dwell on it.
