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“Yes,” she admits. “I try to avoid them as much as I can. They act nothing like the ones on Protheka, though, but it’s still hard to get used to.”
I nod. It’s another circumstance that I hadn’t considered. “I can see that. These dark elves can’t use magic against you, so you’ll never have to worry about that. Our chaos magic is too strong and disrupts theirs, making them powerless.”
“So here, they have to live like the humans did on Protheka,” she observes.
I nod again.
“We’ve also wiped their memories. They’ll never remember their old feelings toward humans, so you don’t need to worry about any lingering prejudice.”
“Hmm,” she hums to herself. The sound is melodic, and it makes me feel almost… content. It’s an odd feeling, that I can be this satisfied by just a simple sound.
“Hmm,” I hum back, wanting to match her. For a brief second, it feels like we’re on equal footing, and I don’t hate it.
49
LAURA
I’ve been choosing my answers carefully, unsure how much I want to tell him. There’s a part of me that wants him to know everything, all my terrible mistakes. I think that I might feel better to get it off my chest, and to finally be able to share my pain with someone else.
But there’s another part of me that’s afraid to let him in. What if he judges me like Cora did? What if he’s disgusted? I can hardly assume that he won’t be. I’m so disgusted by myself, why shouldn’t he be?
Eventually, the debate solves itself when he asks me bluntly, “How did you end up here, from Protheka? I know about the raid, but I wasn’t there.”
My eyes fill with tears at the question. I’m too tired to dance around it anymore, and I tell him exactly what he wants to know.
“The Demon King came to me in my dreams, through a mental connection. He told me that he wanted human women to bolster the demons. We would breed with the demons and create a strong race of warriors that could defeat the dark elves of Protheka.”
Rej’thorek’s mouth drops open in surprise, but he doesn’t say anything. I continue. “I wasn’t even sure that it was real, at first. I thought maybe it was all in my head. Some kind of an episode, stress maybe, or just a very realistic fantasy. It seemed too wild to be true, you know?”
My tears begin to fall, everything spilling out of me now. “But I hated the elves and what they were doing to us. So, when he promised me that he could help me get my revenge on them, I agreed. He said that we’d be cherished and taken care of…”
I’m sobbing openly, and he pulls me in to comfort me. But his face still looks stunned. “I told him everything that he needed to know about the human settlement and how to invade. But when they came, it was nothing like the King promised me. It was just more death by a different set of hands. And I left my siblings behind to be worked to death by the dark elves.”
“Wow,” he says on a breath, and it’s clear that what I’ve said has left him reeling. “I knew that the women came from a work camp. But I didn’t know that you…that you were the one…”
My shoulders shake with my sobs. “I never should have done it. I regret it every day. I ruined everything. I didn’t even know it was real until the storm came and the demons showed up. And then it was too late. I couldn’t stop it.”
I’m swept up in the memories of that horrible day. Even though I had been the one to make the arrangement with the King, I had never really expected it to happen. When the storm swept through and the demons took over, there was so much blood and death.
“But you’re here now,” he points out. “You’re better off with me than left to die as a slave of the dark elves, aren’t you?”
He’s right, that I’m better here than I was on Protheka. But I don’t know how to make him understand that I nearly wasn’t. That I sacrificed all the other women thinking I could save them. I trusted the King who was ready to have me killed because I was useless to his cause. Who knows what he might do to the others?
I sit up, wiping my eyes. “It’s not just me, though. I’m the reason all those women were captured. What if they’re going to be sacrificed in the arena to entertain the demons, the same way I was? My sister hates me now because of what I did.”
I pause, thinking it over. “I don’t know what happened to her, and she’ll probably never talk to me again. The last time I saw her was before the King locked me in the cell.”
It’s another harsh reminder of how stupid I was. I remember when I thought I was still the King’s favorite, that he would take care of me and make me his.
I would have been satisfied with that.
I can still remember Cora’s outrage. And now, I understand she was right. But it’s too
late to apologize. I will never be able to undo the harm that I caused, and it eats me up inside.
“I think it turned out okay for her, because she fell for the demon who captured her. He
was granted permission to take her for himself–and only for him. She seemed relieved when the King agreed.”
