Summoned to Another World to Impregnate Elves - Chapter 3

 The Princess's Blade

The morning came green and gold through the canopy, and Jayson woke to the sound of water falling somewhere close. He dressed in the clothes that had been laid out for him — soft leather breeches, a tunic of pale linen that fit him better than anything he owned — and found his way to a broad terrace that overlooked the city in the boughs.

The Queen was waiting there, dressed in silver that caught the light. Beside her stood a woman who could only be her daughter — the same height, the same sharp bones, but her hair was a deep auburn and her eyes were green as a forest in summer. She wore a knight's leathers, and a sword hung at her hip. She was not looking at him with hunger. She was looking at him like he was a stain on the floor.

"Jayson," the Queen said, "this is my eldest daughter, Lyra. Heir to the throne of Aeloria."

Lyra did not offer her hand. She looked him up and down, and her lip curled. "This is what the old gods sent us," she said. "A mortal. Shorter than me. Soft."

"Lyra," the Queen said, a warning in her voice.

"I speak only the truth, Mother." Lyra's eyes stayed on Jayson. "You expect me to lie with this? To carry his seed? To bind the future of our kingdom to a man who has never held a blade, who knows nothing of our ways, who was dragged here by a spell he had no part in?"

Jayson met her gaze. "I know a few things about blades," he said. "And I didn't ask to be dragged anywhere. But I'm here, and I said yes. If you've got a problem with that, take it up with your mother."

Lyra's eyes flashed. She took a step toward him, and the Queen stepped between them.

"That is enough," Selene said, her voice cold as river ice. "He is our guest, and he is our hope. You will treat him with the respect his position demands, or you will answer to me."

Lyra's jaw tightened. For a long moment she stared at her mother, and something passed between them — a battle of wills fought in silence. Then she inclined her head, a stiff, formal gesture.

"Of course, Mother," she said. And to Jayson, with a smile that did not reach her eyes: "Forgive me. I am not accustomed to sharing my kingdom with strangers."

She turned and walked away, her back straight, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword.

The Queen watched her go, and something flickered across her face — pain, or worry, or both. "She is proud," she said quietly. "She has trained her whole life to be a warrior and a queen, and she has never known a man. She does not know how to want one."

"She wants something," Jayson said. "She just doesn't know what to do with it."

Selene looked at him sharply, then let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "You see more than you let on, human."

"People are people," he said. "Even when they're elves."

That afternoon, Jayson was taken to the training grounds — a wide clearing where the elven knights drilled in the green light. Lyra was there, working through forms with a blade that sang through the air. She moved like water, like wind, and the other knights gave her a wide berth.

She saw him watching and stopped. The blade hung at her side, and she looked at him across the clearing with an expression he could not read.

"You said you knew something of blades," she called. "Prove it."

The knights around her went still. Jayson felt every eye in the clearing turn to him.

"I'm not a fighter," he said.

"No. You are a man who claims to know something." She tossed a practice blade at his feet — a wooden sword, blunted, but heavy. "Pick it up."

Jayson looked at the sword, then at her. He could refuse. He could walk away, let her win this little war of pride. But he had spent his life doing hard, physical work, and he was not as soft as she thought.

He picked up the blade.

Lyra smiled — a sharp, dangerous smile. "Good."

She came at him fast, faster than he expected, and he barely got the blade up in time to block. The impact jarred his arms. She pressed forward, and he gave ground, reading her rhythm, the way she shifted her weight before each strike. She was beautiful and brutal, and she drove him back across the clearing with a series of blows that left his hands numb.

But he was learning. He was a big man, and he had spent years hauling and lifting and working until his body was a map of hard muscle. He stopped retreating. He planted his feet, and when she came at him again, he met her blade with his own and held.

Lyra's eyes widened. For a moment they were locked, blade against blade, and he could smell her — sweat and leather and something clean. Her breath was quick, her cheeks flushed.

"You're stronger than you look," she said.

"So are you."

She broke away and circled him, and there was something different in her eyes now. Not respect, exactly. But interest.

"Where did you learn to fight?" she asked.

"I didn't. I learned to work. Turns out it's the same thing."

She laughed — a real laugh, surprised out of her — and it changed her face. For a moment she was not the cold princess but a young woman, caught off guard.

Then her expression shuttered again, and she raised her blade. "Again."

They sparred until the light went amber and the other knights drifted away to their duties. Lyra pushed him hard, and he gave back everything he had, and by the end they were both breathing hard, sweat-soaked, circling each other in the long shadows.

She lowered her blade. "You are not what I expected," she said.

"Neither are you."

She studied him for a long moment. Then she turned and walked away, and she did not look back. But something had shifted between them, and they both felt it.

That night, in the great hall, the Queen seated Jayson at her right hand. Lyra sat across from him, and she did not look at him, but she did not look away either. The other princesses — two younger girls, one with hair like spun gold, one with hair like night — watched him with open curiosity and a shy, hopeful hunger.

The Queen raised her cup. "To our guest," she said. "To the hope he carries."

"To our guest," the hall echoed, and every woman in it drank.

Jayson met Lyra's eyes across the table. She raised her cup a fraction of an inch — a small, private gesture — and drank.

It was not surrender. But it was a beginning.