“Yes,” Ellina said.
???
A duel was to be held on the palace grounds. Courtiers were invited to watch the southerners’ prowess in battle. “So that you may become better acquainted with your new comrades,” Farah told the court during their last stateroom meeting. A space was cleared on the southern lawns with chairs enough for the senators and dignitaries. Everyone else could stand.
Ellina was given a seat at the front of the ring next to Farah, though she did not take it. It was her legionnaire’s training that prevented her from enjoying such a spectacle; she did not like to see others wield weapons when she bore none. If she was to watch, she would not stand in the most vulnerable position, and she certainly would notsit. She found a spot deep in the crowd.
Ellina had assumed Farah’s chosen duelers would be conjurors, but these two elves were not. They were young, white-haired, male. Both taut with lean muscle. Both long-faced. It occurred to Ellina that they might be brothers. They stepped into the makeshift fighting ring and stripped away their shirts, not to protect the fabric from sweat—elves rarely did sweat—but to make it easier to spot the winner. The victor would be the first to draw blood.
Farah lifted a slender hand. A trumpet sounded.
The duel began.
In the north, legionnaires fought with a particular slyness, relying on tricks and feints and quick maneuvers. These southern elves, by contrast, were blunt. One dueler—the younger of the two—wielded a shortsword, while his brother bore a belt of throwing knives. As they moved about the ring, slashing and parrying, there were no ruses or coy moves, no snake games. Rather, the southerners fought with a kind of grim openness. They were like ships plowing through high seas, dependent on strength alone. That was fitting. The southerners were not known for their wits.
Raffan appeared at Ellina’s side. He settled into a legion stance, his expression steady, his chin tipped down. For a time he simply watched the match in silence, and Ellina thought that he would not speak. Then he did. “I heard you visited the crypts.”
A breeze buffeted the courtyard, swirling robes and braids. The crowd ducked as a throwing knife went wide, missing its target and zipping dangerously overhead.
Raffan continued, “I wonder what you had hoped to find there.”
Ellina mimicked Raffan’s stance, hands behind her back, eyes steady on the duel. She had visited the crypts twice more since that first time, hoping to provoke another guard into revealing information as she had provoked the first. With Ermese missing and likely dead, speaking to the guards directly was her best chance at uncovering what Farah might be hiding. The guards, however, seemed to have tightened their ranks. They gave away nothing.
“I only wanted to visit my mother,” Ellina replied, feeding him the same lie she had fed the others. Raffan was silent again, though this silence was different. It was expectant. It asked a question, which Ellina answered. “Farah closed the crypts, anyway. I was not able to enter.”
The knife-wielding dueler threw another blade, which his brother deflected. Their green glass weapons hissed and whirred.
Raffan said, “Your mother is not buried in the crypts. As you know.”
“Actually,” Ellina answered coolly, “I did not know that.”
“Really? No one told you?”
Raffan’s voice was nothing like this fight. It was sly. It held a trick. But Ellina, who had come to trust in her own ability to outmaneuver anyone, reassured herself that he could not trickher. She faced him squarely. “I assure you, I was unaware of it.”
“The guards tell me otherwise.”
Ellina went still.
“You lied.”
“I did not—”
“Mean to? Ellina. Thesemistakes.” Raffan’s eyes were hard. His mouth was angry. He looked almost…torn. “Have I not made myself clear? Farah is watching you.”
Ellina sharpened at his words. “Are you disloyal to her?”
“Of course not.”
“Yet you warn me anyway.”
“Only because you do not listen.”
“I do not listen because I do notunderstand you,” Ellina hissed in a surge of her own frustration. “What would Farah think if she heard you deliver that warning? What does it gain you?”
“It gains me your safety.”
“You do not care for my safety.”
