The first grey light of dawn crept through the window and settled over the room. Firion still sat on the edge of the bed, the ancient tome resting open beside him, its brittle pages curling at the corners like dried leaves.
He had read the same passages three times now, and each time they led him to the same unsettling place. If the old script was true, then elves and devas shared a common ancestry, born of the same roots before the branches split apart.
Then why are our races at each other's throats?
Or at least, that was what he had been raised to believe. Firion was not a native of Aldenburg. He was a forest elf of Auriel, a clan that had cast away its superficial desires eons ago in favor of humbler beliefs. They lived among the canopy, spoke softly, and asked little of the world.
Is it possible that despite living for so long, I have lived a sheltered life within the kingdom? Perhaps the larger world holds far more than what I was taught.
The nobles of Aldenburg barely ever acknowledged that other elves existed. Yet when the blue horns burned his home, the Jade Forest, to ash, the Lustrodos army of Aldenburg had answered immediately. They took in the refugee elves and mediated a peace agreement with the devas of Mycean, but the terms of that negotiation were never shared with the people.
Firion had always felt a quiet unease about the many things Aldenburg kept hidden from its populace. Out of sheer loyalty, he had swallowed those doubts. But since the night his own comrades tried to kill him, the cracks in that society had become impossible to ignore. Elf women who no longer cared whose bed they shared. Nobles who arranged murders over a lover's quarrel. It was clear that Aldenburg was slowly rotting from within, its virtues peeling away like old paint.
The heat of his turmoil rippled through the room, and it did not go unnoticed. The emotions reached Kaida's horns, and her lashes fluttered open. She glanced at her husband's broad back, and something in her chest tightened. He felt heavy, weighed down with worry and a cold, hollow apathy.
"Firion… what's the matter?" she asked softly, her voice still thick with sleep.
The moment her gaze found him, the swelling melancholy drained from his heart. His face eased, and his eyes softened. He reached over and stroked her cheek, still flushed with fatigue, and leaned down for a slow, lingering morning kiss that she gladly returned.
"I did not mean to wake you, Kaida. I wanted to let you sleep a little longer," he murmured. "But this morning I started reading this old tome I found in the cupboard last night."
She followed his gaze to the mysterious book. Its leather cover was cracked with age, and pressed into its center was a single symbol: 木.
Her blue eyes lit up. "Ah! I forgot where it went! That's my mother's book of the Wood!" she exclaimed, stammering as she tried to push herself upright.
She winced. Her body was still sore from their first night together, and sitting up sent a sharp ache through her hips. Firion noticed at once. Without a word, he scooped her up and settled her gently on his lap.
"Do you know what this tome is, Kaida? Or what is written inside of it?" the elf asked as they both looked down at the faded scripture.
She pondered for a moment, tapping her chin. "I don't remember much about it. But my mother told me this book means that we're all the same!" She said it with an innocent certainty, as though it were the simplest truth in the world.
Firion fell quiet. Her words might have just confirmed exactly what he had been theorizing. Did her mother know the truth all along?
"Um… actually, Firion, maybe we should take a bath first?" Kaida's eyes drifted downward. The evidence of last night still clung to both of them, and now that she mentioned it… the smell was rather noticeable.
The next thing they knew, they were outside in the crisp morning air, taking turns pouring cool spring water over one another. Laughter turned to chattering teeth, and soon both of them were covered in goosebumps, hurrying back inside to huddle by the crackling fire.
Firion wore a pair of loose trousers. Kaida, on the other hand, had chosen one of her more exotic pieces of lingerie: a pink silk bikini that left very little to the imagination.
I still cannot believe she found a whole trunk of lingerie out here in the middle of the woods, he mumbled to himself as she curled up in his lap. Granted, I have seen many elf women in Aldenburg dress far more provocatively in broad daylight.
He wrapped a thick wool blanket around the both of them, and as the fire popped and hissed, he explained everything he could make out from the old tome. He also admitted his own misunderstanding.
"Your clan, Kaida. I do not believe they are the demons they are labeled as. According to what I read, the true name of your people is devas."
"Devas… it sounds a little like demons," she said thoughtfully. "Maybe an elf from Aldenburg misheard it, Firion. But I always believed my mother. Everyone is the same, and she was right!" She beamed up at him.
He frowned. "Kaida, I do not believe it was something as simple as that. Something must have happened for the elves of Aldenburg to call your kind demons. I do not know how the rest of the world views devas, and the only other elven country that might have those answers is Eurelca."
"You mean there's another elf country besides Aldenburg? Are there other deva tribes too?" A whole storm of questions spilled out of her at once.
"There is one other tribe that I know of," he said. "The white fang lion tribe, who rule Junai, a country of warm climates and wide plains. But it is possible there are others too."
Kaida began twirling her fingers together, the way she always did when something was brewing in her head.
"Firion, when the day comes that I have our baby, what will it be? An elf, a deva… or a fae?"
