Dourin shrugged, but there was something off about the movement, something stiff, and it was only then that Venick realized he’d been wrong. Dourin wasn’t relaxed—he wastroubled, and doing his best to hide it.
“In that case,” Dourin replied, “do it to assist a worthy cause. You know who this is, don’t you?” He jerked his chin in Venick’s direction.
Traegar’s voice went low. “Everyone knows who he is.”
“Then you must also know why Farah and her conjurors are after us.”
“I…have heard rumors.”
“Good.” As if that settled things, Dourin pushed off the wall and disappeared down the hall. Into a kitchen, Venick presumed, from the sudden sound of cabinets opening and closing. Traegar let him go but made no move to follow and Venick—reluctant to turn his back on this new elf—didn’t either.
There was a tense moment of silence as they appraised each other.
“You surprised me,” Traegar finally admitted. It wasn’t an apology, but something close. Venick relaxed a little. He made the elvish hand motion forno harm, which earned him two lifted brows. “They said you spoke elvish. I was not sure whether to believe it. It is unusual for humans to speak our language.” For the first time, Traegar switched to elvish. “They say humans can lie in elvish.”
“No one can lie in elvish,” Venick replied in that same tongue. The words came easily and without pain: proof of their authenticity.
“No,” Traegar agreed, switching back to mainlander. “I suppose not.” He looked down the hall where Dourin could still be heard rummaging. “He has always been cocky. I forgot that about him.”
The comment—the familiarity of it—surprised Venick. “And arrogant.”
“He drives me insane.”
“That makes two of us.”
Traegar skimmed another look in Venick’s direction. His eyes still held that gilded keenness, but there was something else there now, too. Curiosity. Amusement.
Without comment, they started down the hall together.
Venick had never seen the inside of a northerner’s home. He’d seen their city certainly, and the queen’s palace, and he supposed if he’d thought anything, the elves’ homes would be like that: grand, cold. But Traegar’s home was neither grand nor cold. The shallow hallway gave way to a low-ceilinged kitchen that reminded Venick, vividly, of Irek. There was a furnace burning brightly in one corner, a row of pans arranged in order of size, a pot of sweet-smelling stew simmering on the stovetop. The table was made of unpolished wood, its chairs heaped in warm furs. The whole scene was…quaint. Cozy.
“No tea,” Dourin announced as they entered. “But I see you still keep a supply ofrezahe.” He held up a tumbler filled with two finger-widths of golden-brown liquid. “I took the liberty.”
“Of course you did.”
Dourin motioned towards the kitchen window with that same hand, sloshing some of the tumbler’s contents. “You have been redecorating. Those curtains are new.” And drawn, Venick saw, though it was only midday.
“A precaution,” Traegar replied.
“Against the sun?”
“Against the southerners.” Traegar sank into a seat at the table. He didn’t slouch as a human might, didn’t lean back in his chair. His movements were poised. Precise. Still, he looked tired. “It has been madness. Southern elves here, in Evov. Our city has protected us from outsiders for a thousand-thousand years, but now…” He trailed off. Dourin moved to claim the chair opposite him, Venick opting to lean against the wall. Traegar continued. “Did you know that Farah has ordered us to open our homes to her army? We are meant to house and clothe and feed them. The barracks simply cannot supply them all. But the southerners are barbarians.”
Venick thought he understood. Unlike northern elves, southerners were a wild breed, brutal and prone to violence. Before Farah united them under the red and black flag, they’d been living in isolated clans in the southern forests. No leader, no real rule of law. They’d been unruly before, and they would be now, no matter how their station had changed. Perhaps they would beworsenow, given the fact that they were armed, with the queen on their side.
Some of Dourin’s false cheer leaked away. “Have they been violent?”
“Only when they are not getting what they want.”
“Have they hurt you?”
Traegar did not immediately answer that. In the way of someone who’d done it many times before, the elf angled his gaze to peer out the kitchen window, then blinked as if remembering that view was now blocked. He shook his head. “No, they have not hurt me. But things here are not as they once were. The city is not safe, not with southerners prowling every street corner, hunting Farah’s opposers and looking for fights.” Traegar pointed his gaze at Venick, clear-eyed and solemn. “You tried to warn us.”
Hell, yes, he’dtried. Venick had been the first one to discover the southern army and had raced here to alert the northerners. But they hadn’t believed him. “Little good it did.”
“We were fools,” Traegar said bluntly. “And now Queen Rishiana is dead.”
“Murdered,” Dourin corrected, “by her own daughter.”
