“No.”
“They will kill you.”
“They won’t.”
Dourin was shaking his head, firm denial, but Ellina was not finished. “There is one more thing.” It surprised her, how heavy these words felt on her tongue. She heaved them out. “You must keep my position as a spy here a secret. No one can know.”
“Venick…”
“Especially not Venick.”
Dourin drew back a little. “He deserves to know.”
“It is not so simple as deserving.”
“But why?”
Ellina quieted. “Do you know the reason Venick was outlawed from his homeland?” Dourin shook his head. “He once loved an elf. Years ago, in Irek. His father discovered their relationship and alerted the southerners, who came to kill her. Venick murdered his father for betraying their secret.”
“I—” Dourin’s mouth parted. “I never knew.”
“But do you understand? Venick knew that he would be banished, yet killed his father anyway. It is his honor. He is bound by it. He will do what he believes is right, even if he ruins himself to do it. If he knew the truth…” Ellina did not have to finish. If Venick knew the truth about her bargain with Farah, he would never accept it. If he knew what she planned, he would fight it.
They will catch you, he would say, just as Dourin had.
They will kill you.
I can’t let you do it Ellina. Not like this. Not for me. There must be another way.
Venick would beg Ellina to change her mind. And then? Without Ellina in the palace to gather intelligence, they would lose what was quite possibly their best hope for victory. Farah would retaliate, and Irek would be the first to fall to her wrath. The conjurors would rise uncontested, the resistance would fail, and Venick would die anyway.
“Please,” Ellina said to Dourin. “Promise me.”
Dourin was unhappy. “Venick thinks you betrayed us. He has been…different since that day.” Ellina’s heart pinched, because she knew how Venick had been. Hurt. Conflicted. Like her. “Are you certain this is what you want?”
“I am certain.”
“Then I promise. I will keep your secret.”
“Promise me—”in elvish, Ellina almost said. Dourin was not a conjuror. He was still bound by the rules of their language. If Dourin made that promise in elvish, he would be forever bound to his oath. And yet, Ellina knew too well the hidden dangers of such promises. She changed her mind at the last moment. “Promise me…on your life,” she said instead.
“I promise you on my life.”
Ellina should have felt relieved. She had done what she had come here to do. Yet as she stared into the face of her friend, her chest ached. She felt suddenly a fledgling again, green and uncertain, as she had been in the days when she was struggling to find her place in the world, and her mother had not understood her, and she had not understood herself. Ellina had never fit in at court, so she joined the legion against her mother’s wishes, determined to carve her own path. Dourin had been there when the queen stormed into the legion barracks, furious that her daughter had disobeyed her, and more furious because Ellina had already sworn her oaths to the legion and there was nothing Rishiana could do to reverse them. After their fight, Dourin had not tried to soothe Ellina with words, but knew how to cheer her best—by taking her to the training ground with sparring swords, and beating her, and then showing her how to beat him back.
Ellina wanted to say all of this. She wanted to explain what it meant to have someone to trust in a world where trust was rare. She wanted to take Dourin’s hand and squeeze it, even though such sentiments were typically scorned by elves, who saw physical affection as a human affliction. But Dourin would not scorn Ellina. This she knew: he would squeeze her hand back.
Before Ellina could do or say any of this, however, a shuffle from behind caught her attention. It was faint, the subtle scrape of cloth on stone. She turned…
To see Youvan climbing onto the balcony.
???
Venick was tucking Traegar’s book into his pocket when the elf asked, “Where is Dourin?”
The question startled Venick. He’d been distracted, he’d forgotten. How long had Dourin been upstairs?
Too long.
