Elara Silverleaf's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Inside the village, the prince led Elara to a quiet street of empty shopfronts. She stopped at a narrow one with a cracked window. This was it. A tea shop where humans and elves could share a table. She could see the counter, the steam, the chairs already. Then the owner stepped out, wiped his hands, and named his price in gold. Elara had no gold. She had no coin at all, and nothing a human would trade for. Her plan stalled at the first door. "You want this one," the prince said. It was not a question. He had watched her face at the window. "I want any of them," she said. "But I carry no money you would take." He did not fill the silence. He waited, the way he seemed to wait for everything. Most men spoke over her. He just looked. Elara reached into her cloak and drew out a white silk pouch. She loosened the cord. Diamonds spilled into her palm, catching the lantern light in cold fire. The shop owner leaned in. His mouth opened. Even the prince went still. "These are common where I come from," Elara said. "Here, I think, they are not." The owner reached for them. The prince put a hand up, easy, not sharp. "Slow down," he told the man. "She doesn't know your prices. You do." He turned to Elara. "One stone buys this shop. Two buys it and a year of quiet. Don't show the whole pouch again. Not to anyone." She understood. She picked one diamond and set it in the owner's hand. He held it to the light, then bit it, then nodded fast. He pressed a heavy iron key into her palm and hurried back inside before she could change her mind. The key was warm from his hand. Elara closed her fingers around it. She had a corner now. A real one, with a door that locked and a window she could clean. "Thank you," she said. "You didn't have to speak for me." "You'd have paid ten stones for a one-stone shop," he said. "That's not fair. Fair is kind of the point, if you want people to sit here." He glanced at the pouch as she tied it shut. "Word travels here. People will hear an elf paid in diamonds. Some will want to buy from you." He paused. "Some will want the pouch." Elara felt the weight of it against her side. The shop was hers. But the same stones that bought her a place had just made her a target in a village that already stared at her ears. She looked at the locked door, then at the dark street beyond it. "Then I should open fast," she said, "before they decide." The prince nodded. "I'll help where I can." He did not say what it might cost him. “I must ask charming… why are you helping me?” She asks softly almost shy. “I know we had that one night but you don’t know me” He smiles at her “because I have thought of you every day for 11 years.”