A Deal with the Elf King (Married to Magic, #1)(17)

A third portcullis is between the two entrances of this long tunnel. Behind it is a small underground courtyard lit by torches mounted on soot-stained walls. They illuminate two heavy doors.

“What’s that way?” I point to the far end of the tunnel.

“None of your concern.” The woman stops, hand on her sword. “We’re going this way.” She motions to the doors.

“Is it beyond the city?” I ask anyway.

“Yes. Which is none of your concern. Now come.”

Her soldiers must’ve heard an unspoken command to them; the legion now surrounds us in a semi-circle as if they’re guarding from invisible attackers.

Left with no other option, I follow her up to what must be the castle’s entrance. The guard’s eyes flash a bright blue at the doors and then she turns to me. “These doors are magicked shut. It’ll do you little good to try and flee.”

“Why do you think I’ll have reason to flee?” I ask, as if the thought hadn’t already crossed my mind…more than once.

“Hopefully you won’t.” That answer isn’t exactly promising. She pushes on the doors and they open up to a landing at the foot of a long stairwell.

“What is your name?” I ask.

She seems to debate telling me. Perhaps forcing Eldas to admit his name is what forces her to concede. “Rinni.”

“Are you a general of some kind?”

“Are you always this incessant with questions?” Her words are sharper than my pruning shears.

“Maybe.” I shrug. Then repeat, “So, you lead the soldiers?”

“At times,” she says finally. “I am considered King Eldas’s second by many.” I could almost see her weighing her options and what it would mean for her not to answer my inquiries. It makes me wonder how much sway I have here.

I may be a human in the city of elves, but I am their queen. I have magic that the Elf King himself and a legion of his elves came to Capton to get. I glance at the ring on my left hand. It weighs a thousand stones.

At the top of the stairs is a room with soaring ceilings weighted down by heavy iron chandeliers. Candles drip stalactites of wax toward the dark wooden floor we now stand on. Two more stairways, one on either side of the room, arch up to a landing and then out to a mezzanine balcony that circles the hall.

Between the stairs is a wall of leaded glass. Intricate designs have been painstakingly woven between the thousands of tiny shards. They cast a lacy pattern on the floor. It’s the only thing that’s soft, or bright, in this cold, drab place.

“Come, your chambers are in the west wing.” She walks up the left stairs and I follow her up to the balcony.

“Is it always so quiet?” I whisper so I don’t have to hear my voice echoing in this cavernous, empty space.

“Yes.”

“What about people who care for the castle?”

“There are some servants.” She doesn’t look at me when she answers.

“Where?”

“Just because you do not see them, doesn’t mean they’re not here. It’s improper for common folk to see the Human Queen before her coronation. So the staff here is kept extremely small and out of sight.”

“I’m sorry for the extra work they must have to do by being short-handed.” Though, they do have their wild magic, I suppose. What might take a human two days likely takes an elf an hour.

I must have exhausted the conversation, because Rinni doesn’t say anything further.

Behind a doorway is a sitting area that connects with yet another sitting area. We pass through open doorway after open doorway in a seemingly endless string of rooms with no obvious purpose but to exist. After the fifth or sixth room, there’s a hallway with a stairway at the end. We ascend three flights and come to a wide landing with only one door.

“These are your apartments.”

Rinni opens the door and I blink into the light that floods the room. The ceilings are the height of the first and second floor of my family’s brownstone, and rows of windows line the back wall. Rinni waits as I do a quick round of exploration of the main room and attached bedroom—a closet larger than the attic I made my room back home, a bathroom bigger than my shop, and a bed that could easily sleep five.

“Why is everything giant?” I ask, reemerging into the empty main room from the bedroom.

“Giant?” She arches her eyebrows.

“The doors are large, the ceilings are towering, what furniture there is takes up more space than a small carriage.”

“Everything is appropriately sized for a castle. You’ll grow accustomed to it. And if there’s furniture you don’t like, then you can procure a new piece. The queen usually furnishes her apartments with what she chooses. Eldas has decreed that you will have full access to the royal purse strings to order anything that will make your stay here more comfortable.”

That’s unexpectedly nice of him. Yet, at the same time, I don’t want his money. It was hard enough to take Capton’s charity and that was from people I spent my whole life with—from people I swore an oath to help and heal for my entire life in gratitude. Moreover, I’m wary of any gifts that might have caveats. And money from the Elf King must have a thousand strings attached.

I miss my shop already, and earning my own money…what little money it was, since I did most of my work for free to pay back the investment Capton made in me.