Page 38 of Crown of Ellova: Vol 1

I’ll never see Nueena again, not be there when she is crowned Realm Keeper. Every plan we made for our future will be ripped from us.

The magic within me breaks open. It’s unfamiliar, and wholly different from my own, a living thing shooting down my legs and into the soil beneath me. A rumbling begins under me, thick roots bursting out under the two guards. Green and purple vines with thick thorns wrap around the men. They try to escape, struggling with the stalks that surround them while they yell in pain at the sharp spikes from the plants digging into their skin. I can feel thevines like I can feel my own limbs as they twine around the men, raising them up off the ground. Painful blisters rise on their skin where the poisonous plant touches.

Now free from the guard’s clutches, I stumble, the world spinning around me. Leon races towards me, and his arms cradle me, holding tightly against him.

“Are you all right? Tell me you are all right!” he asks desperately, but when I open my mouth, nothing happens. I stare up at him, his beautiful face tainted with the assault from the guards. Blackness closes in on my vision. There are two loud thumps. The ground shakes for a moment before everything fades away.

CHAPTER 17

Cool water pours down my throat, a strong hand holding my chin up. When my eyelids flutter open, I am greeted by Leon’s worried frown. I’m pressed to his chest but now I find us on the forest floor.

“Are you hurt?” he asks. “Did they touch you? Your neck is red but it will heal. I have some herbs in my bag.” His concern is palpable and it makes me smile. Damn it, this sweet man cares deeply for me.

I reach up, moving the hair that has fallen in his face. “You worry too much,” I say softly.

His shoulders drop in relief and he chuckles. “Perhaps if you stopped fainting on me. I’ve aged a hundred years in the past day.” He tilts his head down with a lopsided grin. “Can you see more gray? I can feel it growing when I’m with you.”

I laugh even though my body feels like I’ve been trampled by Onyx. Leon helps me sit up, but we do not let go of each other. “Gray looks good on you. Exceedingly dignified.”

“I’m glad you like it.” He turns serious and my stomach drops.

I know what the next words out of his mouth will be.

“Izadella, again I ask, are you fae?”

How can I hide what I truly am now? The crown has changedcolors, and he already told me he can feel magic radiating off me. I glance at the two unconscious men who lie in a heap on the forest floor, wrapped in vines and roots, the thorns still pressing into skin.

I stammer, “Leon, what?—”

“Izadella, you screamed and they were attacked by murderous plants that rose from out of nowhere, and when you fainted, the guards slammed right back to the ground. The logical conclusion is that you or at least the crown controlled whatever happened here. You have great and powerful magic within your reach. Which is why I suspect you to be fae. Are you?” He waits for my answer with wide eyes.

I want so badly to tell him the truth.

So I do.

“Not fully, no, but my mother was. My father was mortal. The crown is reacting to me but it’s not my magic.” I pull up my hair to reveal my hidden pointed ears still pinned back.

Leon’s grip tightens and he stares at me in wondrous shock, a slow smile spreading on his handsome face. He clears his throat. “Thank you for being honest.” He drops his head, his forehead resting on mine. Breathing heavily, he quietly says, “I’m just glad you’re alive.”

Something brushes my arm and we both look down at Farren, who reaches his nose towards me, his paws on my thigh. Leon releases me enough that I can pull the fox onto my lap. Farren licks my face, and my heart squeezes with affection and lingering fear.

“You could have been hurt, little one. Next time you run back to the cottage and hide,” I say softly as he continues his trek across my face with his rough tongue. It’s impossible to be upset with my brave boy. I pet him ’til a grasshopper enters his line of sight and he hops after it. Leon helps me stand but doesn’t let me go.

“I have more questions for you but for now—” Leon reaches up and brushes a stray lock of hair behind my ear, trailing his thumb over its point and down my flushed cheek. My little gasp has him grazing the top of my lip. “The image of that bastard’s sword on your neck, his bloody hands on your body, it will haunt me ’til Idie.” His words are as intense as the way he is staring at me. “We need to leave now. Together. It’s not safe for us to be apart. Please don’t fight me on this, Izadella. Let me protect you. Ineedto protect you.”

The grass at my feet holds my attention while I let his words sink in, unable to look at him. Silence falls between us as minutes pass by. Could I bring him with me to Ellova? How long could he even stay before the magic of Ellova rips his sanity from his mortal mind? I’m going to lose him in the end no matter what. At least in Ellova he will be safe, even for a short time. Mortals are forbidden in Ellova but…

Nyvenah will understand.

Nueena will understand.

The crown deserves to be back in the fae realm and I cannot get there without taking him.

I nod. “If you wish to stay by my side, then we go east, to the Venneem Mountains.Noplace is safer than where I’m going, where I am from. You cannot stay there long, though. There is a reason King Drystan could not be with Inara in the fae realm. The whole reason she needed the crown to store magic so she could be with her treacherous husband in Adreania. Mortals like yourself will be driven mad by the magic in Ellova. Do you understand? It’s a place mortals are not meant to be because it’s too dangerous to stay there. If you come with me, you must understand it’s only temporary, that I will stay there and you will need to leave, for your own good. If you do not agree, we must part ways here.”

I look back up to find his gaze assessing me, eyebrows drawn together to match his deep frown. After a moment he nods. “I agree.”

He steps away from me and walks towards my father’s sword; the emeralds look more like rubies now. Leon kneels, picks up the blade, and heads to the guard nearest to him. He raises the sword to end the man’s life.

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