Venick gripped Dourin’s shoulder in return.
They walked back to camp together. The air was quiet, broken by the soft sounds of elves clearing the ground, the muffled stomp of a horse, low chatter. Venick scanned their uncertain faces. Only a handful of elves had managed to flee the palace. Branton and Artis from Dourin’s troop. A legion patroller named Lin Lill and her battalion. A few citizens, several senators, most of whom Venick didn’t recognize. Those elves were still distrustful of him. And yet, there seemed to be a silent expectation, too. Venick knew what they said about him. Battle-born. A human ally. Friend of elves. Maybe more than friends, with a certain highborn elf…
“I know you do not want to talk about it,” Dourin said, “but, Ellina…”
“You’re right,” Venick replied. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“She was captured in the fighting.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know she did not escape with us.”
“Ellina is a better fighter than any of those southerners.” She was also outnumbered. Venick remembered the way elves had swarmed around her. But he didn’t mention that. He pushed away any thought of it. He damned himself for the way his mind snagged on it, the growing worry. Reeking gods. Ellina wasn’t his to worry about anymore. “She wasn’t captured.”
“It has been three days. If she escaped, she would have caught up with us by now.”
But Venick thought again about Ellina’s many schemes, and his mind offered him another reason why she had not yet come. “Maybe she chose to join a different side.”
Dourin rounded on him. “She would never.” He looked the way he had after Ellina slaughtered his horses. His expression twisted in anger. “Farah killed her mother. Raffan and Farah plotted againstour own country. Ellina would never side with them. You know her better than that.”
“I don’t think I know her at all.”
“You do,” Dourin insisted. “She trusts you.” Venick paled at the accusation, then hardened, suddenly angry.
“I trusted her, too.”
“She is the same elf she has always been,” Dourin said. “That has not changed. She needs us. She needsyou.”
Venick looked away. His jaw ached, locked against words he didn’t want to speak, not really, and yet in this, too, he knew he had no choice. “We’ll send a small force back into the city. If she is being held against her will, we’ll break her free.”
Dourin nodded, softening a little. “Thank you.”
“You have no reason to thank me.”
“I know this is not easy for you.” His next words held no anger, no blame. Dourin spoke them gently. “I know how you feel about her.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“She cares for you, too.”
Venick stared at Dourin, then laughed at the utter absurdity of that claim. It rang through the camp, joyless and flat. Dourin had heard Ellina’s profession as clearly as Venick had. And it was obvious. Venick should have known it was. Ellina was a liar. It was what drew him to her, what first sparked his attraction. Her cunning. Her sharp mind. He thought he’d seen her feelings grow for him the way his had grown for her, but he was wrong. He might not have believed it, had tried to see a way around it, but he knew better now. And anyway, there was no denying the truth. When she said she did not love him, wouldn’t even mind his death, she’d spoken the words in elvish.
FORTY-SIX
War was coming.
It settled over Evov like a hand over a mouth. Stifling. Ellina watched from the palace’s highest tower as the southern army arrived at last, as it snaked its way up the mountain pass and conjurors guided the soldiers into the city streets, over the palace’s wide bridge, through her home. They stationed themselves in Evov, set claws into the earth, filled the air with their cannon powder-and-metal stink. They razed the green glass mines, sending elves in droves to haul out the precious glass. The city’s smithies came alight with their work. Weapons were produced in mass numbers. Handed out. Passed around until every soldier was armed and ready.
Farah orchestrated the plans. Together, she and Raffan promised the southerners everything they desired.We killed the queen for you, Farah told them.We ban together with you. Once the north and south are united, we will conquer the world with you.
Ellina saw it all, heard it all, yet seemed unable to grasp this new reality. To think of her mother’s death, the stateroom slaughter, Venick…the pain hit fresh every time, so raw and real that it threatened to overwhelm.
So Ellina did not think of it. She tucked away all memories of the stateroom. Raffan and Farah’s plots. Dourin…and Venick. She did not think about their parting. She did not think about her lies or his broken trust or all the things she wished could be undone.
She thought only about what she would do next.
She would escape. She was being watched, but loosely. After pledging loyalty to Farah, Ellina had been put under a kind of house arrest. She was stripped of her weapons, ordered out of her armor. Farah’s guards all knew to be aware and wary of her, not to trust her. It did not matter that Ellina had made her pledges to Farah in elvish; Farahwassuspicious. Whether or not Farah knew about Ellina’s ability to lie in elvish, shedidknow about Ellina’s ability to twist the truth, how Ellina could muddy elven words in order to trick and deceive. Ellina had been enlisted as a legion spy for that very skill, and Farah had no intention of trusting Ellina on her pledge alone.
