available at Reedsy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nGail, along with most of the world, sat transfixed by the news on the television. They had outed themselves, and her, in a very public way. Her anonymity, her freedom, likely her life itself, was over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She willed herself away from the television and made her way to the mirror in the hall. Her glamour was gone. Where she had appeared to be a small, five-foot-two, average-looking woman with ginger hair and freckles, her true self now showed. Skin the color of bleached parchment, short horns of gleaming ebon, over-large eyes with inky-black irises, pointed ears sticking out nearly as far as her horns; the only thing left unchanged was her lank, ginger hair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pounding on her door jerked her back into the moment. She moved as quietly as possible toward the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGail, it\u2019s Steph, open up!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gail let out a sigh and unlocked the door. \u201cYou can come in, but you may not like what you see.\u201d Before Steph could see anything, Gail slipped into the hallway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stephanie opened the door only enough to slip in and closed it tight behind herself. \u201cGail, I… why are you hiding? I\u2019m not going to hurt you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gail took a deep breath and stepped out into the open. She and Stephanie stared at each other with mouths agape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou\u2019re a\u2014an Illiran,\u201d Gail said. Stephanie, though six inches taller, had the same bleached skin and large, dark eyes. Her ears, although pointed, were far shorter, and no horns adorned her head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stephanie raised her hands. \u201cI\u2019m not going to do anything. I came to let you know what I really am. It seems like we both have some things to discuss.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As they stood in silence, the news reporter kept speaking. \u201cAgain, later this evening we\u2019ll read the full statement from the Elves…, can\u2019t believe I\u2019m actually saying that, but it\u2019s true. Elves have lived among us, and they have dropped what they called the \u2018glamour\u2019 that kept humans from recognizing them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cQuestions are being raised in several governments around the world, as Elves in positions of power have been exposed. More troubling, however, is their reason for removing the glamour.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The news reader\u2019s face was replaced with footage of someone that looked very much like Gail. \u201cThe Elves call them Wildlings, but they resemble the demons of many cultures. The Elves claim they are here to hunt the Wildlings to prevent an invasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhile many governments are slow to move, Iceland\u2019s President has already announced that the killing of any<\/em> sentient being, including Wildlings, in their country will be dealt with as murder. Similar calls are being made in other countries, while some, including the U.S. are divided on the issue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nGail waved her hand toward the television and it turned off. \u201cI suppose you want to kill me now, \u2018Elf\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stephanie shook her head. \u201cNo, I\u2014,\u201d she stammered, \u201cI came to tell you\u2026, but\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHow about I tell you why I\u2019m here,\u201d Gail said. When Stephanie didn\u2019t respond, she continued. \u201cI was sent away three hundred years ago, to protect these.\u201d She pointed to her bookshelves. When the glamour was still active, they had appeared to be packed with paperback romance novels. What the glamour had hidden was a collection of ancient texts; each small book bound in leather with fine vellum pages filled with the tiny scribblings of an even older language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is our history.\u201d Gail stepped protectively in front of the books. \u201cThe discovery of these books by your people started the war.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t\u2014,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo! If you\u2019re here to destroy the books, you\u2019ll have a fight,\u201d Gail said, \u201cregardless of how much I\u2019ve valued you as my neighbor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stephanie sat cross-legged on the floor, her back against the door. \u201cI was going to say that\u2019s not how the war started\u2026 the reason we<\/em> started the war. Maybe I should explain.\u201d She heaved a sigh and focused her gaze on the past. \u201cI ran away\u2026 a little more than a hundred years ago. I\u2019ve been helping the F\u2019tach cross the veil and hide here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThank you for not calling me Pittik,\u201d Gail said, \u201cor the English translation of \u2018Wildling\u2019. Would you prefer the English term Elf, or something else?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJust Steph. It\u2019s actually my Illiran name, too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOkay, Steph.\u201d Gail eyed her with bare suspicion. \u201cContinue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHow much do you know about Gailadriel?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy namesake aunt,\u201d Gail said. \u201cShe was to become the next High Magician of the F\u2019tach when her horns came in full. Instead, a Kirik, sorry\u2026, an Illiran, Bandal, showed up at the hidden library. He was impressed with her magic and knowledge, and she let him study the history texts. Then he stole her away in the night and imprisoned her in his city. She\u2019s probably still there, if not dead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s partially right,\u201d Steph said. \u201cThey left in the middle of the night, because Gailadriel knew that the elders would never let her leave with a, how do you say it? F\u2019tach Kirik\u2026 a hornless one. They returned to the city, where Bandal kept her hidden as long as he could. Then they\u2026 had twins, a boy and girl.