Arla

By Xlibris US

Arla is a young elf whose mother feels that the age of 160 is old enough to be wed. Fearing loss of her freedom, Arla runs away from home to escape an arranged marriage. Her rebellion leads her to a new life, with consequences and opportunities she could have never dreamed. Meanwhile, the evil goddess Teara has returned and is gathering an army to destroy the elfin kingdom, Zamneara. Arla is one of the few elves with the ability to stop her. A fierce battle is coming, and Arlas choices could save or hurt her people and her family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499062403

Book preview

Prologue

The wonderful goddess was back. Queen Teara and King Koro were sure to make us win the puny war against the elves and the other gods. I smiled along with the other ogres and trolls.

Queen Teara, the beautiful goddess, strode through us. She would stop occasionally and pat an ogre’s cheek affectionately. Her wavy black hair whipped around her shoulders as she danced around us. Her white eyes could see right to our souls.

Now, I’ll admit, elves are beautiful but they are our biggest threat. They use their magic and strip us of our weapons—cowards! Teara is going to lead us to conquer their kingdom, and we can finally take all the elfin women for ourselves and rip the men’s vocal cords out with our teeth!

Queen Teara neared me now. I looked into her beautiful goddess eyes. Teara smiled and said, Hello, Nracto. Are you fit to be a soldier of mine?

Yes, my queen.

Teara’s smile soured. Foolish ogre, you don’t speak to me! Someone as low as yourself should never speak to a goddess. Besides I can read your mind. Now let me do what I came here to do.

Yes, my queen. I’m sorry, my queen.

Teara gave me a pitiful smile and spoke in a cruel voice that did not match her expression, "What did I just say? Did I not just tell you to never speak to me? You are a worthless ogre!"

Teara threw back her arms and pushed forward, but her hands didn’t touch me; instead, blue electricity threw back my body against the cave wall. Teara said, Ogres need to learn their lesson from you, Nracto. Sorry it had to come to this.

The last thing I saw was Teara throwing back her arms and shooting endless electricity into my body.

Chapter One

Hello, my name is Arla. I live in a world full of creatures you can’t even begin to imagine. There are vampires, werewolves, dwarves, ogres, trolls, witches, warlocks, genies, ghosts, fairies, mermaids, dragons, and of course, elves.

Now, I’m no one special. In fact, I’m a bit of a tomboy. I’m just an ordinary Elvin peasant. My father died in war that the king started against the trolls. My mother is a tailor, so you can guess the first skills she taught me—sewing and knitting.

Now, she expects me to get married, but the thing is, no elf is actually hot in my eyes. Well, sure, some are nice looking, but I’m not interested in them. I want to marry someone for love, and all the Elvin men are just friends, literally. I’m just friends with all of them.

My mother can’t believe me being just friends with all the boys. Then I always say I’m only 160, and I’m too young for any of that. And my mother just says, I was married by my 160th birthday, so you’d better hurry up, or all the cute boys will get away. Now, here in the Elf City (that’s what I call it though it’s actually called Zamneara), 160 is like the equivalent of 16 to humans.

The year is 1709, so it’s normal. The only boy who’s my age and I’m not friends with is the prince. Oh, I’m sorry, Prince Aeron. If we don’t refer to any of the royals that way, the sentence is death. Honestly, I think all the royals are jerks; there’s no other way to put it. They always get married to some high-up families’ kids, so they don’t have to see their children get married to the scum down here in the village.

The whole Elvin kingdom is guarded by a wall, and our numbers are rapidly decreasing. Our only allies are the dwarves, mermaids, and fairies. Great protection, huh? Though the dwarves are actually pretty good fighters. It’s estimated about three hundred elves are left in the world, and sorry, world, but you aren’t getting any more elves out of me.

