The Dark Elf’s Savior by Juniper Clarke EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Juniper Clarke
- Language: English
- Genre: Romantic Fantasy
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
I looked up from the bag I was packing to find Mrs. Hinson
standing in the doorway of my boarding room, her arms crossed over her
chest.
“You know you’re welcome to stay here as long as you need,” Mrs.
Hinson continued. “Most of the girls stay at least a year. It takes time to
adjust to life outside the sacrifice garden.”
I gave Mrs. Hinson my brightest smile. “I appreciate that. I really do.
But—” I glanced down at my bag, filled up with all of my neatly rolled
dresses. “I’ve made up my mind. I’m going.”
Mrs. Hinson made a clucking sound. “You’re such a pretty girl. There
are dozens of young men here in the village who would love —“
“I’m going,” I said more firmly, hoping that would put an end to any
discussion about marriage and young men. After spending most of my life
as a treasured potential sacrifice to Jaskirra, the god of the mountain, the
last thing I wanted was to get saddled to some gangly fisherman’s son and
spend the rest of my life trapped in a shack by the sea.
Mrs. Hinson sighed. “Well, I certainly can’t stop you. I just worry —“
“Don’t worry about me,” I said sweetly, giving Mrs. Hinson that bright,
sunny smile that had always worked on the sacrifice-mother. “I need to
finish packing. I’ll be down shortly to say goodbye.”
That seemed to finally do the trick; Mrs. Hinson nodded and ducked out
of the doorway, leaving me alone with my bag, my few meager possessions,
and my dream.
I picked up the last of my dresses—a gauzy, summery thing that I had
sewed myself not even a year and a half ago—and folded it up with neat,
careful movements. I had started the dress after my sister-sacrifice Minea
had been sent up the mountainside as an offering to Jaskirra, a plea to stop
him from sending the fire-rivers into the village. Minea had been the first
sacrifice from our village in hundreds of years, and me and the two younger
sacrifices, Aina and Katri, had wept for days in the cold, flinty winter light,
watching the black smoke pouring from the mountaintop. I began sewing
the dress to distract myself, swearing I would wear it on my twenty-first
birthday when I was finally free to leave the sacrifice garden and start my
own life. Minea had always been a dreamy, romantic sort; she wanted to
marry a handsome village boy and kiss him underneath the flowering trees,
and so I embroidered small pink blossoms along the hem in Minea’s honor,
telling myself that I would live the life Minea couldn’t, even if it wasn’t
exactly the life I would have chosen for myself.
But then the letter came.
It came a month before my twenty-first birthday, and it was not lost on
me that Minea had been called to serve Jaskirra one month before her
twenty-first birthday, one month before she would finally have freedom.
The letter had been delivered by one of Jaskirra’s acolytes from the
mountain temple,
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