Traegar said something, but Venick wasn’t listening. He was remembering the day he and Ellina had first met. He could feel again the searing pain of the bear trap clamped around his foot as he bargained for his life in the forest last summer. Venick had crossed illegally from the mainlands into the elflands in search of food, but he’d been caught, and he should have been killed for it. Yet instead of killing him, Ellina had shattered the bear trap and set him free.
He remembered her eyes in that moment. Her anger, like chiseled stone.
And how it had been after. When she’d stitched his wound and dragged him to a cave and worked to keep him alive. Ellina had saved Venick at a time when he’d most needed saving, and in return he’d put his trust in her. He’d believed in her. He’d needed that: something to believe in.
“Well?” Traegar asked again. “Will you stay?”
Venick blinked up to find both elves watching him. He hesitated, knowing his answer, knowing it was the onlyrightanswer, yet hating it anyway. “We’ll stay until nightfall, but no later than that. No, Dourin.” Venick cut the elf off before he could object. “There’s nothing left for us here. You know it as well as I do.”
Dourin wanted to argue. Venick saw that clearly in the elf’s eyes, in his still-open mouth. He knew it, because that was habit between them.
And he knew that Dourin must have heard some truth in his words, when instead of arguing the elf shut his mouth again. His shoulders slumped. He looked at the floor and was silent.
Just like you wanted.
Hell, that was twice now Venick had gotten what he’d wished for. Teach him to stopwishing. It hurt, seeing Dourin like that. Venick almost preferred the arguing. But he’d meant it when he said they’d wasted enough time there. Venick was anxious to get back to camp. He worried about the resistance in their absence. It had become clear that those elves weren’t safe hiding out so close to the city. They needed to move, soon. And they had a war to plan.
As they settled in to wait for nightfall, Venick found himself thinking of his father, who’d been a military general, and had passed much of his knowledge to his son. Venick remembered his mother declaring proudly that Venick had been born during wartime. An honor for their people.
He remembered the day he’d murdered his father. How easy it had been to destroy that honor.
Venick had been blind when it came to Ellina. That was true. He’d been too soft, too unthinking, too quick to trust. He’d wanted to fit her into the story of his bandaged foot, or the way her eyes had burned right before he’d kissed her. Venick had let his heart get in the way of his head, and he’d paid for it. Was paying for it still. But he had survived worse. And he’d learned from his mistakes.
He wouldn’t make them again.
FIVE
Ellina kept a steady pace over the palace bridge. Kept a steady eye, too, on the guards barricading the bridge’s far end. There were fifteen, maybe twenty elves total. Too many to count at a glance. Too many to fight alone, unarmed and unarmored as she was.
Yet Ellina was not here to fight these guards. She was exiting the palace with Farah’s permission, on her orders. In her fist was a white envelope stamped with the queen’s seal, and inside that envelope was a letter written in Farah’s slanted hand, explaining as much. If the guards doubted the integrity of that letter, they could always ask Ellina in elvish whether the message was true. She would answer, and they would believe her, despite having been warned not to trust the princess. They did not know Ellina could lie in elvish.
Of course, if the guards did suspect some sleight of hand, there was yet still a third option—they could confer with the conjuror who had been sent as Ellina’s escort and now followed in her shadow.For your safety, Farah had said, though they both knew what the conjuror really was.
The guards watched Ellina approach. They took the offered letter, then exchanged quick words with the conjuror, whose name was Youvan. The midday sun sharpened their profiles. Their voices were white with cold.
Ellina moved to the bridge’s railing. She did not want to listen to them discussing her, evaluating her worth like a sheep up for market. Ellina could not tell if these elves were northerners-turned-traitor, or southerners. They all looked the same in their red and black livery, their metal armor. They all looked atherthe same, too: with obvious distaste.
Finally, the guards nodded and allowed them to pass.
“Wait.” Youvan spoke from behind. “Before we go.”
He lifted his hands. Like most conjurors, Youvan was tall—gangly, even—with unusually long arms and fingers. He sunk those fingers into the air now, drawing them down with a flex of his thin shoulders before pausing, hands outstretched, as if waiting for something to happen.
Nothing did. Ellina shifted. Her hand went to the place at her hip where a sword usually hung. She pinched the fabric there. Let it fall. And when still nothing happened, she decided it was best to simply ignore the conjuror. She started to move away.
Except, at that moment Ellina noticed it. Youvan’s shadow seemed to quiver. It twitched. It crawled away from his body and stretched towards Ellina in a long, slanted line.
“No,” Ellina managed. “Wait.”
Youvan did not wait. He watched with something like satisfaction as his shadow slipped across the bridge and pooled at Ellina’s feet, sinking into her own shadow, taking its place. Ellina’s stomach dipped with dread. Though she had never seen the conjuring performed firsthand, she knew what this was. Shadow-binding.
“Was that necessary?” Ellina asked, voice rising. Though her shadow looked much the same as it had before, now that she was shadow-bound Youvan would always know her location. Until the conjuring was released, he would be able to follow her anywhere.
Her task had just become more complicated.
Youvan settled back onto his heels. “Do you object?”
“I am not a dog for you to leash.”