Now, here’s a weird thing about elves. All the peasants have brown hair or green hair (green if they’re tree huggers) or white hair, if they’re old. All the royals—and only the royals—have blond hair, but their hair changes color depending on their mood. If they are angry or embarrassed, their hair is bright red. If they’re stressed or depressed, it’s brown, like mine. If they’re sad or hopeless, it’s baby blue. Blond is for any other feeling. Once the royals are old, their hair turns silver, whereas for the rest of us, it’s white.

Elves usually live to be about three hundred years old. So we have to get married kind of soon. We don’t live very long.

In my opinion, we are very good fighters. Elves are unnaturally fast and can smell the faintest things from miles away. That’s not always a good thing. The last thing is we are very good at using magic. We are almost as good as witches and warlocks; some even say we’re better.

When I got home, I saw my mother sitting at the dinner table with another peasant woman and two peasant men. Mother jumped and whispered urgently, Arla! Where have you been? I told you to be home before sunset! Now go make yourself presentable!

Mother, what’s going on?

I’ll introduce you once you come back here.

I scurried off to my bedroom down the hall and put on a light-pink dress and put my hair up in a messy bun. I slipped on matching slippers.

I walked back down the hall to our dining room.

Mother stood up and put her arm around me and walked me toward the table and whispered, This man is willing to take your hand in marriage. These are his parents. Be polite! Mother slapped on a smile and said to the elves sitting at our table, This is my daughter Arla.

The woman stood up, smiled, and said, Hello, I’m Raina. This is my husband, Rergan, and my son Alo.

Oh, I forgot to mention that elves have to get married to a person who has the same first letter of your first name. Yeah, it’s messed up. Thank the king. Also, female elves are only able to produce one child in their whole lifetime.

The man that was Alo raised his head. I’ve never seen him before in my life. He had brown hair and green eyes. He actually was kind of handsome. I asked slyly, How come I’ve never seen you before?

Raina said, We homeschooled Alo. And we didn’t mingle much. We grew everything in our garden.

All the elves are vegetarians… well, actually, vegans. We just can’t digest meat or anything from an animal.

I sat down across from Alo, and he looked down at his hands and blushed. I started eating my salad in front of me, and then my mother kicked me underneath the table. I stared at her, and she shook her head at me. I didn’t know what we were waiting for. I was hungry.

Mother walked over to a corner of the room, and Raina and Rergan followed. I leaned forward and whispered to Alo, Do you know what they’re talking about?

Alo said, They’re trying to decide whether we should get married or not. Neither of us has any wealth, so that’s a con. Our names would fit, so that’s a pro. He smiled shyly as he listened. I strained my ears too.

Mother was saying, They do look like they belong together.

Raina said, They are of the same social class.

Rergan said, I approve. I just want a grandchild!

Raina said, I approve as well.

Mother then said, It’s decided then.

They turned back to us, and Mother said with a victorious smile, Arla, you will be marrying Alo. She sat down, and everyone started eating except for Alo and me. We were both too stunned and nervous to eat.

Once Alo and his family left, Mother said, Oh, isn’t this great, Arla! We finally found you a husband.

I looked down at my untouched salad. Mother, I don’t want an arranged marriage. I want to choose who I marry.

Mother glared at me and said, You know, Arla, I worked so hard to find you a husband, and now I have, and you don’t even appreciate it! Do you know how hard it is to find a husband to take the hand of a daughter of a widow? And to match the king’s requirements to get married! You will marry this boy. You will not ruin the wedding!

Mother stormed off to her bedroom and left me to blow out all the candles.

In the middle of the night, I snuck out of my bedroom with my white nightgown on and met up with my best friend, Urkan. I hugged him tightly and said, My mother got an arranged marriage for me! Urkan, I can’t marry him!

Shhh, shhh, it’s okay. When you’re supposed to get married, we’ll run out of the city, saying we have an important journey to go on, and we’ll get all the guys to come along too.

But there are trolls and ogres out there. We’ve never been out of the city before. Do you even know how to fight?

Urkan just chuckled and said, Do you forget so soon that I got the best praises from the king in magic? He even favored me over his own son.

I said, "Okay. It’s a