Blood Memories [Last of Elves book 1] (NaNoWriMo 2014)

Fifty-Nine: Naameh

Naameh

He has failed me.

They all have.

The girl is gone, vanished in the night from the inn. There is nothing I can do for her now, no way I can show Panthera, wherever he may be – even if he’s not watching – that I would, and could, take care of her, as he would have wanted.

There is nothing for me now. Nothing for me to prove to myself, nothing to remind me of him.

Except one thing. The day he was … was … burned …It hurts to even say the words.

The day he died, I found something on my pillow. It was a braided leather bracelet, silver threads threaded delicately through the dark blue black leather.

I cried.

I refused anyone to enter, and cried for him. He’d known what I was going to do. He’d known that he would never see me again. And still he let me do it. he didn’t argue with me, didn’t fight me.

He let me save the people, and the land.

I owe everything to him.

I thought that the least I could do to him was look after the girl … Kura.

I don’t know who she was to him, and I don’t care anymore. She meant something to him, and so did I. We were both his, and he is gone from both our lives.

The bracelet never leaves my wrist now. It looks so different, almost out of place, compared to the rest of my jewellery, but I don’t care.

If it’s the only thing he left for me, then I’m never going to be parted from it.

I wish I could have thanked him. Thanked him for everything that he taught me, gave me without asking for anything except his freedom in return.

He taught me so much about the elves and their role, the native creatures, the land and the earth. I learnt that there is not just the mother goddess, not just the humans and their only way of thinking. He widened my mind, let me see the magic in the world once again.

And because of that, my own powers came back, as he was the reason they had left in the first place. As if my powers leaving meant that he was coming, and that he would help me understand the world that we live in, and help me see the land in a new light.

I wish we’d had more time.

He had such a wealth of knowledge, so many sides to his personality that I never discovered, never found out about. There is so much lore about the elves that I would love to know, but it’s gone now. He was the last trueblood, the last keeper of the elven histories. With him gone, there is nothing. Nothing that tells us what the elves did, or how they worked their magic. Nothing to tell us whether the earth is merely turning, or whether it is a disaster. Nothing to help us if we truly ruin our world.

He was right.

The humans are close minded, and shallow. All we want is to rule over the other creatures, and make sure that they know we rule over them. It was a mistake with the elves. Now that they are gone, there is nothing to stop us destroying the land once more.

He told me the Great Famine was natural. After seeing his talents, his abilities, his truth, I believe him. I believe that the elves were right, that we were wrong to blame them. We were wrong to slaughter them.

If only there was another way to bring them back.

I wish I could. I want him back.

I was wrong.