Page 82 of The Cornish Princess
Three guards she’d brought with her to Chysauster. Only one would return—the one she hadn’t even thought she’d cared for… the only one she now felt safe with.
“I fear there’s no way out,” she said.
“Shhh… there is naught to fear.”
“How can you know?”
“I simply do.”
“How?” Gwendolyn persisted, as she slid out of his arms.
The sapphire glow of hisfaerielight illuminated his face, giving it a cool hue. Its fire danced in his eyes, enhancing the blue, making it appear as though they burned, as well.
“Watch,” he said, and Gwendolyn did—only not the flame as he’d bade. She tried but couldn’t avert her gaze from Málik’s luminescent face.
Suddenly, there was another blue light, bouncing about, and he caught it and tossed it like a ball, toward the far end of the tunnel, where it swelled, its glowing blue tendrils standing on end, like strands of hair blowing in the wind.
“A breeze?” she whispered, aghast.
He nodded, and when he smiled, he gave her another glimpse of the sharp, pointy teeth behind his lips. Gwendolyn had the sudden, unimaginable thought thathecould be thesprigganchildren feared—a nightmare by night that vanished by day.
“Let me look at your leg again,” he demanded.
Gwendolyn sat, shifting positions to give him access to her leg. Carefully he unwrapped the strip of leather—a poor means to soak up blood, but thankfully it was no longer bleeding. The wound had already crusted.
“It could have been worse,” he said. “We’ll need to clean it as soon as we can. We’ll find a stream as soon as we’re out.”
Gwendolyn smiled, exhausted. “What?” she teased. “Can’t you produce water, too?”
“Allthings are born of theAether. I merely… cajole them.”
On some strange level, that made sense. “So it’s true?”
“What’s true?”
“You’refae.”
She knew he was but needed to hear him say so with his own two lips.
“Faeis your people’s word,” he said. “Not mine. I am Danann.”
From the beginning, he had styled himself Danann, and Gwendolyn had but chosen not to believe it. Rather, she had felt justified in calling himSidhe—or even elf when she was so furious with him—but never once had she truly stopped to consider the consequences of this truth. Hisráswas the oldestrásin all the lands.
Had her father known of his affiliation?
What about her mother?
If so, it cast his presence in Trevena under a whole new light.
Repeatedly he had said he was summoned or sent—no doubt by her parents—and something told Gwendolyn it might have been her mother.
“I cannot wait to tell Ely what I’ve learned.”
Málik lifted his gaze, peering through his lashes, his eyes suddenly hard. “You shall tell no one,” he said, and then he finished wrapping her wound and once more tested the edges of his bandage. Without understanding why, she nodded obediently.
“They were after Borlewen,” she said.
“The question is why?”
