Riddermarch - Ellen Quellery (books to read romance TXT) 📗

her belly, where the doll had been stabbed. Everyone could feel the ambient light and air suck into where he had touched. The room around them had briefly gone dark. Then the doll stirred.

The entire watching crowd drew in gasps. The doll's hand pulled back the cloth from her face. It was again as if she was Lady Latita, only this time she drew in breath as one savoring it. Then she looked around and moved her head, her eyes going from one child's face to another, finally resting on her husband's.

"Ranalon?"

He broke into tears, sobbing into her arms. She was alive.

"Can you do that? Heir?" the Elfking unfeelingly said to Erleon with a steely glance.

Erleon stared at his mother though, not even seeing him. "Mother."

All the Riddermarch children embraced her. And she, alive, kissed them on their heads - talking, naming them, thanking them for their wishes and their love. Her husband embraced her, holding her. And yet he looked back to Erleon who grasped his mother's hand, crying silently to say good-bye.

"Please, Erleon," Lord Riddermarch said, shaking his head. "Don't go."

"The deal is already struck," Erleon whispered, stepping back. "He did it to equal things out...."

"But..."

Erleon shook his head, taking another step back to follow the Elfking who was watching in stony calculation. "I have to go."

"Erl!" Ranoft grabbed his brother and pulled him in a tight hug. "Why? We could hold out longer! You and I together!"

But Erleon shook his head again, pushing to keep his brother back at arm's length. He barely had the strength to do it. "No. Truth is, I've known he was coming for a long time. And I must do what I can. Protect Ceda and Sal. Lead our family in a good way."

He then looked to his sisters who stared at him in disbelief.

"You fool." Azuesh followed after him, tears in her eyes. "Elves are not as kind as humans."

The elves shot her dark looks, though the Elfking regarded her carefully.

"Your life will change forever," she said. "They will change you."

"It is dangerous, Erl," Grennanod chimed in, following.

Taking another step back from them all, Erleon looked once to the Elfking who seemed bored with their pleas and his efforts to depart. "All the same. I am the one to go."

His father rose up from his mother and hugged him. Then Lord Ranalon handed Erleon something from off his neck. It was a pendant strung on a leather cord, one which had belonged to Begennagan Riddermarch, a gift from his adoptive father. "Remember, you are always a Riddermarch."

Nodding, Erleon pulled it around his neck and turned to go.

The elves quickly transformed back into deer - or at least, to the eyes of the mortals. The Riddermarches could now see the shadows of their elvish forms as fairy glamor messed with human eyes. Then the Elfking himself became a great elk, tall as the king of the forest. And though Erleon Riddermarch did not change shape, when the elk touched him with his nose, something shifted in him like a rippled of light on water. And in two blinks, he and the group of elves sidestepped into shadow and were gone.

Everyone stared at the empty space where the company of elves had just stood. Dannalot broke into sobs and threw herself at her mother to be comforted. The younger boys cried for their older brother, clinging to Ranoft's side. And his sisters were not without tears. Erleon was gone forever.

But their mother was alive. And they turned to her, holding her, talking to her, and helping her as she wobbled onto her feet like someone who had to remember how to walk. They helped their father also, who was weak yet alive from his sword wounds. And the entre Riddermarch family stumbled out of Rookshill manor, calling for their carriage to take them home.

"Where is my husband?" wailed up Baroness Letita Rooke from the settling dust, searching around the tree and the rubble as the party guests cleared. She didn't seem to have noticed the deer at all, though it was more likely she had hid from them. During the entire battle, she seemed to have vanished to a safe place.

Baroness Rooke looked around wild-eyed while the party guests quickly evacuated the ruinous building. She then stared up at the tree. She screamed, clawing her face. The freshly cleaned skull remained, all the insects entirely gone now. The sorcerer's clothes were in in shreds within the bark.

 

 

Chapter Fourteen: The Legend

 

 

 

 

What could be said of the days after? Baroness Rooke had lost her husband, lost her manor, and had lost her mind. And though she would have inherited all of Rookshill at the death of the Lord Baron, rumor had it around the nation that she had run off, wild, that evening - some said never to be seen from again.

But the locals at Justamere claimed that she had actually run to Witsend Manor, demanding entrance while claiming that she was in fact the Riddermarch's true mother, and the doll was created by the Lord Baron to replace her and steal her away. But the children saw through that easily enough. After barring her entrance, they sicked the local animals on her. In escape, she had stumbled off into the woods, some said - and the elves got her.

But the Riddermarches, if asked, would shake their heads and say that was also a lie. The Baroness, after being denied admittance, had attempted to curse them all with what magic she had learned from her husband. But it was their father who had, with his last bit of magic, knocked her flat on her back and - with one touch - made her insane. It was the spell he had thought the Elfking had put on her initially. And the woman staggered away, dumbstruck. She did not get lost in the wood. She did not get eaten by wild animals, but ended up wandering and begging from town to town ever since.

