Page 12 of The Broken Elf King
Raife cleared his throat. “Thank you, Cahal.”
The king sat at the table and began to eat again, letting out a shaky breath between bites. “Brief me on this meeting,” he said as if he hadn’t just walked over and downloaded all of his sadness into me.
I wanted to laugh, I wanted to ask him what the Hades an empath was, but I also wasn’t sure I was ready for that information. All the wheels were turning in my head now. The times my aunt’s seizures would come on and I just knew a moment before and could position myself behind her. When passing the town drunks my mind felt hazy. The rage I felt when near the boxing matches.
I—
“Kailani?” The king looked at me sternly.
I snapped out of my thoughts and picked up the meeting notes from last week. “I’m sorry, my lord. The Farmers’ Union is demanding you divert more water from the Great River, which contradicts with the Elvish Land Survey Council. They say it will affect the fish and other regions. They recommend boring a hole and building a well instead.”
He nodded. “Cost and length of time to bore the well?”
I scanned the notes. “Ten gold coins and… three months’ time.”
Three monthsby hand. You could bore a well in a day with a machine in Nightfall, but I didn’t say that. Ten gold coins seemed like way too much, but I kept my mouth shut about that too.
His eyes narrowed. “Ten gold coins for three months’ work?”
I inclined my head. “I also feel it is excessive, my lord.” Considering I was making one gold coin a year as the king’s assistant.
“Find more information on the well digger. The crown’s coin purse will not bleed for the farmers no matter how much they threaten low crop yield,” he snapped.
“Yes, my lord.” I jotted down a to-do list.
Info on well digger.
Get more estimates?
He placed one last bite of food in his mouth and then stood. “Very well, let’s go.”
I popped a melon cube in my mouth and gathered my things, following the king as he led us out of the room.
* * *
All through the farmers’meeting, I kept thinking of only one thing.
Empath. Empath. Empath.
Did he mean it casually or as a thing? Was an empath a thing? An elf thing? A magic thing?
“Kailani?” King Raife looked at me and I blushed. I never zoned out like this; it was embarrassing.
“I’m sorry, my lord. Yes?” I kept my voice pleasant and my pen poised on the parchment.
The lead farmer, Mr. Wilco, nodded to me. “I was just saying how nice it was to meet you.”
I bowed my head slightly. “And you, sir. I look forward to our next meeting.”
He stood and the other half dozen farmers stood with him, seeing themselves out.
I immediately turned to the king. “I’m so sorry, sir. I hope I didn’t embarrass you. That won’t happen again.”
I did not want to get fired on my first day and then be relegated to washing dishes for five years. Or probably ten, since that job most likely paid much less.
He nodded. “It better not, because my council is next, and there is something you should know about them.”
I physically flinched a little at the verbal reprimand but dipped my chin. “What is it?”
