Page 47 of Blood of Dragons
“I don’t understand your meaning.”
“Commander Luxe told me elves are nearly immortal.”
“They are.”
“And you…are not.” He would be lucky to reach eighty, and by the time he did, he would be frail and weathered—and Queen Eldinar would look exactly the same.
“Yes, it’s a bad deal for her.”
“For her?” I asked, slightly surprised.
“I’ll never know life without her. But she’ll know life without me, in the blink of an eye.”
I looked down at my coffee, which had gone cold after not touching it for so long. Our conversation was so engrossing, I thought of nothing else. “If you don’t mind my asking, do you have children?”
“No.” His eyes dropped down to his coffee, and he stirred it with a spoon…even though it didn’t need to be stirred.
“I’m sorry.”
“Not everyone wants children, Calista.”
“No. But I can tell you do.”
His eyes were still down when he gave a painful smirk. “You’re like your mother. She saw everything.” He lifted his chin again and took a drink of his coffee. “We decided it was best if we didn’t procreate.”
“We…or her?”
“Why do I get the impression that you dislike her?”
“I don’t dislike her. But I can tell this brings you great pain, and we’re family.” He was family to me, even if I felt like a stranger to him. “I care for you even if that affection is not reciprocated.”
“Calista.” He closed his eyes and gave a sigh. “I wish you would forgive me for the way I behaved at our first meeting. It’d been a long time since we’d interacted, and you arrived in our lands on the back of a red dragon. I’m the general of Riviana Star and sworn protector of Queen Eldinar…my wife. I was simply protective. I see that you aren’t a threat to our people and you believe in the same philosophies that we share, so I’m no longer suspicious of you. Please forgive me, because I would love to get to know you.”
“I’m not one to hold a grudge. I—I was just in a vulnerable place when I arrived.”
“Tell me why.”
Put on the spot, I took a moment to find my words. “I’d just escaped the Death King, and then I returned to Scorpion Valley to see if my father left anything behind…and I saw that his people had given him a proper burial. In his letter, he told me that you lived here, so I guess I was hoping for…a warmer welcome.” I couldn’t describe the depth of my pain and heartbreak, not without going into detail about my captivity in the Arid Sands or the complicated relationship I had with Talon…that I still had with him.
His eyes fell in sadness. “I’m sorry for the way I mistreated you.”
“It’s okay. I understand.”
“I want you to know that I’m very happy that you’re here, that I will have this opportunity to get to know you. My brother and Iwere close, despite our differences. I remember the day you were born…and the joy it brought to us all.”
“I’m happy that I get to know you too.” I decided to brush off the pain he’d caused me, to forgive and forget because his affection seemed sincere. “So…why does she not want children? As a ruler, I thought continuing her line would be important to her.”
When the subject returned to his wife, his eyes fell once more. “It is. But I’m not the right partner for that legacy.”
I hoped I’d misheard him because if I didn’t, that was awful. “So, she wants to have children…but not with you? I’m sorry, but that’s the most fucked-up thing I’ve ever heard. Why did she marry you, then?—”
“Let me explain,” he said calmly, cutting me off so my voice wouldn’t grow any louder. “She’ll live thousands of years, and I’ll be lucky to see seventy. Half of my life is already behind me. If we were to have a child, I wouldn’t be around long enough to enjoy most of their life, not when they’ll live so long and I so little.”
My chest ached in sadness.
“And what’s more, a child we make together will have a much shorter life-span than a full-blooded elf. Which means my wife would outlive them…and have to experience the agony of watching her child die. I couldn’t do that to her.”
I stared at his face, seeing his eyes grow hollow.