“Longer and more dangerous.”
Venick aimed a glance at Dourin. “I don’t think—”
“It is your choice to make,” Ellina interrupted. “Whatever you decide.”
He should refuse her offer. Cut all ties and turn around and journey back to the mainlands alone. Ellina might not be his captor, but she wasn’t his safeguard, either. Not his partner.
And yet, when he looked at Ellina he felt the same pull of desire he’d encountered in the forest, then again in the tavern when he’d decided to follow her. It was the desire to act, toprotect.
Which was idiotic. Venick wasn’t there to fight for Ellina. He shouldn’t be there at all. No matter how he’d begun to think of himself and Ellina as allies. No matter that small, strange twist in his gut at the thought of leaving her.
“Thought we didn’t owe each other any debts,” Venick said.
“That is not why I am offering.”
Then why are you offering?on his lips, which he swallowed. The fact was that it didn’t matter. The fact was thathewanted to protecther, too, and didn’t have a good reason, either. Venick squinted back towards Kenath, then into the black woods. It was true that he would be safer if he traveled with her. That he might be able to keep her safer, too.
Finally, he met her eye and nodded. “To Tarrith-Mour, then.”
Ellina set a brisk pace back towards the southern forest, letting Venick and Dourin fall in behind her. This seemed second nature to Dourin, who drew his weapon and covered their flank, pausing long enough to give Venick another hard look, his eyes lingering on the hunting knife as if to say,that’s it?
Venick ignored him. He moved up beside Ellina, who threw him a look of her own, though for once he could not read its meaning.
Her eyes skipped away. She scanned the ground, the trees, the darkness ahead and behind. Venick did too. He watched for movement, for any sign of an ambush. The twitch of a branch. The crunch of a twig. But the forest was still.
After a time, however, Venick noticed Ellina’s gaze drift. Not back towards the city, not ahead into the trees, but above and below, in crevices, tree hollows. Odd places.
“What are you looking for?” he asked.
“Shadows.”
Venick left off the obvious—they were being pursued by elves, not shadows. He said nothing of the fact that it was night and everything was shadowed. He looked instead at her face, the hard mouth. He read what he could from that. “Not regular shadows.”
“No.”
He waited for her to explain and got nothing. Typical, for an elf to offer no more than what was asked.
So ask her then.
“Why are you looking for shadows?”
“Because southern elves can weave them.”
Which was not something Venick had ever heard of. He scowled, shuffling through his memory but coming up blank. “Like magic?” he asked.
“Like conjuring.”
“I didn’t know elves could conjure.” Didn’t know anyone could, not anymore. Not since the purge, when human conjurers had been rounded up by the elves, beheaded and burned. That had been centuries ago, but even then, magic had been a human skill.
“Northern elves cannot conjure,” Ellina said. “Most southerners cannot, either. Some, though…” She let the thought trail.
“You might have mentioned that sooner.”
“I did not think it would matter.” She didn’t think he would still be with her, was what she meant.
“Tell me what to look for.”
She looked ready to argue. Her brows pulled together, her mouth tipping into a frown.I will handle any threats. You focus on keeping yourself alive.But after a breath, she told him. The shadows cannot hurt you, she said. They might blind you. They will certainly follow you. If they catch and hold, they can trail you long beyond their conjuror. They can slip into your own shadow, can take its place without you even noticing.