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gail showed no surprise, but she couldn\u2019t meet the other woman\u2019s eyes. Her jaw worked as if she were holding something back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Steph gave her a moment to respond, but when she didn\u2019t, she continued. \u201cAt first all was well. They seemed to be average Illiran children with slightly long ears, even if they weren\u2019t readily accepted by anyone who knew who their mother was. Until they reached puberty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gail\u2019s face dropped. \u201cI know what happened next,\u201d she said. \u201cTheir horns started coming in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYes.\u201d Steph leaned her head against the door. \u201cFirst, we thought the F\u2019tach had no magic, then we learned otherwise. Then, we didn\u2019t think F\u2019tach and Illiran could mate, but they could. Even then, everything was fine until their horns came in. It panicked a lot of people. Not only did they have magic far more powerful than any Illiran, but they could breed us out of existence if they wished. It was a ridiculous idea, but it caught like wildfire.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve always known that F\u2019tach and Illiran could mate,\u201d Gail said. \u201cThousands of years ago, any F\u2019tach who failed to start their horns in by twenty was banished. I understand that you know a little of our language, but F\u2019tach just means person, and F\u2019tach Kirik means hornless person. The word kirik, though, also means unclean, foul, cursed. A hornless person, by law, cannot marry or mate. So those who failed to horn were banished.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo doubt a recessive trait,\u201d Steph said, \u201cand since they would only encounter others who were banished, their children would be hornless as well. But what about the magic? Every one of you I\u2019ve met has been far more powerful than any Illiran.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a matter of practice.\u201d Gail smiled. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t expect a person who lives in a city, works in an office, and drives everywhere to be able to run as fast and as far as someone who lives a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, right? Same thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYour cities are like these human cities. Permanent structures protect you; your food is grown in cultivated fields; you travel using technologies that take the burden for you. Our shelter is made of magic; our food is gathered from the forest using magic; we travel by foot or fly by magic. Where you use electricity to send messages and make light, we use magic. When that starts from early childhood, it grows strong.\u201d Gail crossed the room and sat in front of Steph. \u201cYou are the same as us,\u201d she said, \u201cand capable of the same things. When the rules about hornless ones were written, it was more to do with ending child marriages. It got twisted over the millennia into something else.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Steph looked at Gail, her eyes boring a question into the other woman\u2019s. \u201cWhat about hornless F\u2019tach born now? Do they still get banished? Why haven\u2019t we heard of it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTwenty-two hundred years ago, the High Magician created a stone that \u2018fixed\u2019 them. Anyone whose horns haven\u2019t begun to sprout by nineteen is left to spend a week in the stone\u2019s aura.\u201d Gail sighed. \u201cI was one of those. The field changes the DNA, the recessive trait is overwritten, and your body begins pumping out hormones. It\u2019s torture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you know<\/em> it\u2019s a recessive gene, why do you still do it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThe primary poisoner of society,\u201d Gail said, \u201creligion. Our laws are so old they have turned into dogma and the initial writers of those laws into gods. The same reason so many humans have a problem with the transgendered, or homosexual. That\u2019s why we always assumed the Illiran attacked after Baldan returned with our history. The fact that for six thousand years we had labeled you unclean, cursed, less than; then banished you to starve alone on the plains.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBaldan never shared what he learned in the library,\u201d Steph said, \u201cexcept to say, \u2018Some things are best left in the past.\u2019 After his children\u2019s horns came in, they crossed the veil. They\u2019ve been in hiding here for at least as long as you have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy aunt is here?\u201d Gail asked. She slouched, an invisible weight bearing down on her shoulders. \u201cWhat are we going to do about the F\u2019tach already here? If the humans think we\u2019re demons, they\u2019ll start hunting us, too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIs there some way we could get the F\u2019tach elders and Illiran Counsel to the bargaining table?\u201d Steph asked. \u201cMaybe show them the truth that Baldan knew?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHow do you think the Illiran Counsel would react to knowing that their entire society came from the banishment of F\u2019tach who were deemed unclean?\u201d Gail shook her head. \u201cThe elders would kill me before I got the first word out, anyway. If my aunt had stayed, she planned on revising the laws, and destroying the hornstone. She wanted to start talks with the Illiran, too. That\u2019s the only reason she afforded Baldan the access she did.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere has to be something we could do.\u201d Steph grabbed Gail\u2019s hand. \u201cIf we could convince them that we are the same–,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHow do we do that?\u201d Gail asked. \u201cMaybe we should focus on convincing the humans<\/em> that Iliran and F\u2019tach are the same. Might at least give us a little safety.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Steph said, \u201cbut whatever we decide to do, I think we should do it together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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