Detrick looked down at her, eyelids raised. “Aully?” he said, his voice as surprised as Hadrik’s had been earlier. He looked at those standing guard. “Why was I not told that my niece had returned? What was I not told that she was alive?”
“Because we just now discovered her, Detrick.” Ethir appeared from behind Aully, wiping blood from his knuckles. “Along with Audrianna and thirty others. Oh, and I believe the prince of Dezerea was with them as well.”
“You shot him with an arrow,” Aully growled. She reached out toward him, words of magic on her lips once more. Ethir grunted and ground her hand into the floor with his heel. She shrieked.
“Stop that!” shouted Detrick. “You did what? Ethir, what is going on here?”
“The prince is alive, Detrick,” the hard elf replied. “He is being cared for as we speak.” He lifted his foot and Aully withdrew her hand, clutching it tightly to her chest.
“And Audrianna? Where is she?”
Ethir smirked. “Resting. She had a…rough go of it.”
“And the rest?”
“They were taken to the bathhouse for cleaning,” he replied with a chuckle.
“They are not to be harmed, are they?” asked Detrick.
To Aully, it sounded like an actual question, and she was thrown into confusion once more. Though her uncle sat in the Lord’s Chair, he was not acting like a Lord.
“That is not for us to decide,” said Ethir.
Detrick frowned, looking from Ethir to Aully. “Please, leave us,” he told the guards. “I wish to speak with my niece alone.”
The elves saluted and exited the chamber single file. Only Ethir lingered.
“You too,” Detrick commanded. “Alone means alone.”
“I cannot do that, my Lord,” the militant elf replied. “You know very well…”
“Go, Ethir,” said a new voice, one Aully had never heard before. “I think we can handle a young girl on our own.”
“Yes, my Lord,” said Ethir. He bowed in reverence and backed away. The door clicked shut behind him a moment later.
Aully slowly rose to her feet, gazing to the left, in the direction of the chamber’s darkened washroom. Her eyes grew wide as she watched an elf who looked very much like her father stride proudly from the shadows. He was tall and slender, his hair smooth like satin, his eyes dark like the river at night. When he reached Aully, he knelt down before her, then took her injured hand in his and kissed it. His smile lit the room.
“I don’t think we have ever met, have we?” the elf said, and the mirage was broken. His smile was too forced; the way he carried himself was all wrong; and his hands were too rough when he touched her. There were lines on his face that weren’t quite right either, and his eyes had a sprinkle of gold in them.
“Who…who are you?” she asked.
“I am your long-lost brother,” he said, as if it were simple, obvious. “Carskel Meln, come home at last.”
Aully was in a daze as she hefted her body off the floor. The weight of the world seemed to press down on her shoulders, and her thoughts were jumbled. She had heard her mother whisper that name while in mourning for Brienna.…
“You were exiled,” she said. “Sent away by our parents.”
She heard Detrick snort, which was answered with a nasty look from Carskel. When he turned back toward her, his calm had been restored.
“I was in love once,” Carskel said, almost wistfully. “In love with the most beautiful elf in all of Stonewood. Alas, she loved another, a human no less. That, I could not allow. I was determined to make her love me, so I snuck into her room one evening, and we made love then and there. It was beautiful.”
Aully’s face twisted in confusion. “What?”
“Your own sister!” Detrick shouted. He rose from the chair once more, this time storming across the floor toward them. “You attacked Brienna while she slept, you rotten bastard.”
“Silence, Uncle.”
“No! I will not let the same evil happen twice.” He gazed at Aully, his eyes panicked, his tone desperate. “He forced himself on your sister after the First Man defeated him in a duel. He took her, beat her, and left her bloodied. She would have been ruined for life had Cleotis not ordered his best mage to dull her memory!” Turning, he pointed an accusatory finger at Carskel. “Your brother was not exiled. He fled. The coward ran before Cleotis could get his hands on him, or else his head-”
Carskel grabbed Detrick by the font of his surcoat and yanked him close.
“Keep your mouth shut,” he said. “Or I will end you.”
“You won’t,” her uncle said, his quavering voice revealing his fear. “You need me.”
“For now,” Carskel said. “For now. However, you do not need that finger.”
Carskel’s movements were so quick that Aully could barely track them. He swung his leg behind Detrick, dropping him to the floor with a thud. He tackled him and reached into his belt, yanking out a dagger with one hand while pinning Detrick’s wrist to the floor with the other. In one swift motion he plunged the tip of the dagger into the cherrywood floor, pressing down on the handle the way one would when slicing a carrot. Aully watched in horror as her uncle’s index finger was severed. Blood sprayed from the stump as Detrick shrieked helplessly.
Carskel turned to her, grinning, hands wet with their uncle’s blood.
“I have ruled this kingdom since our dear parents left for your betrothal,” he said. “I ordered the execution of the giant and his parents. Our uncle is only acting as Lord until our people learn to love me once more…which they will.”
“They will fear you, as indeed, they already do…but never love you,” wheezed Detrick.
“Oh, they will. Once they learn what we have been promised, they will love me very, very much.”
“You are…a pathetic and needy child…and you always have been…no matter how long you have lived.”
Carskel stood, wiped the blood off his hands with a cloth, and tossed the soiled fabric at Detrick, who wrapped it around the still squirting stump of his finger. The exiled brother then looked down at Aully, his calm demeanor returning once more. A sly smile crossed his lips, and he dropped down to one knee before her.
“Our beloved uncle is correct in one regard,” he said softly. “I am needy. Very, very needy. I need to be adored-it is what makes me strong. The Quellan are not the most tender of races. I have not known family-true family-for a long, long time. I want it back.”
Aully cringed inwardly. “Brienna is dead,” she said.
“I know, Sister.” He reached out and brushed a stray hair from her eyes. “But Bree was not alone in her beauty. You are very similar to her. You have her hair, her eyes, her temperament. Given that our uncle is intent on insulting me, you are the only family I require.”
“You bastard,” said Detrick.
“I will never love you,” said Aully, slowly backing away. “You are no brother of mine.”
“Even if I promise not to hurt you?” asked Carskel with a frown.
“You will not lay a finger on her in that way!” her uncle shouted.
The slender elf stood swiftly and stormed across the room, planting a fist firmly in Detrick’s face. Her uncle fell flat on his back and moaned.
“Do you think me a monster?” Carskel asked, sarcasm leaking into his tone. He turned back to Aully. “A hundred years spent roaming this land with no true home has changed me, Uncle. I have no desire at all to soil my only sibling, nor injure her in any way. All I wish is for my people to reclaim what is rightfully theirs, as Father should have done long ago.”