“We wanted everyone to feel welcome here.” Lamruil walked around the fountain with his hands clasped behind his back. It seemed the black elf never changed. He was dressed in his usual long, black coat, which emphasized his slender physique, but Bernard knew just how strong the Elven co-regent was. There was nothing weak about him.
The elf king wore his standard tan pants and a light-green shirt, the ends of the crisscrossed cord hanging on either side of the open vee in front. His long blond hair was braided at each temple and loosely tied at the back of his head, giving him a regal air. Lamruil’s brilliant blue eyes speared his, and Bernard noticed how pale the elf’s normally fair skin looked.
“Are you feeling okay?” he asked and gave Lamruil his pointed look that had always made the soldiers serving under his command blurt out the truth, whether they wanted to or not.
Lamruil shrugged. “Just tired. The Great War left Alfheimr in ruins, and the different elf factions aren’t much better. My brother and I have done nothing but listen to grievances. I almost wish I was back in the thick of battle, spying against the Nazis. It was simpler.” He moved toward them and sat on the edge of the fountain, one blond brow arched higher than the other. “Now, why are the two of you here? Weren’t you supposed to be fixing something?”
Bernard scowled. “Freyja told you?”
The elf’s lips twitched, and humor sparked in Lamruil’s eyes. “No, but with everything that’s happened on Midgard, I just figured she would have sent in a few teams. After all, it worked the last time.”
Bernard breathed out his misplaced irritation. “You may as well know—it’s because of my stupidity we’re in this mess.” He pulled his hand from Alva’s and scrubbed his face before shoving them in his pants pockets. Confessions never came easy, but this one was necessary. He valued and trusted both Lamruil and his twin brother, Ailuin. They had befriended him and treated him as an equal. His chest ached at the thought of their disapproval, or worse, losing their friendship altogether, and the last thing he wanted was for them to hear it from someone else.
“Before the war, I had a family—a wife and two kids. Savannah, Brianna, and Bishop were my life. Savannah was a nurse, and we decided it would be easier if the children stayed with her since most of Europe had fallen under Hitler’s advancing army. Everyone loved her and the kids. When she worked a double shift, there was never a lack of babysitters.”
“I didn’t know, Bernard. What happened?”
Voicing the pain that still strangled his heart was more difficult than he imagined. Talking about his family with Alva hadn’t been hard at all. In fact, it seemed so natural. Her hand gently kneaded the tense muscles on the back of his forearm. He relaxed and, after a couple of deep breaths, found he wasn’t as agitated.
“Savannah was on her morning break and took the kids to the park across from the hospital. It was a beautiful Sunday morning when all hell broke loose as the Japanese attacked the island.” He saw his pain mirrored in Lamruil’s eyes.
“You lost them at Pearl Harbor.” Bernard could only nod at Lamruil’s statement, the pain once again rearing its ugly head. “We have all lost people we loved, whether in war, from evil, or old age, but the pain is the same, and it will never go away. In time, it fades, but the ache will remain in your heart and their faces in your mind. You are not alone, my friend, and I will not judge your actions. As surprising as this may seem, I, too, have made decisions and done things based on emotion, not logic.”
Bernard felt as if he were choking from a mixture of emotions. Gratitude, relief, and the beginning of hope. “Thank you,” he said, dipping his head in respect. If this was anything to go by, while Ailuin was more affable, Lamruil was going to be a wonderful king. The brothers complemented one another perfectly.
The elf king stood. “Now, tell me what we can do to help.” He turned his glance to Alva. “Did you see or sense anything?”
“I did. I’ve sensed something like it before but can’t remember where.”
Lamruil tilted his head to one side. “Can you describe it to me?”
“I felt like we were being watched, and not by one person, but many. There was an electrical current in the air, and I knew whoever it was surrounded the city with some kind of invisible barrier, which Bernard proved by repeatedly throwing himself at it.” She gave him an I-told-you-so glance. With a shake of her head, she turned back to Lamruil. “I can sometimes feel different levels of magic, and this was beyond powerful.”
The king frowned and moved one elbow to rest on his forearm, which pressed against his upper abdomen. Tucking his thumb under his chin, he ran the top of his bent finger back and forth along his bottom lip, deep in thought. “Several creatures come to mind, but none are invisible. There is someone here who may know more about this. Let’s go inside where Ailuin and Émilien are dealing with a few other issues.”
Bernard and Alva followed Lamruil into the palace, which had changed only a little more since his last visit. The throne room’s massive golden interior was still just as opulent and the frescoes beautiful, but it was the two thrones now perched on the dais at the far end of the room that drew his eye.
They were both high-backed with black cushions, the perfect accent against the shiny gold chairs. Lamruil’s was more modern looking with straight lines and less flourish, but the intricate etchings decorating the chair matched Ailuin’s more elaborate creation. Instead of straight lines, his sported curved legs and armrests, and woven into the overall design were thin veins of silver.
He stopped and stared, wide-eyed, at the collaborative designs the brothers had come up with. “Magnificent.”
Lamruil smiled. “They turned out rather well, didn’t they? Raisa thought my brother’s was a bit overboard, but then it wouldn’t be his if it wasn’t.”
Bernard clapped the elf on his shoulder and laughed. “No, no, it wouldn’t.”
“It was your idea, though, so thank you. You have an amazing ability to get the two of us on the same page and working together. It’s almost a miracle. Freyr didn’t believe we could ever see eye to eye on anything, yet we have.”
“From what I know about the two of you, you both have gone your own ways. Look at how you fought against the evil in our war on Midgard,” Bernard said, hearing a door close nearby. “You were a spy, serving in the thick of the Nazi army while Ailuin was more on the fringe, coming and going like my Resistance groups did. It will take time to learn each other’s methods and way of thinking, but you will get there.”
“Olivier…is that you?” a gravelly voice said behind him, the low voice rumbling through the expansive room.
Bernard turned to find Ailuin and a very large werewolf staring at him from just in front of the throne dais, his black eyes piercing. The creature was larger than any werewolf he had ever seen before, and incredibly muscular. He stood a full head above Ailuin, and the elf wasn’t short. The dark-brown, almost-black fur tufted along his shoulders, and he held himself as still as a statue, reminding Bernard of the calm before a storm.
He walked toward them, feeling rather than seeing Lamruil beside him, because he couldn’t pull his gaze away from the werewolf. They stopped a few feet away and, even though Bernard was considered tall for a human, he had to tilt his head back a few inches to continue to hold the werewolf’s gaze.
He held out his hand. “My name is Bernard Marchand. Did you call me Olivier?” The werewolf nodded once, his bushy brows furrowed in a deep frown. “That’s...strange.”
“Strange how?” Lamruil asked.