‘So you didn’t want to be with me?’
‘Malina!’
He got up, went to her, picked her up and carried her to bed. They got undressed, made love with desperate abandon, and afterward lay entwined in each other’s arms, as though afraid that this night would be their very last together.
Eventually, he said quietly, ‘All right. I promise. Even if the world ends, or all the armies of the enemy stand between us, or if every single last good thing on Heaven and Earth comes to an end, I’ll come back to you.’
Even in the dark, he knew she smiled.
‘That’s a big promise, Rowf.’
When Ralph left early the next morning, the sight of their dwindling household, Malina, Rani and Zuic, Theuli alone in the room she had shared with her husband, brought with it a cold feeling of foreboding that he choked down as best he could. He tried his best to appear confident, to share his strength with the others, but couldn’t shake the feeling that he was leaving them alone, undefended, that his words were so much bravado and empty promises.
However, he well knew the consequences if the border of the Elf Kingdom was left undefended, and he didn’t waver in his sense of purpose. He could only hope, could only pray, that the enemy hadn’t found some secret way out of the Kingdom, by which they could attack the now unprotected Wel’adai.