Disclaimer: Everything that is from the book is Ms. Gail Carson Levine's. Everything else is mine.

Chapter 16: Legend of the Cursed Elf

Arianna followed the carnogres who had bound the knights and Brandon thoroughly.

Then suddenly she heard a soothing voice and she looked round. No one appeared to be speaking. The voice grew to be more understandable as it continued. It sounded like a woman who was speaking and it puzzled her that she was hearing it. In fact, it was a language that she'd never heard before and yet she could understand it with ease.

"An Elven Princess who was the last of her line,

was blessed by a fairy at birth to marry a human prince.

"So afraid was she of losing her freedom, beliefs, and desires,

that she married an elf commoner instead.

"The human prince fell to despair,

and his Kingdom grew to resent the elves,

for it lost much more than the prince's joy.

"Angered by her insolence,

the fairy turned the Elven Princess,

her mate, and their heir to monsters.

"When the monsters try to reach back to their roots,

the prince's heir, who carries the humans' magic,

and the fairy's heiress by blood, and is marked with obedience,

shall bear a son, uniting the once lost Kingdom.

"The son shall fulfill the fairy's blessing,

and the curse of the ogre shall be lifted."

Bewildered by the strange prophecy, yet having managed to memorize it, Arianna continued on as if she had heard nothing. Yet she wondered why the ancients would wish that all of the magics be combined into one family.

Then she was startled from her thoughts as they reached their camp. There was an unusually large group of ogres who were all currently arguing over which parts of the horses that they would get.