Finally, Farah shook her head. “You do not care for the human at all?”
Ellina waved a careless hand. She saw it tremble and clenched it shut. “Kill him, if it truly matters that much to you. What do I care? He is human.”
Farah glanced around the room. Word of this interrogation must have spread through the palace, because in addition to the full gallery, elves now hovered in the doorway and around the room’s perimeter. Legionnaires, courtiers, senators; it seemed as if every high-ranking elf in the city had appeared to witness the spectacle.
“If you do not care about him, then why fight for him?” Farah asked. “Why try to protect him?”
“I used him to learn about war,” Ellina replied in elvish. “He was a tool. Nothing more.”
Farah was still staring at Ellina, who watched, and felt the dark pull of dread as a decision seemed to form in her sister’s mind. “Very well. Since you have no issue that I call for his execution—”
“Stop.”
The word came quietly, smoking through gallery, up the dais. Ellina spun to see the queen striding across the stateroom, her long robes sweeping behind her. “Stop,” Rishiana said again. Her expression was calm. Her voice was calm. She gave no indication that she was angry, no hint of her inner feelings. Yet the mood in the room quickly darkened. “Farah. What are you doing?”
Farah motioned around the stateroom. “Holding a trial.”
“I warned you.” Rishiana’s voice was a lick of lightning: innocuous, seemingly harmless. But with the power to instill fear. “I warned you. You are not queen yet. You do not have the authority to hold a trial, and you are overstepping grievously.”
“Grievously? Mother, please.” Farah clasped her hands behind her back as Rishiana reached the room’s center. Farah was standing in the queen’s place yet made no move to step aside. “I am doing you a favor. And I think you will agree with my verdict. The human should be sentenced to die.”
Rishiana shot a glance at Venick. Ellina had no idea how much her mother knew about Venick’s presence here, and it was impossible to tell what she thought at the sight of a human in their midst. Yet the queen’s answer surprised Ellina. “Whether the human lives or dies is irrelevant.”
“Are you suggesting that he will live?”
“I think it is clear what I am suggesting. You do not have the authority to summon a stateroom audience in this way. Not until you are queen.”
There was a shift in the crowd. Was it possible that evenmoreelves were appearing? Ellina’s skin felt hot, the room suddenly stifling. Too full. Her eyes darted around the stateroom, and she noticed it. On all sides: dark eyes, dark armor, dark hair.
Dark hair?
“Butwhenwill I become queen, mother?” Farah asked. Her voice was low now, almost a whisper. Her hand came to rest on her sword.
“As soon as I choose it.”
“And when willthatbe?”
“As soon as you are ready.”
Ellina pulled her eyes back to Farah. A thought. A terrible realization…
Farah’s face was a void. “I am ready now,” she said, and drew her sword, and stabbed.
The world went silent. Ellina’s ears rang. Rishiana looked down at the green glass in her belly. She staggered, wrapping a hand around the hilt. Her body thumped as it hit the floor.
Chaos erupted.
FORTY-THREE
Venick’s mind was split into pieces.
The first piece was a vicious, bloodthirsty thing. Elves seemed to pour out of nowhere. Venick couldn’t tell at first where they came from or what was happening, but then he saw their faces, and focused, and understood. Farah’s guard—yet not quite. They weredressedlike Farah’s guard, but these elves were taller than most, dark hair, hard eyes, some wearing black and red pendants around their necks.
Venick remembered it then. He understood why these colors seemed so familiar. A banner. A raven between twin flames. Black and red.
The southerners.
Venick killed without care. He poured his soul into the bloody work of it, opening throats and bellies and spilling elven blood across the floor. He hardly saw what he was doing, hardly thought. His carelessness was dangerous. As he brought his sword down over and over, tearing flesh, ripping muscle, he paid no attention to how far he stretched, the angle of his body. It would be easy for an elf to break past his non-existent defenses, to step into the wide openings he allowed to appear at his shoulder, his back, his neck, again his shoulder, his ribs.
