27 Promises

Sometime into the afternoon Sarah rejoined them on the blanket, stretching out in the sun to dry. Elloreah sat picking at a plate of grapes with Maggie's head cradled in her lap. Sarah sat up suddenly, startling Elloreah as she reached for a grape.

"What's this?" Sarah asked, grasping Eloreah's left hand in her own, causing the ring with a single gem to catch the light.

Elloreah stared at the band for a long moment before answering. "A promise ring." She allowed Sarah to stare at it for a while longer before she pulled her hand away.

"What sort of promise?" Sarah asked, her eyes shining with barely contained delight. "The only sort I can think of is a promise to a lover."

Elloreah nodded, grimacing at the thought of all she'd left behind. "It hardly matters now," she muttered, turning her attention back to Maggie, brushing a few stray hairs from her face. "I won't be going home."

"You came here, didn't you? Surely there's a way to get back..." Sarah exclaimed. "No need to give up hope."

It ached even more to hear those words. Elloreah refused to cling to that false sense of hope. It was best to focus on the situation she found herself in now if she hoped to survive in this new world. There were enough difficulties here. Should she be able to find her way back she would be thankful, but she didn't expect it.

"I can't help but ask, who is it that you are promised to? It's not some horrible arranged marriage, is it?" Sarah asked.

Elloreah laughed and shook her head. "No. Not exactly. I mean, it was arranged, but not horrible. I have known Aleric all my life." She considered for a long moment before adding the next. "Truth be told, I am here because of him."

Sarah's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"It was his, ah..." She glanced down at Maggie before saying the next. "He found the way to send me here. Though how, or why, I am not entirely sure. It was not of my choosing."

"It was an accident, I knew that much. I didn't realize your betrothed was at fault. How tragic!"

Elloreah shrugged and looked away, not able to meet Sarah's eye. "I am not so sure," she said softly. "I keep going over it in my head, and it does not make sense. I cannot understand how he could have made such a mistake, how he would have put me in this position."

The betrayal of it, the anger, the sorrow of all that she had lost crashed down on her all at once. She'd fought so hard to be brave, to not dwell on it, to learn all she needed to learn. And yet, under Sarah's sympathetic gaze, she was weak.

"I keep wondering, why?" She bowed her head, finally saying out loud the thing that haunted her most. "He just stood there and watched..." She fought back the tears, though her body shook with the effort.

The realization of just how lost she was, how desperately far away from her home and all she'd ever known was, hit her painfully hard. She squeezed her eyes shut, sniffing and wiping at tears she couldn't fight back.

Sarah scrambled closer, throwing her arms around her. It was easier being the one to give the comfort, Elloreah realized as the softness of Saran's embrace made her tremble all the worse.

"No, no," she choked out. "No more sympathies. Please. She smiled through the threatening tears. "Crying doesn't get things done."

"But it can feel good to let it out," Sarah said gently.

Elloreah only shook her head again.

"Do you really think that your Aleric could just let you go like that?" Sarah asked.

He hadn't even made a grab for her before she was sent alone in this strange and dangerous world.

"But he hasn't come, and I don't know if he will..."

"What makes you doubt?"

Elloreah took a deep breath before proceeding, needing strength to put into words what she was afraid to admit to herself. "Sarah, he called me down into his study." She shook her head. "He didn't want me there, ever. Except for this once..."

"You think he sent you here on purpose?"

Elloreah shook her head, wishing it couldn't be true, that it didn't make sense. "I don't know, maybe," she sighed.

"Why would he?"

"You heard John, what he said about me. I'm unique, but not in a good way. The Ethereal protect their bloodlines. Half-breeds like myself were traditionally exiled.

"My father was very careful to teach me to control the wild side of my nature. Aleric was one of the few who knew, who helped me to hide what I am."

"What would happen to you if someone did know? If you were discovered for what you are?"

"I do not know. There have not been any other half-breeds born in over a century, at least, not that I know of. I suppose they would be killed."

"Why? What makes it so dangerous to be of mixed blood?"

"Aberrant, divergent abilities are born from the mixing of bloodlines. Ethereal and wild magics create abilities that may bring about the destruction of our world," Elloreah recited the words she'd learned from an early age, even before she had known that the quote applied to her, and was taught to her to remind her of just how dangerous who and what she was.

"So, you're dangerous?" Sarah laughed. "You, with... what? Empathic abilities? What other abilities do you have?"

Elloreah forced a smile. "Not much. I listen to trees... animals as well..." she said, and the possibility of her being dangerous sounded ridiculous even to her.

"Anything else?"

Elloreah shrugged. "I can influence people," she paused to stroke Maggie's hair, considering how she'd worked to calm the woman, to help her push through her shock and grief, to help her to heal emotionally in a way that would still take years. "I intensify emotion, draw people to me. But back home, I was able to subdue those abilities. I hid any that were not acceptable to my people."

"How could your abilities be any more dangerous than those that people like John possess?"

"My abilities do not adhere to the traditional laws. Mixed powers can break binding spells, can leak out in ways the bearer cannot control."

"So your people would just exile people like you to other worlds, to wreak havoc on whatever land they ended up in?"

"No, the worlds of exile were lands barren and devoid of magic," Elloreah recited. "Worlds in which they would no longer be a threat to themselves or others."

"That's heavy," Sarah commented. "If having your empathic abilities muted can be like losing a sense, how terrible it would be, to go to a world entirely devoid of magic?"

"Unthinkable," Elloreah agreed. "It is a one way journey to these realms of exile."

"So none of your people even know what these worlds are like, or if the exiles could even survive there?"

Elloreah shrugged. "It was the law."

"Do you think that your Aleric sent you to Earth in hopes of saving you from that sort of fate?"