The Elf Prince Is My Baby Daddy novel · Chapter 29 of 32

Chapter 29: Spring

By noon the whole of Rushford was standing at the edge of the wood with its mouth open.

The black trunks were gone.

Not cut down. Grown over.

Green bark had come up over the char, and every branch was heavy with white blossom shaped like seven-pointed stars.

At night the blossoms glowed.

Not silver, like Starhold. Soft green-gold.

Ilvar rode in that afternoon.

He'd seen it from the south road at dawn and run the gray mare the last ten miles.

He jumped down in Mam's lane with petals in his hair and went straight past me into the cottage.

"Where are they?"

"Asleep. Don't you dare."

He looked in at the three cradles anyway.

The eldest had kicked his blanket off. The middle one was frowning in his sleep. Our girl was sucking her own fist with great concentration.

Ilvar stood over them for so long that Mam put a cup of tea in his hand and he didn't notice.

Starhold heard within the week.

The Queen came south with half the court behind her, in open carriages this time, with no braziers.

The court ladies brought baskets. The lord in the green coat brought his wife and their fat little son.

Seren came on the back of a hay cart with a crate of books, because she wanted to read the trees.

The Queen took one look at the inn and moved into Mam's cottage.

"You'll have the bed," Mam told her.

"I'll have the chair by the fire. I'm told it's the best seat in the house."

"It is," said Mam, and they looked at each other like two old cats deciding to share a sunny step.

On the seventh day of the blossom, the half-elves of Rushford held the first feast in the Heartwood since the fire.

Nobody knew how to do it.

So we made it up.

Long tables in the hollow, under the Heart Tree.

It wasn't a stump anymore. It was a young tree as tall as the Academy towers, with a trunk five people couldn't have reached round.

Star elves sat on one side of the tables, in their silks.

Wood elves sat on the other side, in their aprons.

By the second jug, nobody was sitting on the right side of anything.

The smith taught three court lords his grandmother's song.

The widow showed the Queen how she held a rolling pin, and the Queen laughed until her cough came.

Seren lay on her back in the moss with her book on her chest, staring up at the blossoms, saying, "Oh," every few minutes.

I was standing by the Heart Tree with a cup of cider when Ilvar came over.

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