Elvish: A Fantasy Romance Novel (Elvish, Book 1) by S.G. Prince

Author:S.G. Prince [Prince, S.G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Summerhold Publishing
Published: 2018-10-13T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-SEVEN

Ellina gazed up at her city.

Evov looked different than she remembered. Wider, higher. Bigger. She and her troop had not been gone long, but even so, Ellina felt as if she had forgotten Evov’s grandeur, its immensity. She could see the buildings forged into the mountainside, the gaping windows and glittering stone. Could see elves walking along narrow streets high above, switchbacks carved into the rock. Could almost feel what it was to be up there with them: cool air on her skin, dusty path under her feet, a view that stretched for leagues.

Her troopmates were eager to be back. As they moved into the foothills and approached the city, Ellina saw their keen eyes, sensed their excitement. When they reached the wide archway that marked the city’s entrance, they broke formation and pushed ahead. Dourin did, too. He brushed her shoulder as he passed, eyes soft and almond-round. “Home,” he said. He walked on.

Ellina did not rush forward with the others. She hung back, her eyes again drifting upwards. A breeze tickled her cheek. The sun was a perfect orb behind a thin film of clouds.

Raffan’s steps were almost silent as he approached. He stopped beside her. After a beat, Ellina turned to face him.

Raffan was handsome. Anyone would say so. He had long bones, an elegant face, lithe body. But he was too often angry, and the residue of old anger clung to him like a cloak. Ellina could see faint traces of it in the lines of his face, the muscle in his jaw.

Yet underneath, Ellina could almost catch a glimpse of the old Raffan, the one she had known as a young soldier. The one who taught her how to hold a sword, who offered to dry her armor after a hard rain, who took her side in every fight.

But that had been before Raffan became her commander. Before they were forced into a bonding neither of them wanted. Before Raffan turned cruel, and she pushed him to be cruel. They both knew why she did it. Each time Raffan punished her, it wedged the stake deeper between them, banishing the idea that their bonding would ever work, even though it must work.

Bondmates were to remain paired until an elven child was produced. After the hundred childless years when Queen Rishiana was most worried about the future of their race and began commanding new laws to protect them, she instated this condition because she believed it would encourage elves to act quickly, and she was right. In the years since, their elven race had regained much of its former strength. But not all elves were so easily commanded. After Rishiana’s decree, some northerners did not take kindly to the idea of forced bondings. They resisted the queen’s demands. Some spoke of revolt. And so Rishiana did what no one thought she would: she bondmated her youngest daughter.

Ellina should not have been bondmated at all, not unless something happened to both elder sisters and she inherited the throne.

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