After He Announced His Fiancée, I Left With My Son

I spent five years beside Kaelan, heir to the Elf King, and bore him a son, yet he never once acknowledged me in public. He said that when he became Elf King, he would give us the highest standing there was. Instead, at the Elven Assembly, he announced that another woman was his fiancée, then personally handed her our son's life-saving elixir to use as a facial treatment. Later I took my child away to the border, and he was finally willing to acknowledge us. But the child who used to run after him calling him Dad no longer needed a father. Chapter 1 I served Kaelan, heir to the Elf King, for five full years, and I bore him a child. But at the Elven Assembly, he announced in front of everyone that another woman was his betrothed. That day was my son Rowan's fourth birthday. Kaelan stood on the high platform holding the hand of the noblewoman Lysandra and received the blessings of every elf there. Rowan pushed through the crowd clutching the little deer he had woven himself and joyfully called out, "Dad!" Kaelan's face went cold and he said, in front of them all, "Don't call me that. I'm not your father." Afterward Rowan asked me whether it was because he had not been good enough that his father would not claim him. That was the moment I first seriously thought that perhaps I should take my child and go. Just before the Assembly began, Rowan had come home from school covered in mud. His collar was pulled askew and his knee was scraped, but he held a crooked little grass deer tightly against his chest. "Mom, I didn't cry." He lifted his face. His eyes were still red. I crouched to wipe the mud from his face. "Who did this to you?" Rowan hid the deer behind his back and shook his head. Only when I saw the ink on the back of his hand did he say quietly, "They called me a fatherless brat. They said you were a pathetic woman who'd been abandoned." "I told them I do have a dad." Rowan sniffed. "My dad is powerful. He's just busy. He's coming today, isn't he?" I held his hand and did not answer for a while. Three days earlier, I had sent a birthday invitation to the palace. That morning, Kaelan sent back only this: "We'll talk tonight." For five years, there had always been something he wanted to put off until later. Until the border was pacified. Until the nobles supported him. Until the crown was formally on his head. He said that when the day came, he would appear before every elf holding both our hands and tell them I was his wife and Rowan was his eldest son. And each time, I believed him. "He'll come." I smoothed my son's collar. "It's your birthday." Rowan smiled at once and handed me the grass deer he had been hiding. "This is for Dad. My teacher says a deer will bring someone who's lost back home." A sharp little ache pricked my heart. I sent him to wash and went to the window alone. Far off, the palace blazed with light as preparations began for that night's Elven Assembly. There were two letters on the table. One was Kaelan's short reply. The other was an offer of a post at a school out on the border. I had applied six months earlier. I knew herbs and could teach young elves their letters, enough to qualify me as a village teacher. They had promised me a small house and a place at the school for Rowan. I had not signed it. All those years of quietly preparing a way out did not mean I truly wanted to go. I was like someone who couldn't swim but kept a boat hidden onshore, using it to convince herself she could remain in deep water a little longer. There was a quick knock at the door. A palace attendant had brought a silver case. Rowan ran out barefoot, his eyes as bright as stars. "Is it a present from Dad?" There was no present in the case. Only a gilt-edged invitation. "By order of the heir Kaelan, Lady Elara is invited to attend the Elven Assembly tonight," the attendant said respectfully. "His Highness will announce a matter concerning the succession." Rowan wrapped his arms around my leg. "Mom, we can go see Dad!" I looked at the two names side by side on the invitation, and my fingers slowly grew cold. Kaelan. Lysandra. Chapter 2 Kaelan had skipped Rowan's birthday for the Elven Assembly. He stood on the high platform and took Lysandra's hand in front of every noble in the capital. "Lysandra's House will be joined to the royal house by betrothal." Fireworks climbed into the night sky, and applause swept through the hall like a tide. Kaelan wore the silver-white formal robes reserved for the heir. He turned his head to listen to Lysandra and raised a hand to cover her ears in case the fireworks startled her. The gesture was entirely natural. The ease of it suddenly took me back five years, to when he had lain feverish in my little house. I