“Ellina, please.” Kaji trapped her hands. “We are here to help you. Let us help you.”
She heard the lightpopof a bottle being unstoppered. A cool liquid was tipped over the wound. It ate into her skin like acid. She tried to scream.
In the end, Kaji restrained her while Raffan cleaned the wound. When it was over, Ellina lay limp, her torn shirt exchanged for a fresh one, the wound tended but too deep for stitches. Raffan’s hands were slick with her blood.
“You could have made that easier,” he noted, but the words held no bite.
While Raffan packed up the supplies, Kaji handed over a small wrapped bundle. “Bread and cheese, and a water canteen. It should last you at least a few days. I will return with more when I can.”
Ellina gripped the bundle tight. Again, she tried to speak.Do not leave me here, she wanted to plead.Take me with you.
“There are guards at the end of this hall,” Kaji said. “Guards everywhere. They believe we are only here to speak with you. If they knew we had come to help…” He need not finish. Ellina knew what would happen if Farah learned of this. “I cannot break you free yet, but hold on, Ellina. Just a little longer.” He set a hand to her cheek, and they were gone.
THIRTY-THREE
Venick couldn’t sleep. He left the camp to walk the land. The night curled around him, but he carried no lantern. He wondered if this was why conjurors summoned their storms and shadows: so that they could feel as if they were part of the darkness. He heard the wind sough through the grass. He peered up at the stars and thought of the Elder’s sparkling, beringed hands.
Venick turned the man’s offer over in his mind. He wondered for the thousandth time if he’d condemned them all by refusing. He still couldn’t say exactly why hehadrefused, or why he didn’t turn back and accept the Elder’s offer now. It was disgust, he thought again. Resentment. The doomed combination of pride and anger.
Not just that.
No, Venick thought, not just that. But the other reason he didn’t like to think. It made no sense. No sense at all, that Venick had refused marriage to Harmon because of Ellina.
It was times like this, when the night was dark and Venick was alone, that he remembered her most clearly. He could still see the thick fan of her lashes, the gentle arch of her neck, those golden eyes. He hadn’t always noticed these details. Or maybe he had, but he hadn’t understood them…at first. Later, he’d wondered how he’d ever missed her beauty. Ellina’s beauty was like a first winter star: utterly singular.
He never knew he could hate someone so much.
Vencik remembered drawing his sword on her. His fury had been so fierce it had burned like fever, yet he’d known the moment he hefted the blade that he couldn’t do it. Ellina deserved death. She deserved the worst the gods could give her. Venick could know that, could know it as surely as he knew his own name, but it made no difference. He couldn’t be the one to end her life.
Another regret to add to his list. Gods, what waswrongwith him? He’d thought he’d left this softheartedness behind, that he’d become the hardened warrior his father had always wanted. The kind of man who could make ruthless decisions when necessary, who could end a life because it needed ending, and who cared if it was his sword that dealt her death, or someone else’s?
Venick thought of his mother. He thought of her freshly dug grave.
His grief was starting to feel like a sweet, slow song. Venick hadn’t wanted to listen to it before. Now he did. He wanted to linger on the pain, to bathe in it. In a way, his grief was fitting. He deserved it. He should sink down to its bottom and never resurface.
Venick kept moving, his thoughts spiraling deeper. Maybe if he’d killed Ellina, his mother would still be alive.
Maybe if he’d killed her, he could finally let her go.
???
Their army set off again the following morning. They would continue west until they reached the plains. Now that they’d lost the Elder’s support, it was more important than ever that they gain an alliance with the plainspeople, the third and final region of the mainlands.
Overhead, storm clouds were rolling in. The wind smelled like rain.
“I do not like the look of those,” Dourin said meaningfully.
Venick didn’t either, but he tried to put the storm out of his mind. Maybe it was just a storm. Maybe he was seeing ominous signs where there were none, because the last few days had gone so poorly, and he felt primed for the worst.
Maybe that was why, when the Dark Army arrived, Venick wasn’t prepared.
???
They appeared over a ridge in the distance, a wave so dark that at first Venick didn’t know what he was seeing. Then he heard it, the roar of a thousand hooves, to mix with the thunder.
Venick called his men to arms. He felt numb, as if he’d been cut but didn’t yet feel the pain. He’d wondered when this attack would come. For months he’d been wound tight, always looking over his shoulder, always watching the horizon. Venick had seen Farah’s army. He’d seen its size, large enough to rival the Elder’s. He knew that eventually they must face it. Venick remembered a message from Dourin’s contact in Evov.They gather in the high city. She plans soon to strike.The attack on Irek had been a test—which they’d failed. That ambush had proven that the resistance could be easily overwhelmed. When the Dark Army returned, Venick had thought they would return in force, with confidence. And now they had.
Venick spurred Eywen through the ranks. He hollered commands, ordering his men into position. Overhead, lightning flashed. “Stay close to me,” he told Dourin.
