Winter's Crown by Alexandra Little

Author:Alexandra Little [Little, Alexandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shadow Phoenix Industries, LLC
Published: 2018-12-13T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

“You know you are an inheritor, then,” Singael said.

A laugh bubbled up out of me. I couldn’t hold it in. The threat of tears stung my eyes before I managed some resemblance of control. “I had to kill four people today, Singael, because somebody else worked some sort of twisted magic on them. If I had any idea what was going on, I wouldn’t be in this position.”

“Four, you say?” Singael asked. “I think I remember you telling me. It is interesting, lingering on the border of death. Sometimes I remember, in the clearest detail, what people say to me when I am there. And other times I recall nothing at all.”

“If you remember that, then you’ll remember the questions I asked you,” I replied.

Singael braced his himself on the armrests and tried to stand, but he fell back into his chair again. “Help me, please, Evalandriel.”

He didn’t say anything more; he only looked at me expectantly.

I pulled the blanket aside. Gripping his arms, I lifted him slowly to his feet. He started walking, a short, slow shuffle along the wall of the room. I was willing to give him time to get used to coming back from the border of death, but nothing was preventing him from talking while doing it. “Where would you like to start?”” I asked as I tried desperately to forget seeing myself wearing my own five-pronged crown. There was only so much I could handle, and that wasn’t one of them. “With Adhannor?”

“Wherever you would like to start,” he replied.

“Then what is an inheritor?” I asked. The odd feeling struck me again, a strange, cold finality that chilled my skin more than the wind coming off the sea.

“A freak,” Singael replied.

“A freak,” I repeated. Yes, that seemed to be the word for it.

“A miscalculation. The kind of thing that happens when magic and bloodlines become mixed when they should not be. Elves are born with many gifts, but sometimes we want more, and we try to create it. My friends and I were not the first ones to try. Sometimes a descendant appears with the powers that their ancestors tried to create. We named them inheritors.”

“So I’m an accident.”

He nodded. “How many generations have passed for humanity since I and my friends first created Adhannor? One hundred generations? More? Your existence is a one hundred generation fluke.”

“But you are elves, and I’m human. How am I possibly related to all of this?”

“Not through me,” Singael replied. “But humans have lived here in the past, before migrating to warmer climates. Adhannor, perhaps, fell in love with one of them, before he changed into the apparition that you have battled. Karallor was certainly friendly to humans, as well, but not Ethilien. She was very disdainful of your race.”

“Maybe it was Adhanel,” I said.

“Yes.” His answer was curt, his arm tense. “Or Adhanel.”

“And you do not know which one?”

“After everything…happened, we scattered. We never saw each other again. Where they went and what they did after, I do not know.

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