Now that she mentioned it, relationships between races were not so uncommon among elves. Many had made the poor choice of bedding humans. But as he thought deeper, he realized he had never once seen a deva concubine…
Then something cold crawled up Firion's spine.
The Lustrodos monarchy. The mightiest of Aldenburg's elites. Their complexions, especially those of the younger generation…
I never paid much mind to it, but now that I think about it… so many of the most powerful noble families have silver hair and blue eyes.
Could it be? They showed no other deva traits, no horns, nothing but that silver hair and those cobalt eyes. And growing up, he had very little direct contact with them.
It was not until he joined the Lustrodos army that he first met the Winterheart ducal family, the house that funded most of the army's war chest. Duke Alfore was the patriarch who held the Winterheart name. Firion recalled a brief garden party, tables laden with wine and candied fruit, where he had glimpsed the duke's children. Every one of them had silver hair and blue eyes reminiscent of the blue horns. Yet Alfore himself had grey hair and hazel eyes, and his wife never once appeared at any gathering.
The soldiers used to whisper that Alfore's wife suffered from heat spells, and that was why she never attended social events. But none of them had ever actually seen her.
The thought lingered like smoke.
And it was not only the Winterhearts. The Moonspeaker ducal family owned the farmlands that fed most of the nation. Their daughter had once come by the barracks to collect the army's produce ledgers. She was strikingly foreign: snow-white hair against dark skin, a beauty so exotic that half the soldiers forgot their drills just to stare.
Whilst Firion sifted through his memories, Kaida busied herself cooking breakfast. As she stirred, she tried to recall everything she could about her mother and her tribe. Every conversation, every story, every scrap of wisdom her mother had shared before her passing, including the little she knew about her late father.
Then, in the middle of her thoughts, it came to her.
That's what I was forgetting… my father!
"Firion, I do remember something my mother told me! She said my red hair came from my dad!" she called out, still stirring the pot.
"So your father had red hair?" I have never seen a blue horn with red hair besides Kaida. Is it a recessive trait? "Did your mother tell you anything else about him?" he pressed gently.
As she lifted the pot of hot oatmeal from the flame, older and darker memories began to surface.
"My mother… she was supposed to marry someone else. But she didn't love that person. She loved my father. Mother was special, so she and my father ran away together. She told me she was already pregnant with me when they fled… and my father was killed before she made it here. She settled in this forest because it was hidden from everyone."
"Kaida, did your mother ever tell you who she was supposed to marry?" Firion asked carefully.
"She said she didn't like him. She called her fiancé sleazy. She had fallen in love with my father first, but he was from a lower caste. That's all I remember."
She stirred a generous drizzle of honey into the oats and took a bite.
"Mmm… this oatmeal tastes wonderful, Firion!" She beamed and held out a spoonful.
He closed his mouth around the spoon. The oats were warm and creamy, and the golden honey melted over his tongue, sweet and floral, gently complementing the humble grains. It was delicious.
"The deer milk really brings out the flavor, Kaida. Did your mother teach you these recipes too?"
"She did! Mother told me eating meat isn't necessary for us. So I guess the blue horns in Mycean must eat the same way."
Another piece of the puzzle. Yet Firion could not recall whether the noble families ate meat. It was simply never a detail he paid attention to.
"What else is on your mind, Firion? Ever since you read the deva book, I can tell you're stressed about something," she said calmly as she handed him a steaming bowl.
"I am wondering if the elves of my country already have established ties with the blue horn devas of Mycean. I am remembering things that now seem very strange." He took a careful bite.
It could all be coincidence. But something about the supposedly tense relations between Aldenburg and Mycean felt wrong, and that uncertainty was tangled up with the wounds of his childhood. Why do the elves call the devas demons? Surely something happened. And why did the blue horns never simply speak with the elves? None of it added up.
After breakfast, Firion and Kaida headed outside with a few clay gourds. They were going to milk the deer together.
"Hopefully the deer don't flee from me like last time," the large elf grumbled.
Kaida took his hand and nuzzled against his arm. "They just need to get used to you first!" She smiled.
Then, more quietly: "Firion… do you think maybe we should start thinking about leaving this forest?"
The elf paused mid-step, as if his wife had been reading his thoughts the entire time.
"You're right, Kaida. I do think we should leave. But I do not believe it is safe to return to Aldenburg. I was thinking we head south, to Eurelca."
"Eurelca? The other elf country? But will they accept a deva like me?" Her voice wavered with worry.
Firion had heard on more than one occasion that Eurelca had deva citizens living among its elves. But relations between Eurelca and Aldenburg were strained, despite being sister nations, and in Aldenburg it was forbidden to even speak of such customs.
Just as he opened his mouth to answer, Kaida stopped dead in her tracks. The color drained from her face.
"Hm? Kaida? What's wrong?"
She began to tremble.
"Firion… we're not alone. I can sense something. There are people nearby… and their emotions are malicious!"
A cold chill ran down Firion's spine. He knew exactly who it could be.
"Quick, Kaida! We must hide!"