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Aedon sighed. “We travel south at present. We’re returning to a small village where a sickness spreads. We carry the cure.”
Harper frowned. She had not expected that. “Wait… Did you steal the cure?”
“Of course,” he replied, as if it was obvious. “Not even all the assets in the village could have bartered for it, and people are suffering. Those who held the cure were unwilling to part with it for anything less than a king’s ransom. The villagers asked for our help. Naturally, we agreed.”
“Who had the cure?”
Aedon grimaced. “The elves of the living forest, Tir-na-Alathea. Stuck-up bunch. Can’t stand them. Far too full of their own self-importance, if you ask me. They don’t have an ounce of compassion and wouldn’t have agreed to trade for anything I could give them, so I took it. But it’s for the greater good. The sickness is like nothing we have ever seen before, and it’s contagious. Without a defence, it will spread. Many lives are at stake if it does.”
“What is the sickness?” Harper asked. A frisson of anxiety fluttered through her. Careful now, Harper. You’re in a land where magic seems to be normal. You have no idea what you’re dealing with.
Aedon shook his head, frowning. “It’s a tricky one. It saps strength—both physical and magical.”
“Is it so bad that it saps magic?”
“It’s different here in Pelenor. Magic is everywhere. It’s in the fabric of the very air. Our land and people depend on it. It’s like your Caledan without rivers or air. There’s hardly any magic in Caledan. You have so few with magical blood there. Frankly, I don’t know how you all make do without it.”
“I’m mortal and make do without it. I can’t believe it’s as bad as being without air.”
Aedon gave her a strange look. “You’re not mortal, and yes, it is. You wait and see when we get there.”
Harper’s eyes narrowed. “I beg your pardon?”
“Who are your parents?” he asked.
The question caught her off guard. “What? I don’t know.”
“I’ll wager not, because they were from Pelenor. Or at least, I reckon one of them was.”
Harper stopped dead. “I’m sorry?”
Aedon halted and looked at her, sighing. “I suppose if you don’t know, you ought to. It’s only fair. Like plenty of folks here in Pelenor, you’re only part-mortal.”
“And part what?” Harper was pretty sure she’d stopped breathing.
“Elf.”
“What?” she whispered. “That’s impossible.”
“It’s true,” he said simply. His customary cheeky glimmer was gone, the dimple absent from his cheek, and he looked at her with such open sincerity, she almost believed him. Almost.
“It can’t be. I’m from Caledan. I’m mortal, like everyone else there.” She swallowed.
“You really don’t know?”
Erika butted in. “Or she is a liar.”
“Surely you feel it flowing through you,” Aedon urged, silencing Erika with a glare. “Don’t you feel more alive? I can feel it from here. Your blood sings of magic. You even have a little point on your ears!”
“Well, I caught up on some sleep and got some food in my stomach. Of course I’m going to feel better.” She resisted the urge to feel her ears. He jested, surely. She had never noticed it before.
“Yes,” he said, a touch of impatience in his tone. “But don’t you feel far better than that ought to make you? Like you have a spring in your step? Like your muscles don’t ache as badly as they did before? Like your head is clearer than it’s ever been, despite the fact you ought to be asleep on your feet given the day you had yesterday?”
“Well, I suppose so, but that doesn’t mean I have magic. I mean, half-elf? Really?” she scoffed. Her hands rose and she fingered the tips of her ears, then pulled her hair away so he could see. “For starters, explain these. Human ears. Nothing like yours.”
“You wait,” he said stubbornly. “You’ve lived for what, twenty or so years in Caledan? Where there’s a dearth of magic, what with it being beyond the veil.” Harper had no idea what he spoke of. “You’ve been starved of it. No wonder you couldn’t perform any magic, accidental or not. Now you’re here. Wait for it to fill that void again. You watch your ears. In a month, they won’t be the same.”
Harper raised an eyebrow. “You mean my ears are suddenly going to go all pointy?” Her voice oozed disbelief.
