I will not lose count.
Ellina moved quickly though the tunnels, one hand on the wall, her eyes open and sightless. The passages smelled like summer earth, cool and dry. Ellina imagined herself a worm in the dirt, pushing between roots.
She reached the end of the tunnel.
You will come to a flat wall, Livila had explained.Find the slender groove in its center.
Ellina ran her hand along the wall until her thumb found a divot. She pushed and the wall gave way, slipping sideways along a cleverly-designed track built into the stone. A secret door.
The room on the other side, though not brightly lit, seemed blinding compared to the dark. Ellina squinted, blinking, listening. She knew from scouting the corridors earlier that two well-armed guards were stationed outside this chamber’s door. She had assumed there would be more guards within, but she was wrong. The room was empty.
She stepped inside.
Ara’s old suite looked more like a dungeon than a highborn’s chamber. There were no plush rugs or silver decanters, no shimmering sconces or bowls of freshly picked fruit. The bedframe remained, as did a chest of drawers, but both looked bare and skeletal in the cold light. More notable than what was missing, however, were the additions. Three makeshift cells had been hammered into the back wall, two of which were small and square and outfitted with metal bars, and one at the end that was made of solid stone. There were no windows on that third cell, no way of peering inside. If a prisoner was currently housed within, Ellina could not see.
But here, in one of the barred cells: the servant Ermese.
At the sound of her footsteps, he approached the bars. His face came into the light, revealing sightless eyes.
“It is me,” she whispered. “Ellina.”
The servant’s fingers wound around the metal like pale grubs. His expression became keen. “Cessena. Are…are you alone?”
“I am.”
“Have you come to free me?”
His voice brimmed with hope. It made her answer sound worse by contrast. “No.”
Though his eyes were unseeing, he dropped his gaze. Ellina continued, “I do not have the key to your cell. But…did you see where it might be kept?”
He motioned to his face as if to say,how could I have seen?“I suppose I deserve my fate. I should have known better. Your sister has spies everywhere, even among our ranks.”
Ellina padded closer, glancing at the closed bedroom door, worried about the guards stationed on its other side. She was reminded of how Venick had once been held prisoner in a suite much like this one, though they had not stationed guards outside ofhisdoor, nor locked him behind bars within the room.
Farah was being careful with her new captive.
“Do you know why I am here?” Ellina asked.
“You want to know what I saw in the crypts.”
He was quick. His sharpness surprised Ellina. From the looks of him—milky soft, blooming with youth—she would have thought him naive.
“I am sorry,” he continued, his voice a scrape of a whisper. “I promised that I would never again speak of what I witnessed. I made that oath in elvish in exchange for my life. My silence is bound.”
“But you did witness something? My sister has something to hide?”
Ermese gave a slow nod. Ellina’s pulse quickened. “A guess, then. Elven oaths do not prevent you from confirming guesses.”
“I…suppose not.”
“Does Farah’s secret have something to do with the war?”
Ermese nodded.
“Is it a weapon of some kind?”
Again, he nodded.
