Page 47 of A Broken Promise

“UGH! You are insufferable!” Zora yelled and stormed out.

Xentar’s face peeked through the tent door in delight.

“I see someone is excited to see you again.” Both of us watched as Zora marched through the camp. “Welcome back, brother.” He chuckled as he took a seat in a chair across from me. “I take it another big nothing?”

“Nope. Not even a single clue. Like she just disappeared into thin air.” I ran my other hand through my hair, bottling the increasing frustration.

“I am assuming you will continue to keep looking for her?” Xentar said, petting Liriya, a large, black raven sitting next to him.

I nodded. Wherever she was…. I had to find her.

“I must admit, I am rather curious to meet her. Granted, I am less curious of her powers, more so of her ability to make the Great Gideon Bellator into a brooding teenager.”

Liriya cawed as if joining Xentar in his mocking.

“You two need to get a life,” I said, ignoring his teasing smirk.

Though a part of me couldn’t deny that she had caught my interest long before I knew about her power.

25

FINNLEAH

The straw mattress was prickly and stiff, even against my black leather suit. Still, this bed was a much better alternative to the half-rotten hammocks we slept on the past three days while traveling on a one-man boat down the river to this gods forgotten village.

Priya seemed to share the sentiment as she twisted and turned on her mattress relentlessly.

Even in the middle of the night, the first floor of the tavern we were staying in was still full of people. Most of them were so drunk that they couldn’t find their way home, but considered themselves sober enough to gamble away their life possessions. The bar owner was a smart man to take a cut from all the gambling, especially since he was the one providing the booze. Though he clearly had poor taste, considering the state of this room. Priya was annoyed at the lack of luxury, but not enough to turn down the half-blind cook’s dinner concoction that we devoured a little while back.

“Ugh, if they don’t shut up, I will murder them all right now,” Priya grumbled from under her blanket as the crowd bellowed another huge roar of laughter on the floor beneath us.

“I think they are celebrating,” I supposed.

I’d been laying still, listening to the chatter and the sounds for awhile now. It was too far and too noisy to differentiate individual words, but I had heard a couple of toasts and shouts. “I think it's Laze Day.”

Priya's lips thinned. “Like they deserved one. Useless pricks.”

“I don’t know much about human holidays, since my elven maid and I never celebrated them, but from the sound of it, it seems to be a big deal.”

“You didn’t miss much, Freckles. Gathering is about to start tomorrow and so today they are supposed to rest and save their strength for the next several weeks of harvest.” She tried twisting again, this time to her side, to try and get more comfortable. “So, Elven maid? How did that happen?”

“I wish I knew.” I adjusted my braid and hairs away from my face. “Somehow twenty-two years ago, according to Tuluma’s point of view, my motherconvenientlydied during child labor, making Tuluma swear to protect and care for her newborn baby. The how and why she was in a life debt to my late mother, or what she was even doing in the mortal part of the world, considering Elves’ standing with humans, always remained a secret from me.”

“Is she dead?”

“Yes.” My eyes darkened from the memories of Tuluma’s death. My body twitched, remembering the acid burn of her ashes on my body from the Destroyer’s fire.

“If it makes you feel any better, my parents were murdered too.” Priya offered a simple truth.

“I am sorry.”

Priya just casually shrugged.

“I had a sister too. She didn’t make it either. So now it’s just me.” Another truth.

For the first time in months of knowing Priya, I saw a small glimpse of sorrow that went through her face as quick as a lightning—there and gone a second later.

“Do you speak elven?” Priya asked, changing the subject, getting away from that painful silence.

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