But it couldn’t be. The thought was absurd, foolish in its impossibility. Elves didn’t sing. They didn’t make music. Theirs was a race of minds and weapons, not to be lured by the human pleasures of laughter and song and dance.
And yet, the music.
And yet, that voice.
Venick’s feet carried him towards the sound before he could think, before he could stop to consider whether this was some sort of trap, like conjuring, like the elven sirens from the stories of his childhood. But it wasn’t a trap. Because there was Ellina in the small clearing where they had made camp, her damp hair newly braided, head bent over her quiver examining arrows. She was singing quietly, the words lost under her breath.
Venick stared.
Her gaze lifted. She spotted him and fell silent.
“Don’t stop,” he said, stepping closer. She dropped her eyes back to her arrows. “You didn’t tell me you could sing.”
“Elves do not sing.”
“I hadn’t thought so, either.” But the words felt uncomfortable. Venick had the odd sensation that he’d spoken them before, the fuzzy memory of anger and desperation. He shifted, and the memory seemed to shift too, turning inside him, coming into view.
We elves do not kill our own.
I hadn’t thought so, either.
“I’d like to hear more,” Venick said, pushing this new moment into the place of that old one. “It helps, hearing your elvish. Maybe it would improve mine.”
“To listen to me sing?”
“Why not?”
“No.” She returned to her task, but her hands slowed. Her expression grew thoughtful. “A poem, maybe,” she said after a moment. “I can recite one. You can listen.”
“A poem.”
“Yes.”
Venick came to sit beside her. The earth was soft under his hands. His heart felt soft, too. Oddly light. Surprised by her offer, which was unexpected. Also unexpected: this new secret. He tried not to focus on what it meant that Ellina knew poetry when elves rarely did. He tried not to focus on what it meant that she might share such a thing with him. Instead he looked at her, the leather legion armor, long black hair, golden eyes. Quiet, in her movements now. Quiet, curious, as she looked back at him. The moment felt dipped in silver. A secret. A poem. An offer to share.
Venick smiled. “I would like that.”
But when she started to speak, Venick realized it was not a poem she recited. It was a story.
Aconfession.
“I have been thinking about the day we met,” she said in elvish. “My troop was not on border patrol, but it is every soldier’s duty to hunt humans who wander into our lands. I wonder if you think us cruel. Wearecruel. In the legion, we are taught to hate humans. Our commanders speak of your race as if you are monsters. It is what they want us to believe. It is easier if we believe it. Patrols will not hesitate to kill humans if they see them as beasts; beasts do not deserve pity.”
He should have cut her off then, should have said something to break the moment. Venick was filled with a glossy horror. She wouldn’t be telling him this if she knew he understood elvish, that he could translateevery word. That he spoke her language fluently. That he had loved to speak it, once.
But she didn’t know this. And as the words poured from her, he found himself helpless to stop them.
“I remember a time,” Ellina began. Her eyes were distant. Her thumb trailed a slow circle around the arrowhead in her hands. “We found a man in the elflands. He was old. I remember he was surprised to see us, but not frightened. As if he thought we were on his side of the border. He was lost. He made a mistake. We should have let him go.
“Raffan was not my commander then, but he had been put in charge of our troop. He gave the order. I was young. And Raffan—I thought he knew. I admired him. So I listened.”
Venick saw the man’s story in his mind, but he saw his own story, too. The bear, the rush of elves, the flash of Ellina’s arrow aimed at his heart. He heard Raffan’s words and imagined how the old man would have heard them as well. But that man would not have understood, not until it was too late.
“It felt—” Ellina let out a breath. She looked small, suddenly. Fragile in the low light. “It felt good to kill that human. I was serving my country. It was a task that needed doing, and I was proud to carry it out.
“I wanted to kill you when I saw you, too,” she admitted. She looked at him. Her eyes blazed. “I was angry. I wanted to kill you, and maybe I would have, if not—” She shook her head. Venick’s throat was dry. His ears roared. “But I did not. I could not. And then in Kenath I saw your fear for my safety. Your…protectiveness. Does that make me horrible? That I wanted your death, but you did not want mine? And I think—” She was stumbling through her thoughts. “I think I was wrong to want that. Our laws are wrong to demand it.” Her next words were quiet. “I wonder what else I have been wrong about.”
There was a long stretch of silence. Venick felt cold, a chill that cut deep. He knew he should say something. To comment on the sound of her elvish, maybe. To ask her to recite more. But Venick was gripped by the rawness of that confession, and it paralyzed him.
