“She suffers.”
Venick dropped his eyes. He hadn’t heard Rahven approach.
“Ellina,” the elf clarified, though Venick had known whom he’d meant. “She suffers.”
Venick shouldn’t ask. He shouldn’t care what the chronicler meant by that, or why he felt the need to share it now. Ellina’s suffering wasn’t Venick’s concern. Not anymore.
And yet…Ellina was tied to Farah, who was tied to the war and the future of his homeland. If Rahven had information about Ellina and her conditions at court, how could thatnotconcern him?
It was for this reason, Venick told himself, that instead of walking away he asked, “What do you mean, she suffers?”
“As a servant of the queen, I lived in the palace. I saw Ellina a few times in the days before my escape. Something happened to her. She was hurt.”
Venick ignored the way his stomach flipped at those words. He ignored the way his mind offered up a slew of images, all the many things that could have been done to Ellina since he’d seen her last. Because Venickhadseen her, on Traegar’s balcony, and she hadn’t seemed injured then. Oddly wet, now that he thought about it. Shoeless. But not injured.
Then again, she’d been wearing long sleeves. A high collar. If she was hurt, would he have noticed?
“She fought in the stateroom battle,” Venick replied, trying to organize the mess of his thoughts. “Many elves were hurt.”
“Yes but…it was her wrists. They were bruised. And there is something else. She was not allowed to leave the palace. All the servants knew the rule. We were supposed to report to Farah if she attempted to escape.”
“But Ellina did leave the palace. She came to find me in the city.”
“I know, I just—I am only telling you what I witnessed.” A pause. “You cared for her.”
Whatever interest Venick had in this conversation died with those words. He made a noise—of disgust, of contempt, he didn’t even know—and began to stalk away. Venick hated this, how his feelings for Ellina were so widely known. How they marked him.
“She was always good to us,” Rahven called after him. “To those beneath her. Servants and subjects like myself. We respected her for it. Ellina was not like Miria, who tended not to notice us, or like Farah, who was cruel to us. Ellina—she was not kind, exactly. But she was good.”
Venick must have halted, because he found himself facing Rahven once more. “She used to be good.”
“She still is, I think.”
Venick eyed the elf. “Do you know something else that I don’t?”
“No.”
“Really? Because it sounds like you’ve got more to say.”
Rahven’s expression was careful. His words were, too, when he finally replied. “I am sorry to have upset you. I only meant to pass on my information.”
Venick returned to his own fireside. He pitched his tent in the shadowy dark, going mostly by feel, trying to distract himself with the work. He let out a hard breath.
He’d never sleep now.
He crouched by the fire, feeding pine needles into the flames, watching them shrink and curl. He thought about Ellina, imagined her in the palace, imagined that she suffered. A part of him—the newer, darker side—smiled a grim little smile. She deserved to suffer.
But another part of him—the older, quieter side—frowned. It turned its eyes back towards Evov. It filled him with questions he couldn’t answer, the edge of an idea he didn’t trust. Like a trick of light in the corner of his eye, it was gone before he could turn his head.
TEN
Ellina avoided her reading room.
She avoided the archives. The everpool, the stateroom, the north tower. All the places that reminded her of him.
It did not work. Ellina had known that it would not, because even if she did not visit the places that most reminded her of him, she still had to be with herself, and she could not escape her own mind.
The memories were a problem. They were always there, tugging at her attention, threatening to invade…and to show on her face. They came unbidden, bringing with them the most dangerous of feelings: doubt, regret. Ellina could not help but replay again and again the things she had said to Venick on the balcony, the words she had used to make him leave. It had pained her to speak them, a poison to eat away at her tongue. But they had worked. Venick had flinched away from them…and from her.
