Venick didn’t understand it. He scanned the watchtowers, the rooftops, but he couldn’t make out much else from this distance other than that the city was bigger than he had imagined, and tightly packed. But that was nothing unusual.
“I don’t see anything,” he admitted.
“Then there is nothing to see.”
But Venick was unconvinced. He remained alert as they followed the trail down into the meadow, as the soft earth turned into paved road, which led them through the gates. The city was human-built, the stone and slate set over the hills rather than dug into them as elves would have done. The river was high and swift from the recent rain, the streets slick. Crowded, too, as Venick had imagined, but mostly with humans. For a border city, there weren’t many elves.
None at all, now that he looked, except for Ellina. Venick peered around, searching for the telltale golden eyes, the white hair. Nothing.
And yet, that couldn’t be right. Because here: a horse wearing an elven-woven blanket. Here: elven glyphs carved into the side of a cart. And here: the sliding eyes of strangers, too keen. Had they been back in Irek, Venick might have understood that suspicion, but Kenath was no small town to worry over newcomers.
Ellina led them through the streets, which followed no obvious pattern. Some were wide and straight, others curved, slanted, paved in brick or stone or some combination of the two. That was typical of manmade cities, especially on the border. There were no quarries this far east. No reliable overlords, either, to see a project through. This city had likely been built bit by bit, perhaps mauled down during a war and rebuilt differently after. Some would argue all cities should be built in such a way. It made them less susceptible to attack when there was no clear path in or out.
It made the citizens susceptible, too.
It made Venick’s skin itch, is what it did, as he peered up and behind. It might have been his imagination, the shadow sliding behind the window overhead, another on the roof above. His imagination, the way the crowd seemed to part for them, keeping distance, making room. But he didn’t think so.
“Ellina,” Venick said, perfectly calm. “Want to tell me why you’ve led us into an ambush?”
“It is not an ambush.”
“Want to teach me elvish forthe hell it’s not?”
“Elves do not curse. And stop looking around. We are almost there.”
Thereturned out to be a tavern wedged between a whorehouse and the river. The exterior had been painted and then painted over again, the edges cracked and peeling in the sun. The door slid smoothly when pushed. Silent. Well-oiled. Ellina led the way upstairs, past a few empty tables and the bartender who glanced up, then away. As if he didn’t see them. As if he’d been bribed not to.
Venick swallowed and wondered, for the first time, who Ellina really was.
He wondered if he was an idiot for not wondering sooner.
The stairs led to more rooms. Dark, musty, mostly empty. Ellina strode to the one at the end, pulling him through and closing the door behind them. She crossed to the window and drew the curtain shut, then knelt to pull up a floorboard with a twist and asnap. She retrieved a dagger and a coin purse from the space underneath. Which she pushed intohishands.
The realization cracked open inside him.
“The southern elves have seen you with me, but you are human,” she said. Fast. A little breathless. “They have no reason to harm you.”
“Ellina.”
“If they stop you, you tell them you know nothing. Youlie, human. That is what you are good at, is it not? Wait a few days. Act as if you are just passing through. And then you leave.Home, back on your own side of the border.”
And where is home, Venick?
He didn’t know. It didn’t matter, either. Not right now. No, what mattered now was that gaze, two golden eyes waiting for him to respond, to tell her he understood.
And do you?
That she never had any intention of taking him to Tarrith-Mour, yes. That she never planned to kill him, yes. That she knew he didn’t have information for her queen, that she lied to her troop to save him,yes. Remember that conversation now, Venick. Remember the male’s question—You think he is a spy for the south—and her answer, inhislanguage.
Reeking gods.
“You said the city would be safe,” he said.
“I said the city would be safe for you. And it is.”
A wise man wouldn’t ask questions. A wise man would take the money and the dagger and hope never to see this elf again. A wise man certainly wouldn’t argue. It didn’t matter that she had lied for him and mended his foot and asked for nothing in return. Elves didn’t deal in life prices, didn’t think in terms of debts paid.
But.
