Their relationship had been a well-guarded secret. Lorana knew the penalty for loving a human. Venick knew it, too. But they were careful. It was not uncommon to see elves in Irek. The city sat close to the border, and their seaport was the only one between the elflands and the capital. The crossover wasn’t legal, technically, but elves were the ones who made those rules, and if they chose to break them, who were the people of Irek to tell them otherwise? Besides, Lorana was well-liked. Too much time spent around humans, people said. It turned her soft. Butsoftfor an elf meanthappy, and no one could fault her for beingnice. So people grew used to the elf who lived among them, whose dark hair made them forget, sometimes, what she really was. Made Venick forget sometimes, too.
There had been a night. The moon, high and round. The quiet shore, waves lulling. Venick and Lorana sprawled in the sand, tangled in each other.
She pulled away. Her eyes locked on something in the distance. Venick turned to look but saw nothing.What is it? What do you see?But she wouldn’t say.
Venick should have known. He should have guessed. He’d seen the way his father peered at him, the slow suspicion that morphed into something darker. Fear was greedy, and his father had always been wary of elves. But Venick had not known. Not when his father’s suspicion turned into spying, turned into understanding, then anger, fury.
When Venick returned home that night, he found his father waiting.
It’s not natural, his father had snapped. The whites of his eyes were wide. Venick’s mother cried silently in the corner.You disgrace us. You will put a stop to this. You will not see this elf again.
You do not rule me.
Yes, his father said.I do.
Venick wondered how differently things would have gone had he known then what his father planned. Heshouldhave known. And it was obvious, wasn’t it? That his father would tell the southern elves. That they would come to kill her. But Venick hadn’t known. And by the time he learned, it was too late.
Venick’s heart was sore. He closed his eyes.
He wanted to tell Dourin not to mourn his horses. To forget how he’d watched them die. Because even though Venick had once wanted to remember, the truth was this: forgetting was a relief. It was a relief, not to remember how much you loved someone, how you held onto them with your entire being. How you cried into their hair as you clutched their lifeless body to your chest. It was a relief, to forget who you’d been when you were with them, to forget what you’d said and done and felt, to forget that you’d never loved anything so much, and never would again.
TWELVE
They did not stop to rest or eat. Not when the sun peeked over the horizon and brightened the day with morning. Not as the forest became dense and humid as they moved deeper. Ellina stayed close, often walking by Venick’s side, which was different than before. Welcome, though, even as the nagging voice in his head warned it shouldn’t be.
Dourin had gone ahead. To scout, he’d said, though they all understood this was not the only reason. There was no missing the grey pallor of his skin, the hurt hid behind anger, which pooled in his eyes and fists each time he looked at Venick. Venick pretended not to notice. He’d known elves like Dourin. That easy fury, quick to boil, quick to bubble over the brim, spill and slosh around them—You think you are one of us now?—at the smallest provocation.
But the anger wasn’t the truth, not entirely. Underneath Venick saw the sorrow, and not merely for his dead horses. Because Venick didn’t miss, either, the way Dourin’s eyes lifted to meet Ellina’s again and again. Searching. Distressed, too, when he didn’t find what he sought.
“You should go to him,” Venick said now. He could see Dourin’s slender figure ahead, glimpses of white hair through the trees. “Tell him you’re sorry.”
“Dourin does not want my apologies.”
“He wantssomething.” Venick could see that clear enough. He knew she did, too.
An insect buzzed loud around them, its sturdy wings thrumming on air. Ellina adjusted her belt, working the leather until it lay flat. “He is angry about Kenath,” she finally said. “I let the southern elves find me. I changed our plans. A good soldier would have done neither.”
Venick had no response to that. She’d had a choice, and she had chosenhim. A human over her kin, and never mind all the rules it broke.
“I need to know something,” Venick said, “and I need the truth.” Ellina stiffened at that word, wary, suddenly certain that she would not like whatever came next. “Does the law work the other way around? We are traveling together. That makes you my accomplice. Can you be punished for it?” He watched denial curl into her as she opened her mouth to answer. He cut it short with a hand, slicing through whatever lie she meant to tell. “Thetruth, Ellina.”
She closed her mouth.
“The law does not mention it,” she finally replied, lifting her shoulder in an almost-shrug. The movement caught Venick’s attention, distracting him. Elves didn’t shrug. That was a human sentiment. “I cannot say what my commander will do.”
But her tone was deliberately nonchalant. Venick imagined that he and Ellina were speaking in elvish. It was a language that did not allow lies, but that might still allow you to lie. Words could be twisted, intentions muddied. Ellina might notknowwhat her commander would do.
“But you can guess.”
“I do not want to guess.” She made that motion again, lifting her shoulder. “Raffan can be—unpredictable.”
“And the others?”
“They are not a concern.” She tilted her head and her mouth twitched. “Not all elves hate humans.”
Which was part of the problem.
Venick felt full of something he couldn’t explain, some unknown emotion that wavered between pleasure and pain. He pushed the feeling away, watched his footing instead. His injury ached, a low throb that ran up his calf into his knee. His leg felt clumsy, not his own. It didn’t help that they were well off the main trail, following landmarks Venick could neither recognize nor understand.
