“We do not need their welcome,” Dourin replied. “We just need them to listen.”
“You say that like it’s simple.”
“It will be.” The elf patted the map under his arm, and though Venick had not actually agreed to anything, Dourin nodded as if he had. “I will tell the others.”
???
Their party altered course. The land changed as they traveled, rocky paths giving way to barren tundra and later, soft grasslands. The weather warmed a little as they moved south, bringing with it the smell of soil and rain. Insects hummed, theirticksandburrsa constant symphony.
As discussed, they passed through Ulla and Esota and any other elven village they happened upon, always with the same message.The queen is dead by Farah’s hand. We gather a resistance against her. Will you join us?The elven villagers were not trained warriors, but living out here in the most remote regions of the elflands had taught them a few things about survival, and survival was, ultimately, all warwas. The village elves knew how to mix salves and set bones, how to slide unseen through tall grass and send coded signals using birdsong. Better than that, they were eager. Most of these elves knew about the stateroom coup. Some had even witnessed the southern army trekking north. Like an apparition, one elf described. Like the shadow under a storm. The Dark Army, as elves had begun to call it, was like nothing they had ever seen before. The villagers understood the danger and wanted to fight.
It was in this way that their group grew from sixty to eighty to many hundreds of elves and more.
In the evenings, Venick continued drilling their new soldiers, then used whatever sunlight remained to spar with Lin Lill. Sometimes Dourin would join the sparring too, which inspired his old troopmates Artis and Branton to join, which inspired the other legionnaires, and Rahven, and everyone else, until the whole camp was finishing their afternoon drills with more drills. At the end of one of their sessions, Branton gave Venick the same elven hand motion Lin Lill had made once before, the one Venick didn’t recognize. The elf spread his fingers, then clutched them in a fist over his chest.
Venick asked Dourin what the motion meant.
“Oh, that,” Dourin replied, his eyes cutting sideways. “It is how we show respect for our commanders.”
Venick’s reply was automatic. “I’m not the elven commander.”
“No? Then who is?” When Venick didn’t answer, Dourin gave a wide-eyed laugh. “You thought it would beme?Oh, little human. You are as blind as your horse.”
Except, Venick had seen this. He saw it in the way the elves looked at him with their shining eyes, in the way he gave an order and it was obeyed. He saw it when they ran drills or divvied rations or organized their tents at night in spirals rather than in rows, just as Venick had instructed.
It was in the way the elves had begun to smile at him. Their hesitant lips pulling up at the corners, uncertain, trying it out. Emulating him, as children do.
“You cannot be surprised,” Dourin went on in a voice that might have either been serious, or mock serious. “Who better to lead us than the mighty, battle-born warrior?”
“I just…” Venick sought to name his doubt. “I’m human.”
“So?”
“The elves wouldn’t choose a human to lead them.”
Dourin dropped his teasing tone. “Venick.” For once, his smile was true. “They already have.”
???
They left autumn behind. The days grew longer as they moved deeper into southern elflands and then—unceremoniously, but with a meaningful look exchanged amongst them—over the border into the mainlands.
Venick had been thinking a lot. He tried to think less. He focused on the land, the sky. At night, he browsed Traegar’s book by lamplight. What started as simple interest became habit, then necessity. Venick wasn’t sleeping well, but the book was an easy distraction. It lulled him into a kind of non-thinking, helped set him closer to sleep. He would prop the volume up on one knee and read about plants and potions until his lids grew heavy, until he began to see ingredient lists dancing behind his eyes. Then he would drop—thankfully, mercifully—into dreams.
Except that sometimes he didn’t. Sometimes, no amount of reading could lull him. On those nights, Venick would lie awake, gazing up at the dark canvas of his tent. He liked to pretend that his sleeplessness was born of anxiety over his homecoming. That it was due to thoughts of seeing his mother and the anticipation of his redemption. He told himself that his restless mind had everything to do with his future and not his past. Yet Venick had come to learn the shape a lie might take, especially in the dark, especially with himself.
He would think of Ellina. Sometimes it was a memory, sometimes simple fantasy. Her face would float in his mind, as vivid as if she was lying there next to him, and his anger would stun him all over again. Then Venick would grimace, and stand from his tent, and rove the dark camp. The night would envelop him. The world would be still, except for the occasional soldier, and Rahven, who seemed haunted by his own demons and slept even less than Venick did.
Venick left the campfires behind. He sought the glittering stars, the call of bullfrogs, and the way that on moonless nights it became so dark that he couldn’t see his own hands. He would hold them blindly in front of his face and feel as if he didn’t exist at all.
???
Irek appeared like a ship over the horizon: the mast, then the sail, then all the rest.
Venick thought he had remembered. If anyone had asked, he would have answered easily. Of course he remembered this place. He’d been born in Irek, he’d grown up there. And anyway, four years away was not so long a time. Four years couldn’t erase what he’d spent a lifetime knowing. Irek was his home.Of coursehe remembered it.
But he hadn’t. Not really.
Now though, as he watched the city emerge in the distance, it all came rushing back. Those buildings, those roads, the ocean. There would be bugs in the dirt, lizards in the trees. Venick knew how the afternoon market would swell with sound, the way it would smell. He knew how it felt to stand on the shore, to close his eyes and stretch out his arms and turn his face to the sun. The memories washed over him like an ocean wave, leaving him drenched, shaking, salt-stung. They caught his breath, and he hadn’t even set foot inside Irek’s boundaries yet. He hadn’t been home in years.
