The Kindly One

XXIV. Asëaní

Iona had always been keenly aware of her elven blood. She favored it so strongly that there had been no way to disguise it and so it set her apart. Her eyes, her ears, they were always available for mockery, cause enough to be pushed down into the dirt. Yssa was not kind to the different, and children could be particularly cruel. Not once had she ever been allowed to forget her elven heritage. But in the Summer Court, suddenly she was made painfully conscious of her human nature. To the elves, the contamination was as plain as daylight.

"That thing does not belong here, Lieren." The man who spoke was so handsome, so perfect, that it almost hurt to look at him. His hair was dark and glossy, just long enough to fall in front of emerald eyes. His expressive lips were curled in contempt. His nose was perfectly straight and his high cheekbones showed no blemishes at all. He looked down at Iona literally as well as figuratively, tall and lithe as all the elves here seemed to be. Others had gathered, malicious interest glittering in eyes of varying shades of green. "She pollutes the Vale with every breath."

They stood at the edge of the remnants of a once massive, white marble building that melded into the forest around it seamlessly, the trees and vines cultivated carefully to form living additions to the construction. The vines that wrapped around standing, broken columns were a rich, dark green contrasting the bright stone turned almost golden by the light of the afternoon sun. The glassy walkway beneath their feet was cracked in places, short blades of grass forming patterns in the spiderweb-like fissures as they grew up between sections of stone. They hadn't even made it inside the palatial Summer Court before the other elves took notice.

One of the others laughed, a woman with hair the color of flame. "Now now, Vaeroth. I think she'd make a fine toy. Will she be so quiet if we pluck the points from her ears? Gouge those poor imitations of eyes?"

It wasn't the first time someone had threatened to clip her ears or cut out her eyes. Too many times she'd heard threats of that kind in Yssan voices, even if never in earshot of her family. She always wanted to assume that they were just empty air, but her expectations of cruelty had taught her that many people were capable of doing things to her that they would do to no one else. Her heritage gave them an excuse.

Iona could feel the oppressive weight of memory that she'd mostly escaped in Zaeylael return with a vengeance.

"Be sweet to the little thing, Thea," one called almost mockingly. "She can't help what she is."

The familiar words stung Iona to her core. How many times had she heard Lynette say the same? How many times had her brother ignored it, like he ignored every slight? He was so good at ignoring it, until he showed up just in time to get Bene arrested, she added bitterly in her own thoughts. No matter how fervently she'd once hoped for an apology or some reconciliation, Benedikt's safety and wellbeing was not a price she was willing to pay for her own satisfaction. Every single time it seemed as though things were going right and she'd managed to find her feet, something had to rip the rug out from under her.

Some part of Iona—when she was too young to know better—had always dreamed that her mother's people would embrace her for her elven nature and her elven magic. She'd spent many a sunny afternoon daydreaming about enchanted woods and never having to hide. Maybe those dreams had lingered beneath the waking surface of her mind. Maybe that was why she suddenly felt tears building and a red-hot anger brewing beneath: betrayal at the shattering of a dream. She would never belong here and that rude awakening sparked the Mór temper that she'd inherited from her father...or maybe from her magic.

Lieren may have been smiling faintly, but there was a subtle tension in her posture. "I do the work of the Elentári. Take it up with her if you're displeased, all of you."