“Please…”
“What of the poison?” Dourin went on. “We found a vial of amberwood hidden in our supplies. Was that your doing as well?”
“The queen gave it to me,” Rahven said. “She told me to hold onto it, only that. She did not even tell me who it was for.”
“And I suppose you were too stupid to guess.”
“I would not have used it!”
“Say it in elvish.”
Rahven fumbled. He could not.
“Traitor,” Branton hissed.
“I had no choice,” Rahven cried.
“You had a choice,” Dourin said, hefting his sword. “You just chose wrong.”
And he stabbed.
Rahven’s mouth popped open. He wrapped a surprised hand around the hilt protruding from his chest. His eyes rolled, and he fell.
A long silence. The tavern seemed to ring with it. Venick stared at Rahven’s lifeless body, stunned. He glanced around, expecting to see the humans’ shock, but the men and women were looking at Dourin with a kind of steely approval. In the mainlands, the law on traitors was clear.
Dourin’s lip curled as he pulled his blade free. He was still fuming, still furious, no doubt pulsing with what he’d just done. What they’d just learned. His eyes sought Venick. “The currigons,” he said. “He’s been using those birds to pass messages to the queen. He said they were a symbol of hope. Of course they were forhim.”
Venick remembered seeing a currigon hawk circling above the city. The gentle wings, the blood-red tail. He’d thought it odd that a wild currigon might fly so far south. He’d known that elves used currigon hawks as messenger birds, but he’d been distracted by that same tale.When we see a currigon hawk in the sky, we know it as a symbol of hope.
“We have to assume that Farah knows everything,” Dourin went on. “About the alliance and our plans to unite the mainlands. About our strength, our tactics, the size of our armory, the skill of our fighters.”
And the location of their black powder stores, Venick thought numbly.
It was one of the oldest rules of war: always stay one step ahead of your opponent. Keeping those secrets had been a precious advantage, which they’d now lost. It was a heavy blow.
And it was his fault. Venick had grown complacent. He’d been preoccupied with things he shouldn’t have let preoccupy him, had failed as a leader. A spy should never have lasted so long among them. An assassin should not have.
Venick watched blood pool under the chronicler’s body. He promised himself that from now on, he’d be more diligent. He promised that from now on, he’d question everything.
Starting with Dourin.
???
He waited until Rahven’s body had been hauled away and the tavern was clear. He cornered Dourin. “How did you know?”
The elf sat at a table in the tavern’s center, wiping blood from his sword—or pretending to. The blade, as far as Venick could tell, was spotless. Yet Dourin continued to work it with a rag. “I told you already,” he replied. “The currigons.”
“I saw them too, flying over the camp. That doesn’t mean I immediately suspected treachery.”
“Maybe you should have.”
It was no less than Venick had thought earlier, yet he felt a rush of anger to hear it voiced. He crossed his arms, planting himself squarely in the elf’s line of sight. Dourin gave a sigh and set the rag aside. “It was a hunch.”
“Convenient, these hunches of yours.”
“Rahven was too nosy. He was too curious about things that did not concern him.”
“All the elves are curious. Are you saying we’re surrounded by spies?”
