I hadn't killed my first commander but the investigation came back inconclusive as to not just my conduct but other members of my unit as well. We were almost disbanded because no other officer wanted the 'unit without a hope'. I had gotten us drilling together, working as a unit figuring out each other's strengths because we already knew our own weaknesses all too well. I had also gotten my unit listening to a different voice then my own. The commander I trained was the one who got raised to command my unit. Which worked out just as I had hoped. A commander could never leave the unit, even if the elders would have let me command my first unit.
The prince laid a hand on the table running it across the leaves with a small smile. I studied him while he studied the table. His skin was smooth and white like any other elf. His hair was a golden sliver, somehow only the royal family had hair that color all the other elves I had ever seen had bright silver hair. He had the long ears of his race of course but his were laid back and if you didn't look for them you might not notice under his tied back hair. It wasn't quite as long as the elves normally kept it. That hair marked him as odd for his family, elves only cut their hair when they were sure there would be a battle the next day. Students would cut their hair regularly but the royal family didn't normally study at the academy. It also wasn't common for the royal family to join the army either.
His green eyes seemed to flash with laughter as he looked up and noticed me studying him. He didn't pull away from the table. "You don't believe me still. You are still trying to find the trick."
"You have fought with me enough times to know that much." He seemed a little hurt. It was hard to keep myself from reading his mind, images kept slipping through and I wasn't always sure if they were mine or his.
I caught myself thinking about the first time I earned a crystal weapon. The prince was only two hours behind me in earning the same honor. He had never earned a crystal before me, except the bow probably, but he was never that far behind me either. Even when we graduated into full units and were separated into our races again. "Yes, I have." He tilted his head studying me as I studied him. He finally took a breath and said, "I can prove I am bonded to you."
I wanted to just say, then do so, prove your bond to me, but I also didn't feel right. An oath tested can break, if the bond is tested, if it does exist, will it break? Or is it something else? There must be some kind of catch to this bond. He claims to have fallen in love with me at first sight, there was nothing realthere. Then again he has watched me for 12 some years, but he couldn't know me. Then I wanted to deny that he could fall in love with me at all. I was convinced the only person who could have loved me died giving birth to me. My father if he still existed couldn't give a whistle about me, he would be a demon after all. My step father got himself killed and each iteration of adult caregivers had been less and less caring of me. The elf had to be lying; there was no reason any god would care about me, let alone bond it's line of kings to me. The Islee believed in the same god but they saw the divine differently than the elves. The Islee don't believe in the bond, for one thing.
His face fell just a little, I doubted anyone other then me would have noticed, when I didn't answer. "You are not an elf, Des. I know that; and I expect nothing from you. When the bond forms with another elf both sides are completed immediately it isn't one sided. There is no issue with trust, or long term planning. When an elf bonds with any other race, it can be very one sided, it is more easily corrupted and not just by the side that isn't an elf. There are quite a lot of stories of elves that have gone mad because the person that held their bond didn't feel the same way. Most of those are about Islee's, part of the elven side of the story for why our two people can live so close and fight so hard against each other. I didn't figure out what had happened between us until I was thirteen. When the elders start trying to get young people to form a bond before they turn into adults. It doesn't normally work. Only about 10% of my people ever form a bond anymore. So most of the time that effort goes toward finding a good enough match to keep the houses strong. Before my 18th birthday, I am not exactly sure when I made up my mind that I had bonded to an Islee and I couldn't tell anyone around me about the bond. That if I wanted to be true to what I believed the gods wanted with the bond, I would have to let you decide what you wanted to do. I knew you had started at the academy, convincing the elders that I wanted to train at the academy instead of with the elven masters had been a hard sell. I had intended to try to be your friend first, or your rival if you had picked up the Islee distrust of elves. I had plans to tell you what had happened by the end of our first year. When I found that you didn't have any friends and the elders were going to do everything they seemingly could to keep us apart. I started to focus on just keeping up with you. Every time I saw you I would tell myself you didn't need the burden, it wasn't your fault. I would only hold you back, it could wait another year. You were safe, and able to keep your own self safe. It was hard to come up with excuses to keep my unit as close as an elven unit could be to an Islee unit. My commander wouldn't deny my request, I am her prince and future king after all.
"I almost failed in my promise to myself to let you live your own life the first time you vanished from your unit. When the shadow spawn just fell over before I could find you again, I didn't know what to think. I was relieved when they found you without a scratch. I also knew I couldn't ask you not to do it again. For the first time I truly understood the point of my own guards. I won't ask you not to pick your own path, I won't ask you to feel something that you might not. All I can really do is keep the elves from bothering you and be around."
"So if I told you I was in love with someone else you would be ok with that."
There was a small flash of a sad smile on his lips for just a second before he responded, "If you were in love with someone else I would go out of my way to be sure I wasn't the cause of any trouble between you. That is the best I can do for being ok with it. I never understood people who think they can win the love of someone by hurting them."
"But you won't find another love yourself? That is how sure you are that you bonded with me."
"Yes."
"Your people will expect you to have children at some point certainly."
"They will just have to find some other way to not talk to the crystal when I am gone. Maybe they will pick up a pattern like the Islee.Though the palace might be a problem."
"The elves cannot hear the crystal any more?"