No one ever told the Dapperfolds what had truly happened. To begin with, those who had been at the party did not know what to say, as the entire event had been a traumatizing fiasco. The only story they could all agree on was that the Riddermarch family had destroyed the sorcerer, and Erleon Riddermarch had been claimed as heir to the Elfking.

Most could not precisely remember what the Elfking looked like, though a good number of them later said, "Look at the Riddermarches, and you will have seen the Elfking.

 

Several groups of aristocrats lingered in that country after the party, despite the fiasco. Most of them stayed because they wanted to improve relations with the Riddermarches. The three gentlemen friends, Ernest Brokwood, Alder Ildenwite, and Dale Rawling lingered to condole with Ranoft who had lost his best and most trusted friend. For several weeks after, the eldest Riddermarch acted as if he had lost his right arm, contemplating why Erleon had not told him he had known the Elfking was coming.

"I never thought he would keep secrets from me," Ranoft murmured to Ernest. They were sitting in the parlor while Dale was courting Jastalettel, who, despite all that he had seen, had grown more passionate over the eldest of the Riddermarch daughters. "We did everything together."

"Maybe he had already made up his mind," Ernest suggested.

Ranoft nodded, sadly. "That is like him. Though I don't understand this decision. The Riddermarches have always held out very well against the Elfking."

"It did seem more like an army came," murmured Alder.

Lifting his eyes, Ranoft nodded slowly. "True. And the Elfking appeared intent on the younger boys. Erl would never allow that."

"Do the trees tell Erleon things that they would not tell you?" asked Ernest.

Blinking at him, Ranoft stared.

"Because he did say the trees had warned him," said Ernest. "But you knew nothing of it."

Nodding, Ranoft murmured to himself, "Very true. Though I would not think the trees would keep such information from me. Erleon may have asked them..."

"But does he not have a special relationship with the trees?" asked Ernest.

"He did seem more inclined to use them," said Alder.

Ranoft nodded to himself, lowering his head. "Come to think of it, yes. They...liked him more. Sort of a...familiar feeling. We all lean in different ways."

"You tend to be friendlier with birds," said Alder.

Ernest nodded.

Ranoft blinked at him, realizing they were right. Their observations of the family truly were more objective. He looked to Jatalettel, knowing she had a greater affinity to insects. Azuesh could hear the language of quiet things more, including the wind. And the others all had their leanings. He thought again to Erleon who had always said the trees were his friends.

"Will he be all right with the Elfking?" asked Ernest.

Shaking his head, Ranoft closed his eyes. "No. He will not."

The men stared at him, eyes wider.

"Because elves do not like humans," Ranoft said. "And the Elfking claiming a half-human as an heir is like blaspheme to them."

"Blaspheme?"

Nodding, Ranoft said, "And though I do not know what it takes to become a king in that realm, I do know the elves are cold, xenophobic, and rigid in their views. Children's fairy stories paint a very different picture from the truth. Elves are dangerous and unforgiving beings. And they have never forgiven the human race for driving them from the upper-realms."

"Driving them?" Ernest shared a look with Alder. "How is that possible?"

"I don't know such stories," Alder murmured.

"Of course not," said Ranoft. "In our tales, we have forgotten them. The battle is now a thing of legend - as will we all be soon enough."

"Will we really all be legend?" chuckled Ernest with a glance over to Dale who was gently taking Jastalettel's hand and kissing the back of it.

"Doesn't it already feel like one?" Ranoft said.

 

 

Epilogue:

Legend indeed. Lord Riddermarch lived to be a grandfather. And the lady who had been born a doll, given life by her husband and died for him, then revived by the Elfking, lived a long life with her husband. And she talked.

Her children and grandchildren asked her tell stories about what she remembered before she had become completely alive. Did she remember it? What had she been thinking? And how did she feel now?

Truthfully, she remembered it all. And she said to them all that it was their father's love for Letita that had made her alive. And his love for her that had kept her alive. It was a magic much stronger than even the elves could conceive. The Elfking only granted her one wish - to keep on living.

Their mother died the day after their father had passed away and was buried alongside him. The children had then given her a name in Riddermarch tradition - Lovealot.

And about the children? Dale Rawling courted Jastalettel over the course of a year, properly proposing to her as custom. They had a beautiful wedding - but not before the whirlwind romance of Azuesh whom Prince Logan Roswood pursued and invited to Elderwall so he could convince her to be his bride. Grennanod married a gentleman from Thymedell, and her brother Ranoft fell in love with a girl who had come to the village to live with an 'uncle' but what someone-or-other's illegitimate