Kinked (Elder Races #6)(53)

As he approached the section of fence nearest to the house, Aryal exploded out the front door. Already primed for possible trouble, his heart kicked. He stared as she ran several yards, stopped, and turned in a circle with one hand pressed to her flat stomach, the other over her eyes. The part of her face that was visible was clearly distressed. Was she injured?

His sword was in his hand before he realized it. He raced to the fence and leaped over without touching it. She bent at the waist, and he put on a burst of speed. As he reached her, she was making a soft noise, as if she sobbed for breath.

As if she—Aryal—sobbed.

His world bled with wrongness. He put a hand on her back, and she flinched. She hadn’t realized he had approached? He glared at the open door of the house. She had set their backpacks together just outside.

He asked harshly, “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head and straightened. Her expression was clenched, her eyes filled with horror.

What the f**k?

“What happened?” he asked more quietly. Even though she had indicated she wasn’t hurt, his gaze ran down her body anyway, instinctively checking for harm. The way she had clutched at her stomach, it was as though she had been stabbed.

She swallowed, and her mouth twisted. “Horses weren’t the only creatures that the enthralled Elves failed to look after, Quentin.”

THIRTEEN

Aryal could see that Quentin hadn’t yet pieced together what she meant. He looked sharp, fierce, still ready for battle, his sword gripped in one hand while he rubbed her back with the other. She didn’t think he was aware that he was doing it.

He started for the house, and she grabbed his arm. She told him, “It serves no purpose for you to go in there.”

He glared at her, jerked out of her hold and strode for the house.

She put a hand over her eyes with a sigh. Some people always had to take the hard road. Then, because she knew what was waiting for him in that still, silent house, she followed at a slower pace.

He moved from room to room, his movements angry and aggressive. Then he came to the doorway of one room and stopped with a jerk as if someone had punched him.

Fresh tears flooded her eyes. Gods, she hated crying. She walked up behind him and this time she was the one to put a hand on his rigid back.

It was a beautiful room, clearly the jewel of the entire house. Loving care had gone into every detail, from the bright treasures of tapestries that hung on the walls, to the handmade toys, the books, and the three gold and jeweled animals that sat on a shelf.

The most precious jewel of all lay in the beautifully carved cradle, his tiny body dressed in soft, embroidered silk. His skin glowed, bright ivory and peach. From his delicate, rosebud mouth to his miniscule, pointed ears, he was perfect in every way. Like all dead Elves, he looked as if he had fallen asleep moments ago.

Quentin’s jaw worked.

She said, her voice hoarse, “The door was shut. Not the door to the house—that was unlatched. This door. I think that’s why he’s still so perfect. None of the wildlife could get in here.”

He turned his head and looked at her. His eyes were reddened. “All of them? All of the babies are dead.”

Her mouth worked again, and two tears spilled over. Damn it. “Any child that was too young to enthrall must have been left behind, which means any child too young to fend for itself.”

She had seen horrible things in her life, but this was one of the most appalling and heartbreaking. Children were rare to the Elder Races, as if nature compensated for their long life spans, and they came most rarely to the Elves. Sometimes Elves longed for children for thousands of years, and they greeted the birth of each one with joy.

The death of any single baby or child, of any species, was a terrible tragedy. The death of all the Elven babies and young children in Numenlaur was simply unspeakable.

His chest moved, a quick, involuntary movement. He whispered, “I thought before they were crippled from everything that has happened to them. This will have cut out their heart. No wonder so many are committing suicide.”

When she had opened the door, she had been totally unprepared for what was inside, and the sight had slammed her so hard she had tried to run away from the pain. Now, she did the opposite. She walked into that beautiful room and sat on the stool beside the cradle to gaze at the baby’s face. Her face tickled. She wiped at it, and found that her cheeks were wet.

“I don’t know how to walk away from him,” she said. She picked up one of the gold animals, a frog with emerald eyes, and turned it over and over in her hands. It was small and heavy, and something in her mind told her that it meant something significant, but she couldn’t figure out what it was. “It feels wrong to leave him lying here unprotected. What if something manages to get in? And we can’t bury him. That would be stealing even more from his parents, if either one of them survived. They can’t come back to just find their baby gone.” Her voice broke. “Goddammit.”

As he had done when they had talked about the Elven horses, Quentin spun to turn his back on the room, but this time he turned around again as if he couldn’t help himself. He walked toward her, every line of his body speaking of reluctance.

She wiped at her eyes again. “It’s not that I haven’t seen bad shit before. Battlefields with thousands of dead, and thousands more injured and dying.” She barked out a dark-sounding laugh. “My gods, have I seen bad shit. I just haven’t seen this kind of bad shit before.”