A Deal with the Elf King (Married to Magic, #1)(71)

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Hook. And you too, Luella.”

I wish he didn’t sound slightly worried and doubtful saying that. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I hope.

“If you need me, summon me no matter the time.” Willow departs and I pace my room several times in front of the large windows.

I’m not surprised when there’s a knock on my door.

“Come in, Eldas.”

The door opens and I don’t even bother looking. But, sure enough, his voice cuts through my rampant thoughts. “How did you know it was me?”

“Lucky guess.” I glance over my shoulder with a shrug.

“I haven’t made it a habit to come to your room in the evenings.”

“Well, given that it’s snowing…”

His gaze shifts, as though he saw only me from the first moment he opened the door. A frown pulls on his lips. His eyes are hard and severe. “So it is.”

“You weren’t coming here because of that?”

“I was coming for a new journal. But you are correct in that this is a more pressing matter.”

“I will have to sit on the throne again, won’t I?” I worry the labradorite ring on my right hand nervously.

“You will.” He sounds apologetic, the words rife with worry.

“Let’s go, then.”

“Now?” He seems startled by the idea.

“When else? It must be done, and I’d rather get it over with when I have all night to try and recover.” More like, while I have my courage together. Before the fear really sets in.

“Luella, you’ll be fine.” Even he doesn’t sound convinced.

I shrug. I know what I’ve read. The throne doesn’t get easier. Queens just get used to it. I have no choice but to endure the world trying to drain every drop of life from me.

“Luella.” The soft note in Eldas’s voice brings my eyes up to him. “You have had more time to allow your magic to settle and to acclimate to Midscape. You know what’s coming.”

“I just want to get it over with,” I say faintly. “Please, take me there.”

“Very well.” He obliges.

In what seems like no time at all, we’re in the throne room. It’s almost so cold that my breath clouds and I fight a shiver. I’m in a simple shift dress—long sleeved, luckily—but the cotton isn’t nearly thick enough for this.

“At least when I sit on the throne again, it’ll get warmer.” I make an attempt to grin, but Eldas doesn’t mirror the emotion so it quickly falls from my face. He exudes worry with every step.

“I’ll be here the entire time,” he says as we pause before the throne. “I’ll pull you out like last time, if need be.”

Last time. The thought has my body aching. I square off against the throne. If I can leave home, go to Lanton, become an herbalist, become the Human Queen, and manipulate the earth, then I can do this. I refuse to let a throne control me.

“Let’s get this over with,” I say, sounding more stable than I feel.

Turning, I tip backwards and allow myself to fall into the seat. If I try to ease myself down, I may pull away at the last second. Fear could get the better of me and turn the inevitable into something more unbearable than it already is.

Right before my body hits the throne, I look up and all I see is Eldas.

I’m here, his eyes seem to say. I’ll be here.

I don’t get a chance to thank him. The air is sucked from my lungs and I’m plunged into darkness. Keep your wits about you, Luella, I command myself. I know what’s coming and I’m not going to let the shock steal my senses.

Deeper and deeper, I sink into the core of the earth. The sensation is somewhere between the first and second time I interacted with the throne. I am as immersed as the first. But it’s less violent, like the second.

Eldas’s phantom fingers splay across where I imagine my stomach would be, if I had a stomach in this form. Focus, I can hear him command. The magic responds to you. You are its master. It is not the master of you.

Slowly, awareness comes into focus. It’s not quite like seeing, but more like my awareness sharpening the world around me. I am within a cocoon nestled deep in the roots of the redwood throne. I am in the dark spot I previously could not see within, trapped in a cage of gnarled roots.

Everything stretches out from here. Everything originates from this spot.

The seed, I remember reading another queen call it in a journal. From this seed, the life of Midscape is sustained. This is the seed of the tree that nourishes the world of wild magic. The Fade creates the borders, but without the seed it would be an empty vessel.

The first Human Queen and Elf King worked together to make the Fade. The rogue thought wanders through my head as if someone whispers it to me.

Hello? I try and ask.

Silence.

I try and reach out to the world around me, but am met with nothing. Yet my hands seem to touch everything. In this murky place of primordial beginnings, I see a hazy image.

A woman with a crown, reaching forward. Planting…

Planting? Planting what? Have I seen this before?

The heartroot remembers.

Remembers what?

But the fleeting images are gone, and with them exhaustion follows in their wake. I must stay focused on my task. The echoes of a thousand queens exist in this dark void and I cannot allow myself to get lost among them.