watched over him for three nights and eventually fell asleep exhausted beside the bed. When I woke, he had draped his cloak over my shoulders and promised never to fail me for as long as he lived. Rowan had never seen his father standing so close. He pulled free of my hand and ran toward the platform with the deer in his arms. "Dad!" Everything went quiet. Surprise flashed in Kaelan's eyes when he saw the child, then his gaze quickly darkened. Rowan noticed none of it. He struggled up the last step and held the deer high. "Dad, I'm four today. This deer is for you. It will bring you home." Someone asked in an undertone whose child that was. Lysandra looked down at Rowan, a polished smile still on her lips. "Kaelan, why is he calling you Dad?" I made my way through the crowd, every step like walking on ice. Kaelan did not take the deer. "You've mistaken me for someone else," he said. The smile slowly faded from Rowan's face. "But—" "You are not to call me that." This time his voice was colder than before. The grass deer fell to the floor, and a noble stepping back broke off its antler. I climbed onto the platform and lifted Rowan into my arms. He buried his face against my neck and asked very quietly, "Mom, why is Dad pretending he doesn't know me?" The whole hall was waiting for an answer. Kaelan finally looked at me. His gaze held no apology, only warning. "Elara once saved me when I was in trouble," he explained to them all. "She and the child are under the palace's protection. There is no other connection to the royal house." So five years together, a child, and the betrothal I had taken seriously could all be erased by three words: no other connection. Lysandra bent, picked up the grass deer, and held it out to Rowan. "Poor child. You must want a father very much. But His Highness cannot simply be a father to someone else's child." Rowan did not take it. He drew back against me, and for the first time he did not defend Kaelan. I carried him out of the banquet. As I descended the last step, the music resumed behind us, and Kaelan and Lysandra accepted the nobles' blessings hand in hand. It was not that he could not acknowledge a woman. It was not that he could not be gentle in front of a crowd. He was only unwilling to acknowledge me. Back at the house, I wiped the back of Rowan's hand clean. He saw the small cake on the table and suddenly said he was tired and did not want to celebrate anymore. "What about your present?" I asked. He pushed the broken-antlered deer into the very back of the cupboard. "It went to the wrong person." After Rowan fell asleep, hoofbeats sounded outside. Kaelan pushed open the door, the scent of the betrothal banquet still clinging to him. "Elara," he said, frowning, "you owe me an explanation for tonight." Chapter 3 "Why did you bring Rowan to the banquet?" Kaelan questioned me as though I were the one who had done something wrong that night. I looked at the gold royal crest on his coat. "You sent the invitation." "I invited you." "So I should have left a child on his fourth birthday at home alone and gone to watch his father get betrothed to someone else?" Kaelan rubbed his brow. "It's a political marriage, nothing more. Her House carries real weight among our people. With their support I can take the throne cleanly." Over five years, I had heard too many explanations like it. Each time, the matter was supposedly critical, and each time, we were the sacrifice. "You could have told me first." "What good would that have done? You would only have lost control of yourself, exactly as you did tonight." For a moment I could not speak at all. Rowan had run to his father and offered him a gift he had spent half a month making. In Kaelan's eyes, that was what he called me losing control. There was a small sound from the inner room. Kaelan lowered his voice. "Until I am crowned, Rowan cannot call me Dad in public again. Some nobles are already questioning his age. The moment they learn I have a child by a commoner, Lysandra's House will withdraw its support." "Then what is he?" I asked. "A scandal that gets in the way of your succession?" "Don't twist what I'm saying. Everything I do, in the end, is for the two of you." He came closer and gripped my shoulders. His face was still as handsome as it had been five years ago, but the look in his eyes felt foreign. "When I am Elf King, who will dare mock your humble birth? Rowan will be the most honored child in the kingdom. Elara, you have come this far with me. Can't you wait a little longer?" That future had moved me more times than I could count. Tonight all I could think of was the grass deer lying on the floor. "What if you never become Elf King?" His hands tightened. "You don't believe in me?" "I'm only asking. If that day never