ELRED VALKALIN IS ON THE RUN. After narrowly escaping the Synketros prison, she finds herself in the scent trail of two notorious communities miles below the island's surface. When she stumbles upon a hidden gathering of fairies from different races...
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She didn't fight when the renegades grabbed her arms and hauled her out of the space she shared with her family. Savel dragged a half-asleep Reza off the mattress and sputtered all the way, demanding a ton of things a mere soldier wouldn't be able to answer.
Elred flashed him a look—one saying he should shut up and tether his emotions. It went over his head, showing her how worked up he was. Understandable. He just saw his wife who had been missing and was presumed dead a few hours ago. He spent a while tending to her shattered wings. Of course, he'd start demanding why she was suddenly being arrested. By this elder he thought he served, nonetheless.
She kept her head straight, even as they led her to a dagrine. With such a short snout and stout legs, she doubted it could carry her weight, much less two people. A butt of a spear prodded her shoulders, and some sort of scuffle blustered behind her. She turned to find Savel being wrestled back by two renegades while he screamed curses at the soldier who "hurt" her. At the side, Reza started crying.
Oh, dear Calaris.
A hand clamped down on her arm as she moved towards her son. She couldn't have whipped towards the renegade who did that fast enough. "Let go," she snarled. "My son needs me. I won't run."
It must have been the acid in her glare or some sliver of authority she retained from her time as a princess of Helinfirth and a general in the Synketrian army, but the renegade backed off, leaving her to stride towards Reza. "It's alright," Elred muttered under her breath as she cradled the boy in her arms and he wrapped his short arms around her neck. "Mom's just going away. Again. Be good to Dad, alright?"
Reza tore away from her and wiped his tears with the back of his hand. "I miss you, Mom," he said. "When will you play with me?"
Something twinged in Elred's gut. It was easy to forget her son was barely starting his life in this world, and now more than ever, he needed his mother. And it shredded her stone heart to ash when she realized she couldn't be with them. Not while the Virtakios War raged on and she's caught in the trenches because of her foolish promises, her unwanted obligations, and her connection to the Helinfirthian throne. If she couldn't get back to the upper cities and retrieve it, she might as well have doomed her family to survive in a world where only slavery and destruction were the only choices as to how to live their lives.
"Soon," she answered. To a child, it's enough to keep them hoping, and enough to break their hearts doing so. "Mom just needs to do something. Save the world. You know, all those things."
Reza nodded. Sometimes Elred wondered why she was blessed with not one but two understanding and patient fairies. "Go to your father," she said gently. "Make sure he doesn't get hurt on the way."
The boy nodded and stepped behind the two renegades holding Savel back. In the presence of a child's innocence, even the most hardened soldier in a place void of sunlight shirked back a bit. Elred didn't stay to watch what happened after, turning back to her escorts and the saddled dagrine waiting for her. "Let's go," was all she said before she swung a leg over the beast's flank and propped herself atop it in record speed.
