Arc 1: Chapter 24: Irn Bale
An hour later, I was clean and in a fresh set of clothes. They were plainer than what I’d borrowed from Castle Cael, but sturdier and more comfortable, the sort I was more used to.
Catrin and I were brought to a smaller hall. A round table of deep blue marble waited for us, set with dishes of food and drink. Pretty elf maids with silver leaves in their hair guided us, sitting us on stools carved of elder wood and whispering conspiratorially to one another. Their laughter was like the Wil-O’ Wisps — fey, carefree, and a touch unsettling.
We were left alone for a long time. Music drifted from somewhere, bitterly sweet. There was wine on the table, and I drank some. It helped ease the ache in my freshly stitched wounds.
They’d stitched my wounds with strings of moonlight.
Catrin eyed the wine dubiously. “Aren’t we not supposed to touch this stuff?” She asked, poking at the food.
“It’s not going to ensorcel us, if that’s what you mean.” I took another sip, wincing as the movement disturbed an injury. “Not unless we have too much, leastways. A lot of the stories are true, but we’ve been given hospitality. They won’t try to trick us unless we prove ourselves ungracious guests.”
Catrin lifted her drink, hesitated, then shrugged. She downed it fast enough I lifted an eyebrow.
“They’re not at all how I imagined,” Catrin said after lowering the cup and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “And… everything like I imagined.”
I nodded once.
“When I was a girl…” Catrin fell quiet, though the hall had been emptied. Only a few wisps bobbed in and out of the open windows. “When I was young, I daydreamed about who my real parents might be. I liked to imagine my real father might be a great elf lord, like in the stories. Wise, just, good. I liked to think he’d come and find me someday, take me away to be some sort of great lady. Or maybe my mother was the eld, and she’d teach me all her magics and songs…”
Catrin laughed, and there was a subtle note of grief in the sound. “Or maybe both my parents were false, and — when I found my true family — it would be a full set. Happily ever after.”