“No?” Farah gestured around the stateroom. “We are all gathered. Why not ask for the truth in elvish?”
“How will that help? You think he can lie in elvish.”
“Maybe,” Farah agreed as if she had not just suggested otherwise, “butyoucannot.”
Ellina’s understanding was cruel for coming so late. She spotted Raffan moving towards them. She saw Venick, face white. And Dourin, who had shuttered his expression, but who broke that mask for the slightest second to aim a warning.Close yourself, Ellina. How could you forget?
She did. She shut her eyes briefly, willing her body to stone…yet felt, despite her efforts, the way heat slowly crept into her cheeks, blazing them red. The sensation held her still. There was no help for it, no way to hide it, and Ellina thought—judging by Farah’s next words—that her sister knew it, too.
“Do you think we have not noticed how different you have been acting?” Farah asked darkly. “We have been watching you, Ellina. We have seen how you treat the human, how you care for him. How…emotionalyou have become. It is time now that you explain yourself.”
It gave Ellina no pleasure knowing that she had been right. All along, she had suspected that Farah and Raffan were biding their time, gathering evidence, waiting for the right time to bring Ellina before the court so that her confession could be heard by all. Ellina had planned for this, practiced for it, yet she realized now that she had never truly believed this moment would come.
There were a lot of things she did not believe. She was beginning to despise herself for that.
She concentrated on this. She honed that anger until it was ground to a sharp edge. Deadly. Like her. She reminded herself that despite all her beliefs about the world, despite her insistence that they could never change,shehad changed. She broke laws. She killed elves. And she was a liar.
She was very good at lying. Language need be no barrier.
“Name your accusations,” Ellina demanded.
“You have fallen in love with a human.”
“Untrue.”
“In elvish, little sister.”
The court muttered at the insult, but of course Ellina had expected this. She inhaled slowly, trying for something simple, something that still held a thread of truth. “What you believe about us is false.”
Farah was not fooled. “Be more specific.”
Ellina thought about how she had begun practicing her lies with renewed vigor. She sought that feeling, pulled the sensation of it over herself, pushed all her weight against it as she formed the words…
And there, as before, shefeltit. That subtle change, that slight loosening in her chest and throat. Ellina grabbed the feeling and harnessed it as she imagined the lie she wished to speak, felt it burn and gather and then softly, softly, “I do not—love Venick.”
A moment of nothing. A tantalizing bite of blue sky through the clouds.
Then: agony.
The backlash of pain was worse for being unexpected. Ellina’s muscles seized, her lungs constricting as a column of fire shot up her spine and into her skull. She blinked dizzyingly. Her vision spotted. For a moment she thought she might black out. Yet she had said the words aloud, and inelvish.
The realization steadied her. She heard the crowd murmur again, differently now. She was certain they could see her effort to hide the pain, but she played that pain for anger, which she lashed at her sister. “I do not—care about him at all.”
Farah’s cool confidence was gone now. “Have you ever loved him?”
“No.”
“Couldyou ever love him?”
“No.”
It went on. Each lie brought a fresh wave of pain, but Ellina pushed through it, and as she did the words seemed to come easier, as if smoothing a path for each other.
Venick stood frozen at the edge of her vision. She could not look at him,wouldnot, because if she did she would certainly snap this small thread of power she had discovered within her. And yet, even without looking at him, she could feel him. She could feel the way he stood statue-still, staring at her. She could hear how his breathing had changed. She could sense his fighter’s stance, his hurt and anger that he had nowhere to aim. And worse, perhaps worst of all, she could tell that he believed her.
Of course he believed her. Ellina had never told Venick about her conversation with the wildings, or explained how she was learning to lie in elvish. She remembered Venick’s confession in the everpool, how she had left him there with nothing but her own silence. That memory churned and blackened in her gut. She should have told him the truth then when she had the chance…
And maybe she still could. The thought filled Ellina with savage determination. She could do this. She could harden herself, forge her will in steel, say what needed to be said to save them both. Later, when this trial was over, she would find Venick. She promised herself she would tell him everything.
