Page 57 of Light and Shadow
“Your people have fled.” It’s information she needs.
“Dead?” She shifts teary eyes to my sword.
Holding up my hand to indicate that five had died. “Most ran away.” I point to my chest. “Aaran.” I point to her.
Her tears fall, but she narrows her gaze and growls. “Enemy.”
Nainsi lowers to her knees. “No. You are safe.”
The girl looks from Nainsi to me, then raises her chin to the sky and screams. The smaller children join her, and it’s like a pack of wolves calling for a lost member. Their grief echoes around the wooden hold, making it hard to think.
“Stop,” I command loud enough to be heard above the wailing. I hold up a palm for peace.
Seven sets of eyes stare at me through tears, but the keening stops.
This is not good. I look at Jax. “We could take them to the sacred woods and hope their parents find them.” Even as I say it, I wonder if those starved creatures have any sense of parenting. I can’t imagine running away with my child left behind.
“We can’t leave them without knowing they are cared for, and their people will be too afraid to come out of the woods if that’s where they went.” Beholding the girl, Jax says, “A female child.”
Of course, I thought it too. The Aracan elves can still have female children, or at least they could when this girl was born. “Those questions will have to wait. What do we do with them?”
Bert steps forward. “You can’t leave them to maybe be cared for by their parents. They need food, water, a bath, and clean clothes.” He lifts the smallest, a boy of perhaps four or five. “Will you set him in front of the woods and walk away?”
The child cocks his head and pulls on Bert’s beard.
Fancor climbs down the stairs. “What on Domhan is going on down here? The noise was like the gates of Ifreann had opened.” He reaches the bottom and surveys the space. “The lesser elves left their babes behind? Blazes!”
“They were not exactly in their right minds.” Harper sighs. “I terrified them.”
Wrapping an arm around Harper, Nainsi says, “They’d been under Venora’s dark magic. They may not even remember birthing these children if you broke that spell.”
The girl takes the boy from Bert’s arms and steps back. “Queen dead?” She clutches the boy, her grimy fingers threading through his blond hair.
“I’m afraid not, lass,” Fancor says. “She still breathes, but our people are free of her magic.”
Pointing to the stairs, she says. “Go?”
“Where will you go?” Bert’s voice is soft and full of sympathy. He sits beside her. No longer the burly fisherman, he speaks as if she’s his to worry over. “The rest have run away, and we don’t know where to.”
The boy in her arms touches Bert’s round ears and laughs. It’s a sound I didn’t expect to hear today, and it fills my soul with hope.
Even Jax smiles. “We should get them above and feed them. There’s little time before the tide.”
“He’s right.” Bert stands and offers the girl his hand. “If we’re leaving today, we only have an hour or so before the tide goes out.”
An hour to decide the fate of seven Aracan children. I wonder if this was what the oracle had in mind when she sent me to find the human woman. Any hope of leaving the shores of Ear Talamh today is quickly fading.
Chapter Fifteen
Harper
Guilt is something I’m intimately familiar with. I felt guilty for living when my father died, and guilty for not falling to pieces like Mom. When she got sick, I felt guilty for being helpless. Now, I’ve chased away the parents of these poor children, and there’s no way to give them back.
Though, watching them eat a full meal does give me some satisfaction. It’s a miracle any of these seven lived. Six boys under the age of eight and one girl of perhaps eleven. However, they are so malnourished that they might be older than they look.
Cara and a young man of perhaps sixteen whose name is Jarol set up a crate and some boxes on the deck with berries, edible leaves, and enough deer meat to feed the children, but not so much that they would overeat and become sick.
All the while, Bert commands the checking of sails and inspection of the keel. He’s in his element. Nainsi helps, occasionally looking proudly at her man. Aaran and Jax are deep in a discussion that likely involves the fate of the children.