"You really do avoid everyone don't you? No one can hear the crystal any more. Pretty much the elders just assume they aren't screwing up too badly because the crystals don't blast them out of the hall."
I frowned then shrugged, what did I care if the elders were misleading on something else. I already had evidence from my own life that they keep secrets. "How can you prove it?"
The prince hesitated, he seemed to pause for a moment as he decided what I was asking him to prove. "You would have to come with me to the palace." I had always thought human girls were foolish for wanting to hear a prince say something along those lines to them. Royalty have responsibilities, no matter what they wanted from life other people were always going to interfere with them.
I stood up and walked out of the cave to stand next to the tree again. The prince followed me. It had felt like we had talked for hours but the sun still wasn't peeking from around the ground yet. "How long until they start looking for you?"
"My guards should already be turning the palace over as quietly as possible trying to figure out where I have dissapeared to this time."
"Well then, I am just going to have to beat you to the first punch." I turned my head so that I could see those deep green eyes that had started at me across the training arena. They expressed very little except to me, I could see the small lines of worry. "Do you trust me?"
I saw the worry melt out of his face, before he got a puzzled look as to why I would have asked. "Des, I would trust you with everything in my world, and not just because of my bond."
I nodded then turned to face back towards the city. "Then don't yell." I grabbed him around the waist, he didn't step back. He might not be willing to touch me but clearly he wasn't afraid of me touching him. He seemed puzzled still until I jumped. I saw the surprise in his eyes but he didn't flinch even as the ground rushed up towards us.
I knew where the ground was, I knew every rocky outcropping on the face of the cliff. The bushes and trees, their branches swaying in the wind didn't even come close to us as we dropped past the tops of tallest trees. I felt the prince tense just a little with worry when I still hadn't slowed us as the trees seemed to grow taller. He didn't yell out. Which was good because I was focusing on where we were and a distraction right then could be very bad. I knew I could survive the impact from a fall of that height, I wasn't sure the prince could.
I didn't spread my wings, the demon didn't actually need wings and it really fought me whenever I wanted to stretch them. It felt like there was a gust of wind that rose from the forest floor to catch me. It also caught the prince since I was still holding on to him.
He smiled just a bit when his feet hit the soft forest floor. "You cannot trust me and not trust the monster. I came to terms with the fact that I am both."
"If I didn't trust you, all of you, our last match would have gone a different way. Come on I know a fast way back." He started off into the woods. He moved quickly and silently. I didn't have a hard time following him. I was sure anyone else in my unit would have lost track of him after two feet. Not that their skills were anything of note.
I had never entered the shield from the forest side. I had no reason to, my unit was Islee. I felt the key warm on my neck when we stepped through the barrier, I reached out and grabbed the prince's hand before he vanished behind the shield. I felt a pull this time as I moved through the shield. I looked up without letting go of the prince's hand.
We were at the feet of a vine covered crystal giant, it looked exactly like the other giants but it felt different to me somehow. I got the feeling this one was less trusting of me.. I nodded to it as I started to walk between its feet, dropping the prince's hand. The prince seemed to be doing a double take. "Not something I expected to be true." He stepped up next to me. "Well this will add a little time to our route, should still get there by sunrise I think."
He hurried along ahead of me. It took me a moment to realize that we were walking on a road that twisted through the trees. The trees were huge, bigger than any I had seen while traveling the human world. Not only were they big around they got crazy tall. I reaffirmed for myself that if for any reason I did try to fly through the shield I would not be doing that on the forest side of the Crystal city.
I could see the under sides of platforms that had been built on the tree limbs, as we walked. I was sure there were people up there but no one was really awake yet. The path grew straighter and the trees seemed to have been planned instead of allowed to grow wild as we neared the elven palace. I was wondering if we would have to climb up one of the trees when the palace came into view.
The eleven palace was nothing like the tent city that is the training ground for the Islee. The palace was a grove of trees that somehow grew with all their trunks touching. It was hard to tell how many trees made up this large hollow tree. It looked like it was still alive with fresh incredibly large green leaves forming the roofs. The palace had to be four or five stories tall. With one or two story out buildings surrounding it. There was a large and wide staircase leading up to the center of the palace. At the top of the stairs on either side of a set of doors that I am pretty sure you could walk elephants through stood two elven guards. The stairs seemed to be painstakingly stacked stones, with worked golden inlay. The doors looked like more of the giant leaves only these seemed to have been dried then hung. It seemed like they should fall apart if someone sneezed.
The prince had stopped to watch my reaction. He turned back and headed for the stairs when I looked at him. The girl that had found the prince on the battlefield came running out of the palace doors. "There you are. You are determined to get me in trouble, Theon. First -" She cut off and came to a skidding halt, at the edge of the top step. She had clearly just noticed I was behind the prince. The two useless guards that had door duty looked around in surprise at the female elf. "You have got to be kidding, your father is going to be pissed, Theon."
"Nothing he or you can do about it, move aside." The prince was tencing for a fight. I didn't want the prince to get into a fight because of me. The female quickly took a step to the side, clearing the path to the doors. The door guard seemed confused but they were clearly not meant to interfere with things the royal family did. The prince walked between them and stood inside the open doors, turning to look at me.