“Because you were spying,” Youvan interjected. “What did you see, down in the crypts?”
“N-nothing.”
“Inelvish.”
But this, Ermese could not do. He strained, his tongue working uselessly as he fought against the power of their language. It did not matter what he would have said. He was no conjuror, northern or otherwise, and his attempts at a lie were obvious.
The servant knew his own doom. He glanced at Ellina: a helpless plea.
“Look atme,” Youvan snapped. “We do not pay respects to our dead. We do not believe in an afterlife, or in the gods. We do not think there is anything down there to pay respectsto. No one goes to the crypts, except to bury bodies.”
“That…that is not true.”
“You went to the crypts because you were snooping. You were looking for information to be used against Queen Farah.”
“No, I swear—”
“Who are you passing your information to?”
“No one.”
“Do you know,” Youvan warned, “what I will do if you continue to lie to me?” In a motion too quick for Ellina to follow, Youvan hurled his dagger into the cluster of onlooking servants. The blade missed hitting anyone—barely—but the servants reacted with predictable panic, some crying out, others ducking to flee. Ellina cried out, too. “What are youdoing?” She gripped Youvan by the sleeve.
He shook her off. “Do not interfere.” He bore down on a petrified Ermese. “Do you take me for a fool? Do you think we do not know that the resistance has spies among us? Or perhaps you did not consider that we might have our own spies, like the ones in Abith, waiting to attack your friends as soon as they step foot within those city walls. Our messenger-raven reports movement from your ranks—”
“I swear, I am not—”
“We areeverywhere, and your attempts at espionage are pitiful. This is your last chance. I need a name. I want to know who is leading you, or the next time I throw my knife, I will not miss.”
“Please,” Ermese begged. “I am not a spy.”
“Say it in elvish.”
Ellina’s heart was pounding hard. Youvan’s dagger lay on the floor at the back of the kitchen. She could grab it. Or perhaps she could find another weapon. A knife, or a heavy pot. The kitchen was full of them.
And if Youvan realized what she intended? He would stop her, and there would be consequences.
But if she did nothing? This servant would suffer. He would suffer as surely as she would.
Ellina was scanning the counters for a nearby weapon when Youvan lifted his hands.
“Wait,” Ellina said, but her plea was drowned out by the sound of Ermese’s scream. He folded at the waist, clutching his face with both hands as Youvan seemed to dig in, bearing down, grinding the air with his fingers. Ellina watched in frozen horror as Ermese clawed at his eyes, his scream devolving into choked cries. He whimpered, gulping air.
Youvan relaxed his grip. The servant went silent. When he pulled his shaking hands away, Ellina flinched. The elf’s eyes were white. Blank and blurred over. Youvan had conjured him blind.
ELEVEN
Ellina’s knock was loud on Kaji’s door.
The legionnaire’s room—just a single room, not a suite—was located in the palace’s lowest guest chambers. Though these halls were a step above mountain-underground, the air here was chilly, the corridors heavily patrolled by guards. When Kaji answered, his brows rose in surprise. Ellina cut him off before he could speak. “I brought you something.”
The elder elf glanced at what she held. “A book?”
“May I come in?”
He stepped aside to allow her through.
Ellina waited until he had closed the door behind them before tossing the book onto a divan, then striding to the window to peer out across the palace grounds. The sky was bruised with the coming dusk, the night’s first stars blinking to life. In the distance, Ellina could just see the stone gardens.
