Ellina took a hard right, moving under a sky of merchant flags. They fanned in the wind, the sound of them filling the air. There were other sounds, too. The bay of a goat. The angry burst of a child. The hush of a crowd sensing danger, an almost imperceptible change.
Ellina risked a glance behind her and caught sight of golden eyes.
She pushed forward, through bodies, past guards. They were a false comfort. The crowd was. Humans did not intervene in elven affairs and could not be counted on to help. No. Better to escape back to the forest. There, she knew how to cover both her scent and her trail. There, her troop waited for her. There, she could disappear.
She turned back towards the river, skirting down a narrow alley. She trailed her hand across the brick and stone. Smooth, no crevices for climbing. The only option was forward. She wished she had thought to wear a hood. She wished she hadthought. But she had been busy, her mind full of the human. Keeping him safe, keeping him alive. There was no room for anything else. Raffan would skin her could he see what she risked for him, let alonewhy. It was bad enough that she had broken ranks and chosen to stay behind with false promises to question the human further. She made those promises in the language of men, a testament to her dishonesty. But Raffan had let her go anyway.
He would punish her. In front of others, if she was lucky. In private if she was not. Ellina outranked him in blood titles, but he outranked her in the legion. And now that they were bondmates, he outranked her inboth. He could erect whatever punishment he wanted and be well within his right. And he would enjoy punishing her, no matter in public or private. It was why he said nothing of her obvious lies. He let her disobey him. He wanted her to.
Ellina could hear the river now. It churned, a low hum. She flexed her hands, touched the sword at her hip. She could draw it.Thatmight gain her some human attention. Or it might prompt her pursuers to act faster, to subdue her before she could cause a scene.
As they seemed to intend now. She could sense them close behind. Moving closer. A too-long shadow flitted across her vision. Another angled beside her.
She wrapped her fingers firmly around the hilt of her sword. Fight, or flee?
One breath. Another.
She turned and drew her weapon.
SEVEN
Venick had never liked the sound of green glass.
It wasn’t like the clang of steel, which was hard and cold and solid. Not like the swoop of an axe or the strum of a bow. Green glass saidshh, a mother to her child. It was low and soft. Animal.
And clear, now, as it hissed through the air.
Venick cursed. He ignored his bad leg, the way the stitches pulled. Ignored his pounding heart, which had vacated his chest and clawed up his throat. He darted glances through the crowd, moving as fast as space and injury would allow, praying his leg wouldn’t give, praying he wasn’t too late. He didn’t imagine what he would see if he was. Didn’t imagine the reason green glass echoed through the streets, Ellina backed into a corner, her pupils blown wide, an arrow through her heart. He didnot.
And yet, Venick couldn’t quite help but hear Ellina’s words, the surety in them.We elves do not kill our own. She might have spoken in elvish, how certain she was of that truth. Yes, elves would maim and fight and torture, but this was old law, one she thought was never broken.
She was wrong.
The memory slipped inside him before he could stop it. Lorana’s screams. The flash of an arrow. His own voice, hoarse, desperate. The way he’d fought to reach her. He felt panic rising, and couldn’t tell if it was true panic or the memory of panic. Time layered over things, made his mind foggy. He remembered Lorana’s panic too, the way it gripped her, a black claw sunk into flesh. But then that terror had calmed, vanished, replaced by steady silence as she realized she was going to die and there was nothing Venick could do to save her.
Venick clenched his jaw and forced those thoughts away, forced himself to see thenowand not the past.
Ellina is not Lorana.
But she wasn’t no one, either.
Venick turned a corner, then another, hating Kenath’s streets for being too narrow and too winding and too crowded, so packed full of people that no one noticed him until he was shoving them aside with amoveand a curse.
And still too slow.
But then, there. A flash of green. Andthere. Ellina. He saw her in plain sight, caught between the market and the river, surrounded by four elves with weapons drawn.
Venick’s fear vanished then, anger crowding in its place. At the human guards who watched but did nothing because it was not their race and therefore not their problem. At the elves who had her cornered. And at Ellina, who had drawn her weapon but was doing a worthless job of using it. Venick had seen Ellina when she wanted something dead. He remembered how she’d killed the wolves in the forest, the skilled strokes, effortless and without hesitation. But she was holding back now, speaking in low tones as the four elves advanced, parrying their strikes but attempting none of her own. As if she was afraid to hurt them. As if she refused to kill.
And all Venick had was a dagger.
And an idea.
A lousy one. But there was no time to think of anything better.
He pushed towards her. He caught the surprise in her eye as she spotted him, the confusion and then the fear as she realized what he intended. She shook her head once, quickly.Don’t.
Too late.
