“The queen seems to think otherwise.”
Ellina’s eyes flashed up. “Andyou, doing her bidding. Are you any better?”
“We have allied with the queen.”
“She controls you.”
“No.” But his voice betrayed him. It constricted in anger.
Ellina reined in her own anger. She knew better than to argue with a conjuror, especially here, with Farah’s guards watching. She took a breath, forced her fisted hands to open. They hung empty and useless at her sides.
In that moment, Ellina hated her hands.
She hated that she could not use them as she had been trained to use them.
And she hated Youvan’s hands too, because hecould.
“I think we should move on,” Ellina said tightly.
Once off the bridge, it was a short walk from the palace to the city. The path was lightly trafficked, the day clear and bright. Ellina led the way, Youvan following close behind. She listened to the brush of his feet across the dusty footpath, the cadence and gait. She counted its rhythm. Committed it to memory.
As they neared Evov’s entrance, the path widened into a true road, a glossy white-grey street that funneled horses and foot traffic up into the mountain. The street was more crowded here, the city’s congestion clogging at the gates. Ellina pushed through the throng, dipping and dodging. Soon, a gap appeared between her and Youvan. He did not hurry to close it. Ellina was shadow-bound, and he was unconcerned.
Ellina glanced again at that shadow-binding. Maybe her shadow was a little wider than before. Maybe it was a little darker. It was hard to be sure. Here under the midday sun, everyone’s shadows looked wide and dark. Still, something seemed different. As Ellina watched her silhouette race across the road, it appeared split between worlds, a bridge between here and…somewhere else.
The thought gave her pause. She blinked, and it felt suddenly as ifshewas the one who was split, as ifshehovered between worlds. Her heart thudded, pulsing like it did when Ellina was on the verge of some new idea, which made her realize that, actually, she was.
She changed course. She followed the road until it forked, taking a quick right into an open square, which put her briefly out of Youvan’s sight. In two swift movements Ellina stepped out of her slippers, leaving them there on the street behind her, then unwound the sash from her waist and tossed it into a convenient fire grate. Both the shoes and the sash were impractical, silken, useless. Made for courtiers concerned with easy palace living. They would slow her down, where she was going.
She moved on. High in the distance she could see Gold’s Row, which was the wealthiest area of the city, and also the largest. At the Row’s southernmost end was a river fed by snowmelt from farther up the mountain, and over that river was a set of planks—wooden, uneven—that had been nailed together to create a makeshift bridge.
Ellina knew this river. It was elven-made, built to provide the city’s lower tiers with fresh water for drinking and bathing. And she knew this plank-bridge. It was rarely used by citizens, who preferred the longer, safer route through the eastern streets, but it was a popular shortcut for merchants who needed to cut a quick path from the working district to their stalls and storefronts in Gold’s Row. At present, a clothier was urging her horse and the two-wheeled cart it hauled over the planks. The elf had her horse’s reins in one hand, the bribe of an apple in the other. She was muttering in elvish, soothing the horse with soft words.
Ellina risked another glance behind her. Youvan was just now turning into the square. The distance between them had grown wider still.
She felt calmer now. Though Ellina would always wish for the comforting weight of her sword and bow in hand, these were not her only weapons. Perhaps they were not even her best weapons. Opportunity was. Her eye for an opening was.
She started for the bridge.
The river was startlingly clear. And it looked cold. As Ellina came upon the swift water, her hands went numb, as if she had dipped her fingers into that current, had felt its frigid bite.
The clothier continued to coax her horse. She did not notice Ellina approach.
Ellina stepped onto the bridge and imagined what Youvan would see. The horse, starting and stopping in short bursts, uneasy on the planks, which warped and shifted under the cart’s weight. The clothier, struggling to pull the animal along. And Ellina, who moved too quickly, and stepped at the wrong moment, and startled the horse from behind. The horse reared and bucked. The cart clattered on its wheels. And Ellina—at risk of being trampled—reeled out of the way.
It would seem like an accident, that she stepped too far. A misstep, that that her foot slipped into air.
Her arms went wide. The world heaved.
She tumbled over the bridge’s edge into the water below.
???
The cold was a blow to the gut. It drove the air from Ellina’s lungs. That was bad, Ellina knew that it was, yet before she could do anything to correct it the river wrapped icy fingers around her waist andpulled, sucking her under. She was quickly swept away.
And it was nothing like she remembered. Ellina had done this before, she could recall it: hands at her waist, the push into the sky. Then, blackness. Her lungs screaming for air. Kicking to the water’s surface, her sword in one fist, her free hand groping, catching something, holding on. A terrible strength. During this first, earlier time in Kenath, Ellina had responded to the river on instinct. There was no time for thought, no chance to prepare. The pain and the cold and the fear would come later, but in that moment Ellina had simply acted.
It was not like that now. Ellina had planned this escape into the river, she had known what was coming, and so there was no kick of instinct. No gut reaction to guide her. As the river pulled Ellina under, she was wholly conscious of her body, which had become a ragdoll in the current’s grip. She could do nothing but flail.
