“I—am surprised.” Ellina chose her words carefully. “I thought you wanted me to remain here.”
“Do you object?”
“No.”
“Then it is settled.” Farah returned her attention to the flames. Her spine was locked straight, her angular shoulders like twin wings. “Be prepared to leave by morning. Take with you only what you will need. You and the others will be traveling to where Rahven was seen last—to the city of Irek.” An odd note had entered Farah’s voice. Ellina could not see her sister’s face, but she thought she knew what she would find if she could: the ghost of a smile. “It will be like one of your old legion missions, will it not?”
Ellina stiffened. Her old legion missions had often been to hunt and kill humans along the border.
“Our deal,” Ellina started slowly, hating to even mention their bargain for fear of drawing attention to it, yet hating more the thought of leaving it alone. “It still stands. I will travel to Irek. I will help uncover what happened to Rahven. But no harm will come to those humans.”
“Our deal,” Farah said absently. “Of course.”
???
There was no visible line separating the elflands from the mainlands. When the border had been drawn, elves simply claimed everything from the southern forest east. They said that if humans did not like it, they could fight to reclaim what they wanted.
The humans decided the border was fine where it was.
Ellina had always imagined the border to be a solid thing. A black gate, tall iron bars, pointed finials marching along the top. Or perhaps an ocean, glassy and grey.
In truth, the border was not a gate, or an ocean; it was a slab of marble, the same all the way through. And indeed, when Youvan led their small party across the border into the mainlands, none of them really knewwhenthey had crossed. The land looked the same in all directions: grassy, fertile, pocketed with lakes and rivers. Gusts of wind came in sudden, violent bursts, tugging at their clothes and hair. The clouds were puffy and white and swift.
Youvan set a grueling pace. They traveled by night, fifteen elves total, three of whom were southern conjurors. Ellina did not actually know that last for certain—they looked like conjurors, with their black hair and bony fingers, though she had seen no actual magic from any of them. Conjurors or not, the southerners kept to themselves, throwing Ellina icy looks if ever she ventured too near. Their message was clear. She was not one of them.
Ellina ignored them. She refused to be intimidated. She was better than that.
And yet, their hostility seemed to touch Ellina in a way it usually did not. Perhaps it was because she was away from Kaji and Livila, the last of her allies. Perhaps it was her recent conversation with Farah, and the knowledge that Rahven was dead in part by her own hand. Perhaps it was the quiet nights with no one to talk to, and how Ellina would gaze up at the stars, and feel small.
She missed Dourin. She missed Miria. She longed for a friend.
She had no right to feel lonely, not when there was everythingelse. But loneliness found its way into her heart nonetheless. It was there—small, hard, a pebble that rattled when she moved—as they traveled from the northern elflands to the southern mainlands. It kept her company as she rode along in the conjurors’ wake, until the night Irek finally came into view: a twinkling bundle of lights in the distance.
“We split up,” Youvan said. “Find him.”
???
Ellina crept through Irek’s streets. Though the hour was late, the city was wide awake. Light streamed from windows and doorways, music sounded from taverns, laughter echoed between buildings. Men and women strolled arm in arm, their steps a little uneven, their faces turned to the breeze.
It had been easy sneaking up to the city. Easy, sliding past the fallen watchtower and into Irek’s muddy streets. Youvan had ordered that they leave their horses out of sight, but that precaution seemed unnecessary. Ellina doubted anyone would have looked twice even if they had ridden in on horseback. The city was distracted, its attention turned inward. No one paid any mind to the fifteen black-clad newcomers smoking through the streets.
Ellina moved nimbly, darting between puddles of light, her steps careful, quick. She remembered doing this as a child, moving soundlessly from shadow to shadow, sneaking up on Miria just to hear her squeal. It was the kind of game they both had loved, each in their role: the hunter and the princess.
Ellina lingered on that thought. Here at last she was seeing the place where Miria had made her new life. Where she and Venick had come to know each other. Had they, too, walked these streets arm in arm? Had they turned their faces to the breeze? Ellina could almost see it, the image vivid enough to make her pause…and pause again, to remember that Venick was, at this very moment, somewhere in this city.
Ellina realized she was nervous.
She brushed her hands down her front, touched the dagger she now wore strapped to her belt. It had felt good to don her legion armor once again, but armor suddenly felt like not enough. Like nothing, actually. A useless defense.
She reached the mouth of an alley and halted, waiting for a band of young men to pass. They hung on each other, laughing, smelling of booze. They did not notice her.
She lifted her eyes and saw the tavern.
It seemed to burst into her vision, a spill of light and color. Through the windows Ellina could see the scene inside, filled with humans and—her heart thumped at the sight of it—elves. They lounged in chairs and gathered around tables, talking. To each other.
Ellina had of course known that a human-elven alliance must mean the interconnection of humans and elves. And Dourin often reported on their progress—shaky, slow, but growing strength—in his messages. Yet toseeit, to see the results of their work, to witness the melding of their two races…
It was a gift.