comes, are we to hide forever?" "It will come." He did not hesitate for an instant. "I am going to win." He believed in his own abilities, but it had never occurred to him that our patience could run out. The door of the inner room opened a crack. Rowan stood there in the dark holding his pillow, and had clearly heard all of it. Kaelan put a hand out to him. "Come here." Rowan did not move. "Haven't you always wanted to see me?" Kaelan softened his voice for once. "Tonight was my fault. In a few days, I'll have someone bring you a pony." Rowan looked at him and asked cautiously, "When no one else is around, can I still call you Dad?" Kaelan was silent for a beat. "You can. But you must do as you're told and never behave the way you did today again." Only then did Rowan go to him. Kaelan held him briefly, then hurried away on palace business. The child ran to the door. Only after the carriage disappeared did he turn back and ask me, "Mom, if I do as I'm told, will Dad like me?" Something caught in my throat. "You don't have to do as you're told to deserve to be liked." "But Dad needs me to." That night Rowan changed his drawing of our family. He covered Kaelan over with a thick patch of green paint and left only the two of us standing under a tree. I looked at that green while it was still wet, and picked up the offer from the border. The tip of my pen hovered over the signature line for a long time. In the end I still did not sign. I told myself I would wait one last time. Chapter 4 After Kaelan's betrothal, he returned even less often. He would appear late at night now and then, sleep two or three hours and be gone before light. I laid out his formal clothes and put the Council rolls in order, and did every small thing he had mentioned in passing, exactly as I had for five years. He never asked whether I was tired. He took all of it the way he took the air in the forest, as something that had always simply been there. Rowan, meanwhile, was working hard at being a child who did as he was told. He stopped going to the palace to find his father or mentioning Kaelan in front of others. He even learned to ask quietly before bed, "There won't be any visitors tomorrow. Can I think about Dad?" Every time I heard it I doubted whether my waiting had been a mistake. Before the betrothal celebration, Kaelan summoned me to the palace to check the seating. He knew I had memorized how every House in the capital was connected, and at several important banquets, I had helped him avoid those hidden conflicts. When I found him in the palace gallery he was on one knee in front of Lysandra, tying the silver straps of her shoes. "Too tight," Lysandra complained in a spoiled tone. So Kaelan patiently tied them again. A maid brought refreshments and he took the plate with hazelnuts away first. "Lysandra doesn't eat these." I stood there and suddenly remembered the year Rowan turned two, when Kaelan took him out for the first time. Rowan was allergic to firecap pollen and broke out in a rash all over his body, yet Kaelan asked why I had not told him sooner. I had told him three times. He had forgotten. Some things weren't hard to remember. He simply had not cared enough to remember them. "Elara." Kaelan finally noticed me. "Is the guest list in order?" I held out the book, and Lysandra took it first and turned a couple of pages. "Is a small thing like this worth Kaelan's attention? Leave it to the servants." Kaelan did not correct her. In her eyes I was plainly one of the servants. "How has Rowan been?" Kaelan asked. That belated show of concern caught me off guard. "He runs a fever at night sometimes. The healer says his magic is unstable by nature and that he needs a bottle of the life-saving elixir." "How much does he need?" "One bottle. I applied to the royal herb garden three months ago." Kaelan nodded. "I'll have them send it first." I knew perfectly well that a promise counted for nothing, and something in me eased for a moment anyway. At home, I told Rowan. His face lit up, and he dug the broken-antlered deer out of the back of the cupboard and rebound it with a fine vine. "Dad does care about me." I put a hand on his head and did not break that small happiness. Three days later word came from the herb garden. The elixir Rowan needed was ready, and I was to collect it the next day. That night, Rowan suddenly spiked a fever. He curled up against me, burning, the magic inside him draining fast. The healer examined him and went white. "If he doesn't have that elixir before dawn, he may not last." I raced through the rain to the royal herb garden. The apothecary saw me and would not meet my eyes. "I'm sorry, Lady Elara. The palace collected that bottle a short while ago. "The order came from His Highness Kaelan himself."