A fresh wave of hilarity sweeps through the room.
I move uncomfortably on my stool. Blasted men.
“Well, we’ll find out when she arrives next week, won’ts we?” says the dwarf. “And maybe our king’ll get some answers from ’er. Like what ’er Draewulf father is up to.”
“It’s a load of posh!” the blond-haired official pipes up again.
“No, it’s true. Tell the story of the Draewulf, Dwarf!”
“Yeah,” one of the ladies near us says. “Tell ’im the story!”
“You want me to tell it? You sure you want me to tell it?” the dwarf asks, hopping on one foot and then the other.
The audience erupts with shouts and the pounding of their metal mugs on the tables until he gives in and shushes them into delighted anticipation. The little man licks his lips and sweeps his hands in front of him like a magician.
“’Twas a hundred years ago and still known as the bloodiest night in Faelen history. Bron’d been hounding the coast for weeks on the one side and Drust attacking from the other. Three kingdoms at war, and Faelen in the middle set to fall.” He pauses for breath. “Our little island’s High Court streets was smothered in a fog-cloaked mood tha’ evening. The trees, bare from winter frost, rocked back and forth, back and forth.”
The dwarf rocks back and forth like the trees, in hypnotic timing, luring his listeners into a trance. “They say the bark was peelin’ down the trees’ white trunks like the ghost fingers of a dead man.”
He lifts his fingers above his head and curls them into tree-like claws. A collective shiver ripples through the crowd. Even the politicians stop drinking.
“Twenty bodies they found,” he growls. “Men, women, youngsters. Draewulf had slain them one by one tha’ night, in his hunger to wear human flesh. Shape-shiftin’ into a man to draw ’em in, then returnin’ to his real form for the kill.”
“And what is his real form?” a woman near us dares to whisper.
My dream flashes through my mind—of me lying in the snow with bloody hands. It makes my neck tickle and my hands clench.
The dwarf leaps around to face the speaker and slams his little foot down on the table, causing half the room to gasp. “Not sure really. Altho’ some claim he’s a great boar.”
He straightens for a second and cocks his head funny, scratching his chin. “Or was it a bear?”
“He’s a wolf, you dolt!” someone yells.
The dwarf laughs. “Just testin’ you. Course he’s a wolf. But when the captain o’ the guard and the king’s men caught up with ’im that evenin’, he was dressed up like one o’ the men he’d just killed. Stole his very essence, he did. That’s how he does it—climbs inside a body and slowly absorbs his soul ’til there’s nothin’ left except his wolf self hidin’ inside the person’s skin. A perfect imitation of ’em. An’ a hideous and ghostly way to die, so I’ve ’eard.”
The dwarf’s hands dance, making monstrous shadows on the common-house walls. My breath dances along with them as the story reaches the breaking point.
“An’ the only reason he was caught? He allowed it. Cuz you can’t tell he’s taken over someone unless he wants you to. Twenty months he’d been at it—the great wizard Draewulf, king of Drust—makin’ a three-way war with Bron and Faelen. Now he’d found a way into Faelen to get an audience with King Willem, to make a deal he knew he’d get offered.”
I look around. Not even a drip of drink or an inhale. Even Breck looks spellbound.
“The old king demanded Draewulf return to Drust an’ never enter Faelen again. But that wizard-king, Draewulf, was a smart one. Swore he’d be an ally against Bron an’ save Faelen from fallin’. For a price.”
I swallow and tug my cloak closer around my head. Somehow when the minstrels used to sing the story, it didn’t sound quite so authentic. I want to crawl under the table and plug my ears. Instead I set my jaw. Act natural.
“The price was the Elemental children.”
Suddenly the room isn’t holding enough air. My eyes feel too blue, my hair not colored dark enough. My Elemental curse thumps beneath my skin, threatening to give me away. I peek around, certain someone must have just now recognized me. But every eye is on the dwarf. Even the black-cloaked official.
“The Hundred-Year-Ol’ Deal with the Devil, they calls it. The treaty between Draewulf and our former king that cursed every Elemental to be murdered at birth. An’ the older ones to die in ‘protection camps.’ And just like that, compassion fled our land with the monster’s bloody X marking the edge of a treaty note. And now . . .”
I shiver, and Colin slides his hand over mine. He squeezes.
I pull away.