"Are you seriously telling me," Raven said, losing his temper at last, "that you intend to marry someone out of a fleeting emotional impulse? He is a child. A child you met a few hours ago."
He looked at her with a sharp gaze that made no attempt to hide his extreme displeasure.
Chasey pulled Zephy into a comforting embrace anyway.
"Trusting a complete stranger simply because you pity him," Raven said, "is not a wise decision." He stepped closer and looked down at the boy. "How old are you? Your actual age."
Zephy said nothing.
"I can make you answer," the prince said. "I would rather not have to."
The boy trembled, and folded. "Two hundred and twenty-seven," he said in a small voice. And then, in an enormous hurry: "But elves live for thousands of years! At two hundred and twenty-seven I'm still considered a mere child, truly, that's just how it works for us — please don't misunderstand—"
He caught Chasey's sleeve. "Don't hate me. I never had any intention of deceiving you. Never."
And then, with the air of a boy playing his last card, he pretended to collapse from exhaustion and lay down in the grass to be pitied.
Raven laughed mockingly. "Well? Do you still want to marry a two-hundred-year-old geezer?"
Zephy shot upright. "Stop calling me an old man!"
"All right, all right," Chasey said, stepping between them with a hand raised to each. "Both of you. Let's talk about a solution instead." She crouched down to Zephy's level. "Listen — the army's real goal here is to put down the half beasts who've been attacking people. That's why they came."
Raven had gone quiet, and when he spoke again it was in a different register altogether; he had begun to consider a peaceful settlement instead of a solution reached with swords.
"If there is a way to resolve this without bloodshed," he said, "then I am willing to cooperate. I will not turn a blind eye to the situation."
"Then let's go and meet the elf god," Chasey said. "And persuade him to recognise Zephy."
Raven sighed the sigh of a man who could already see how this would go, and agreed to go and meet the elf tribe's god, at her request.
He did not forget the boy, however. "If the word marriage leaves your mouth again," he told Zephy, "the consequences will be severe." The killing intent that rolled off him then was terrible enough to still the whole clearing. "And if you ever harbour dark intentions toward her, I will raze this entire forest."
Zephy, privately, thought that this man was quite a difficult character, and was entirely certain that he harboured special feelings for Chasey.
Raven turned away and told himself, quietly, that perhaps he ought to try being a little more honest about his own emotions.
Zephy led them deeper into the settlement of his tribe, and when they came out from under the trees Chasey could not help stopping to stare. The elf village was breathtaking — light through leaves, houses grown rather than built, a beauty that seemed almost to hum.
Then she noticed something odd. The villagers were all hiding. A curtain twitched; a face withdrew behind a trunk; somewhere a door shut very softly.
The three of them crossed a long suspension bridge that swayed gently over the drop and led into the heart of the village.
"They're terrified of humans," Raven said.
"Why?" Chasey asked. "Why would the fear go that deep? They're hiding from us."
Raven's voice, when he answered, was grave.
"A long time ago, humans committed brutal massacres against the half-beast tribes. It began as a response to aggression from the half beasts — that much is even true. But it spiralled far out of control. The war lost whatever just cause it started with, and became indiscriminate slaughter. And before anyone realised what had happened, hunting half beasts had turned into a form of human entertainment."
Chasey said nothing.
"They captured the ones who looked different," he went on. "They worked them to exhaustion, and they paraded them about like trophies, to boast."
She fell silent for a long moment, deeply troubled by this dark, hidden chapter of the history between the two races.
"It belongs to the distant past," Raven said. "Such practices are strictly forbidden by law now." A pause. "Although wealthy nobles continue to trade half beasts in secret, behind closed doors."
And there it was, Chasey realised. That was why the Raven of the novel harboured such deep hatred for the nobility. It had never been explained on the page; it had only ever been shown.
Raven glanced at her sidelong, as if trying to gauge how a noble daughter would take these particular truths. Zephy watched the two of them in silence, seemingly carrying private thoughts of his own.
Chasey walked over to a tree where someone was hiding and greeted them gently.
A small elf girl peeked out shyly to look at the strange human.
"It's all right!" Zephy called to his people, spreading his arms. "She's incredibly kind. She's gentle. I promise."
Chasey went a little pink and wished she were not the centre of quite so much attention. But the wall of fear had cracked, and other elves began to emerge from their hiding places, one by one, drifting closer.
A curious child came right up to her. "Are you really a human?"
"I really am," Chasey said, smiling. "I'm not as frightening as you think."
The child gazed up at her in admiration and thought that this girl gave off a strange sort of warmth.
Then there were children everywhere, crowding around her, praising her sweet scent and her beautiful hair and asking whether they might braid it. Chasey pulled out the cookies she had brought and shared them around, and the elf children were absolutely delighted by the unfamiliar treat; they ate them sitting in a ring at her feet, exclaiming over how sweet they were, how fragrant, until the whole clearing was full of the noise of it.
Raven and Chasey watched the children from a little distance, and his gaze, as he looked at the girl beside him, had turned thoughtful.
Nearby, the elderly elves talked quietly among themselves. She radiated a pure energy, they said. She treated the little ones with remarkable gentleness.
Chasey sat down on the grass to play with them, and the children cheered and gathered closer, watching her hair shimmer in the filtered light as though it had been touched by magic.
"It's so pretty," one said. "It's soft." — "It's fluffy!"
She was laughing at that when an elderly elf with a long beard stepped forward.
"I am the elder of this village," he said, inclining his head. "Might I ask the name of our human guest?"
Chasey rose at once and bowed properly. "Chasey Zeviana."
The elder studied her closely for a while, and then he smiled.
"There is a peaceful, pure energy about you," he said. "It is a rare quality among humans."
Touched by such sincerity, she could only scratch the back of her head bashfully and thank him.
The elder cleared his throat. "Now. Let me confirm this once more. Do you truly wish to meet the elf god?"
"I do," she said clearly. "I want to help this tribe. That's why I've come."
"Then you should know where he is. The elf god dwells at the very heart of the forest — a place where different worlds intersect, and where the purest energies converge." He looked at her steadily. "And unless one belongs to the elf race, only those who possess the primal beauty can open the gate that leads to the realm of the gods."
Raven had listened to every word with sharp attention. "The primal beauty," he murmured to himself, with a deeply thoughtful expression.
"Don't worry," Zephy said, encouragingly, to him. "She'll be fine. She's remarkably pure — quite unlike certain other people I could name."
Raven turned and met his eyes, and the two of them resumed their staring contest, no closer to getting along than they had been at any point that day.
The elder returned a while later, and a priestess came with him.
"A purification ritual must be performed to open the elf gate," he said. "Are you prepared, in your mind, for what that involves?"
Chasey nodded with determination. Whatever was required, she would do it.
The elder turned to Raven. "And do you intend to participate as well?"
"There is no need," Raven said flatly. "Proceed with her alone."
He stepped aside, keeping his cold expression, and did not react to the elder's slightly surprised gaze.
After a brief silence, the old elf let out a soft sigh, as though he had understood something he had not been told, and signalled for everyone to move toward the altar so the ceremony could begin.