Claimed by the Elven King: Part Two Read Online Free PDF Page A

become a favored place to think (worry) when I was alone.
    “So next year, you won’t have to work at all ?” I asked Lariel in
disbelief.
    She nodded seriously. “It’s custom. Long ago, our families tied
themselves to the fortunes of the royal family. In exchange for our service, we
are allowed to set up residence within a single wing of the palace, itself.
Starting at age twenty, we begin working in whatever position we have grown up
preparing to fulfill.”
    “One year of service. One year of rest,” Saeria cut in. “At least for
those who serve within the royal household. The pact is different for those who
wish to serve in governance or in one of the many trades.”
    She was the more outspoken of the two elf sisters. They looked like
identical twins, but Saeria had just laughed when I had asked and said she was
two hundred years older than her sister, Rinwen. The admission had floored me
as the elf sisters looked to be around sixteen years old, as did Lariel. I
still hadn’t worked up the nerve to ask any of them their true ages. For all I
knew, all of them, even Sethian who looked to be around mid-twenties at the
most, could have been thousands of years old. Sethian had certainly spoken of
centuries as if they were nothing.
    Of course, I was going by human standards of aging. So far I hadn’t met
more than a handful of elves, just my ladies-in-waiting, the queen, a couple of
bath attendants, and a few rotating guards—not an ideal pool to draw a
comparison.
    “You wanted to serve the king’s wife?” I asked, finding the idea
incomprehensible.
    The three girls exchanged a confused look. “That you are human makes no
difference to us,” Lariel said, grabbing my hand and gently squeezing it as if
to comfort me.
    I shook my head and said, “That’s not what I meant. I’m just trying to
understand your choice of jobs. You made it sound as if you chose to be
someone’s lady-in-waiting as a child rather than be assigned the duty.”
    If anything, they looked even more confused now.
    “To serve at the side of the Royal Wife, to help in the rearing of the
next king and his royal siblings, is something many of us desired,” she said. “His
Majesty has told you about our difficulties in conceiving, yes?”
    Lariel looked so sad, that I suddenly felt like an idiot. Even with my
trepidation of becoming a parent in such an uncertain situation, I could
completely see how heartbreaking it would be if no one was able to have
children.
    I nodded. “He told me an elven child hasn’t been born in the realm in
at least five hundred years.”
    “And that last child was me,” Lariel said with a small smile. “Ever
since my mother told me this, I have been determined to be by the side of the
woman who would bring life back to our people.”
    Hearing that, not only did I suddenly feel like the lowest person
alive, I suddenly felt the weight of an entire people crash down onto my
shoulders. How had my life come to this?
    “But I’m not the only human trying to conceive an elven child right now,
right?” I asked, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.
    “You are,” Rinwen said, sounding proud. “The heir must be born first.
Thereafter, one male from each elven family is chosen to take a human wife to
continue the family line.”
    “I’m not sure how many men you’re talking about,” I said slowly, “but somehow
I don’t think a bunch of women suddenly going missing all at once in my world
like I did will go unnoticed.”
    Lariel shook her head. “You were chosen specifically by His Majesty,
himself,” she said. “That was not how it was done by our ancestors. During the
last Plague of Infertility, doorways were set up throughout the human realm
near most, if not all, human settlements that would allow our two races to meet
in a dimensional space between our two worlds should a human woman wander
inside. They were then offered a choice to join us in the realm. It is
something that will happen slowly