“Why not just kill me?” Then, almost as if Venick could sense how the question had unbalanced her, and aimed to topple her fully: “That’s what you’re good at, isn’t it? Killing humans?”
Ellina flinched. She tried to hide that she had flinched, but Venick saw it anyway.
And it changed him. His eyes narrowed, his face transforming into a map of the very feelings Ellina feared she would see in him: doubt, suspicion.
“Is that what you wish?” Ellina asked. “For me to kill you?”
“I asked you a question.”
“It is not wise to ask questions. Not when the queen has extended such a generous offer.”
“Butwhyhas she extended the offer?” Venick moved closer. His sudden proximity disarmed her. She knew better than to take a step back, knew from years of training that it would be foolish to show that kind of weakness, not when she needed to remain collected, not when Venick’s nearness was not supposed to matter to her one way or the other. Yet she did step back, and felt with that step how the battle began to slip, sliding through her fingers like silk from a spool. She felt the moment it all started to unravel.
“Farah wants me dead,” Venick said, the words low now, meant only for them. “She has always wanted me dead. So why the sudden change of heart?”
“Truly, Venick.” Ellina’s voice sounded like it was swallowing itself. “I have no idea.”
“Really?”
“No.”
He did not believe her. His disbelief was as clear to Ellina as her lie must be to him. Venick’s eyes roved her face, and Ellina felt the way a diamond must feel when it catches the light, all its inner facets illuminated.
He said, “I think you do.”
Dourin, who had been watching the scene unfold, and sensed the danger, stepped in. “Venick.” He gripped Venick by the shoulder. “I think we have heard enough.”
“You said it yourself. You wanted to speak to her.”
“I have. There is nothing more to say.”
“MaybeIhave more to say.”
“Venick.”
But Venick was shrugging out of Dourin’s grasp, he was stepping closer still. Ellina’s pulse rode high in her throat. Her hands ached for something to grip: a bow, a knife, the hilt of her sword—anything to ground her. But Ellina was weaponless. Defenseless. Stripped bare, as she always had been, standing before him.
“Dourin was right,” Venick said. “This,” he waved a hand vaguely over her black and red outfit, “doesn’t make sense. Farah killed your mother. She sided—” he glanced at Youvan “—with the southerners. The same southerners who killed Lorana. The southerners who tried to killyou. And I just…” He took a breath. Emotions danced across his features, anger and doubt and regret and suspicion, there and back and gone again in such quick flashes that it made Ellina dizzy. Then his expression hardened, and his mouth set in a way that frightened her. “Farah wants the mainlands, Ellina. She’s going to come after my home. She’ll kill every human she can to get it, and plenty of elves besides, and I…how could you side with someone like that? It isn’t right. This isn’t you.”
It took all of Ellina’s strength not to look at Youvan then, to try and guess what he made of Venick’s accusations. Already, Ellina feared the conjuror had seen too much, that he could sense her treachery…or soon would. Her heart felt dipped in oil. Venick’s glance was a spark. She was going to catch fire from within, and Venick would see all her truths burning, and Youvan would too.
This was a disaster.
Venick gave a frustrated sigh. “Ellina.”
She could not look at him.
“Answer me.”
She studied the open collar of his shirt. It was elven-made. The stitching had begun to fray.
“You owe me an explanation,” he insisted. “Don’t you think you owe me an explanation?”
A desperate laugh bubbled in her throat. No, she could say. I do not owe you anything.
Venick must have read the thought on her face. He pulled away. “You were not always so heartless.”
Was there a moment when everything changes? When you make the choice that sets your fate into stone? Ellina was cold with that question, as cold as she had been before ever meeting Venick, before the forest and the stateroom and his promises and hers. Elves did not believe in the divine, yet Ellina had the sense that she was gambling with destiny. This was her path, set like the moon into the sky.
