LITMIR.BIZ

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remained. The tapestry itself depicted a hunting scene, but an unusual one. On it, humans and supernatural beings were hunting a monster crawling out of the ground. And around it were woven gold roses in ornaments around the edges. And in the very corner of the tapestry, the elf had his arm around a girl with a lovely white bird perched on her shoulder. While the hunt was going on, he was seducing her. She was dressed in a bride’s dress. And he certainly wasn’t a bridegroom. Janet stared and didn’t immediately find that the holes had suddenly disappeared somewhere, as if the threads of the tapestry had restored themselves. Was it magic? Janet touched the tapestry with her fingers. It’s amazing.

      «Madam!» Ambrose’s voice came to her from the threshold. He dared to approach her, though everyone was now frightened. «You shouldn’t have danced with the elves.»

      «I didn’t,» said Janet frankly. What she and Tamlane were doing that afternoon, though it looked like a love dance, was in fact a complete fusion of the human body and the supernatural. «I just fell in love with one of them.»

      Now the old knight walked up to her and took her by the shoulders with a jerk, as if he wanted to give her a good shaking.

      «He has compelled you! He has bewitched you! But there is still a chance for healing. There’s an old healer in the village called Belladonna who can undo a love spell. You must go to her.»

      Janet only laughed, softly and melodiously, as if she was a fairy herself.

      «Love cannot be cured. You can only make a man unhappy by taking away his love, even if it is the love of an elf.»

      «He will ruin you,» Ambrose said sadly. «Even if he loves you sincerely. Magical creatures in love ruin people all the same. We grow old, they stay forever young, we die, they live on, we are weak and vulnerable by nature, and they cannot be penetrated by any weapon. They will rise from their own ashes and bewitch someone next to them to feed on their life force. An elf will not be your loyal protector or devoted lover. Choose another!»

      «Would you offer yourself in his place?» Janet couldn’t resist a sarcastic remark. She bit her tongue. She had upset the old knight.

      «Forgive me,» she whispered, «but my lover is indispensable to me.»

      «Your mother used to say the same thing long ago, and do you know what happened to her?»

      «What happened to her? My father is not an elf. He didn’t ruin her,» Janet couldn’t suggest that her mother’s lover could have been anyone other than her father, but that’s what Ambrose was trying to say.

      «Once upon a time, your father tried to make peace with the creatures living in the forest so that they would no longer attack his domain. He succeeded. The king of the elves, named Dagda, showed mercy. He decided that humans and elves had nothing to fight over. Both sides, human and magical, tried to get at least a truce. Peace was made. We celebrated. The humans started communicating with the undead, and everyone was happy.»

      «And then what happened?»

      «Then…» Ambrose began to speak with difficulty. – Then one of the elves seduced your mother, and she left with him. He enchanted her with his beauty, gave her no passage, he sent her golden roses as gifts. At first she resisted him, remembering her marriage vow to be faithful to your father the earl, but then she gave in. Magical creatures show great persistence when they want to achieve something. Amaranta was caught in the net of their king. And we never saw her again. But a lot of terrible things have happened to us since then. You were young and don’t remember, but fields burned, water turned to poison, flames burst from fireplaces and burned people, creepy creatures flew in, taking victims.

      «What if the elf who captivated my heart is enchanted, if he is human?»

      «Do not believe his speeches. Elves always lie. They lied when they made the truce with us. So they lie to their beloved. They end up ruining them.»

      Janet remembered the scarlet and white roses on the border. Ambrose had a point. But there were exceptions.

      «What do you want me to do?»

      «Try to leave him. He will resist, call out to you, maybe even come to besiege the castle at night with an army of creatures like him, but at the first light of day he will have to leave, unless you yourself willingly come out to him. Magic can be destroyed by resisting it.»

      «And if I can’t leave him?»

      «Then you’ll die on your own.»

      Janet didn’t want to believe that. Besides, Tamlane said he could be saved.

      «People see the marks of the magic kingdom on you, and that scares them, but if you heal, they’ll gradually forget all about it.»

      «It seems unlikely to me to heal from a desire for him. Even if the marks go away, the feeling remains.»

      «Then you will become like me, a man who was once loved and branded by a fairy.»

      Janet didn’t believe him at first, but Ambrose unbuttoned his collar and showed a strange sign, as if a red rose had grown right into his flesh. Janet even found a lamp and held it up to him to get a better look. It was definitely branded in the form of some sort of magical mark. Strangely, the branding was still bleeding. Apparently it had been made long ago, back when Ambrose was young. She couldn’t have a fairy falling in love with an old man. Maybe the brand was a mark of her kiss. Surely it was made to subdue both the knight’s will and body. But Ambrose resisted, and the fairy’s mark hurt him. Janet touched the mark with her hand. It vibrated.

      «Are you her slave?»

      «Morally, yes, but she does not call. And that makes it especially painful for me.»

      «My elf knight is not like that. He would not harm me.»

      «Not him, but the people around him. And there is a scar on your arm…»

      Janet only now noticed that Tamlane’s kiss had left a mark on her palm, like a burn in the shape of a bizarre sorcerer’s symbol. In the afternoon, as they said goodbye, Tamlane intercepted and kissed her hand for some reason, as if her lips alone weren’t enough for him.

      Ambrose was good, too. He looked at her with such condemnation during the day, and at night he admitted that he himself was at the mercy of some fairy who had long ago abandoned him. No wonder, then, why he’s so eager for Janet’s love to break, too. After all, he hasn’t found reciprocity himself. He is nothing but a jealous man.

      «I’ll think about everything you said,» Janet assured her, «but I can’t promise to give up my elf.»

      Ambrose nodded, signaling that he respected her decision, however reckless it might seem to him.

      «Remember, if you need any advice on how to fight magic, I’m always here for you.»

      He bowed to her. He left, and the tapestry beside her seemed to breathe, the figures on it as if they were moving, acting out a scene from the past and trying to warn her about something.

      Wishes in Chains

      «You first did it because you wanted to, not because you were forced to,» Malachite flew behind Tamlane, noisily discussing his recent intimacy with the mortal girl. «The queen will notice that. You changes, you feel the hope of deliverance in you. Medea Shai will kill us all for this!»

      Tamlane did not answer him. What was the use? The emerald colored serpent was only worried about his own precious hide.

      «Keeping you prisoner is cruel,» he tried to justify. «Forcing you to sleep with a monster is even more cruel. But those are the rules. Once you’re captured, you don’t get to choose what you want or who you love.»

      «You could have kept quiet,» Tamlane said. «And there was no need to peep at me. Don’t you have enough keyholes in the castle? You only used to peep through them. You look into Medea Shae’s bedroom every night, and that is until her dragon hisses fire when he smells

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