Time had been a small mercy. There was hope that maybe Miria would come to accept her duty, would grow out of that childish laugh or her un-elven love for song. But now even time had been taken from her.
Then do not take the throne, Ellina had told her sister, full of brusque confidence she did not feel.Leave the elflands. Make a new life for yourself.And then, the words she would regret ever after.I will help you.Ellina touched two fingers to her sister’s hand. It meantloveandcomfortand something deeper that could not be put into words.
Miria, like Ellina, had dark hair and so could easily pass as a southerner. Ellina remembered leaning over the writing desk as she forged the southern summons, a diplomatic letter like so many Miria had received before. She remembered the smell of the ink and parchment, the way she had blown it lightly until dry. She remembered her sister packing for her escape, how they had hammered out the details late into the night.
On the day of Miria’s leaving, Ellina had set a palm to her sister’s cheek. It was the last time Ellina would ever see her. If this was to work, Miria had to disappear for good. It was not safe for them to write, not safe to visit. But Ellina was comforted by the thought that her sister would be free, and she would surely be happy.
I will keep your secret, sister, Ellina had said.I will tell no one.
Do you promise?
I promise.
Ellina had never spoken to anyone about Miria’s fate. Not as the north blamed the south for her disappearance. Not as the elflands mourned the loss of their young heir. Even as tensions between the two sides heightened, Ellina stayed silent. She had promised her sister in elvish that she would keep her secret, and by the power of their language, that promise could not be broken.
Sometimes, she regretted that too.
Ellina lifted her eyes into the night. She inhaled deeply and thought of her choices, her mistakes, a lifetime of lies. She lowered her gaze back to the wildings and wondered what Miria would choose for her, could she see her now.
She sheathed her weapon. She stepped out into the moonlight.
SEVENTEEN
It was Dourin who spotted the blood.
He gave Venick a glance that was different from the usual side-eyed glare. This look was full of meaning. Dourin motioned toward the ground as Venick walked over. “Here,” he said.
The blood was fresh. There was a long smear of it on the ground, black in the moonlight. Another a few paces away, then another, as if whatever had died took a long time doing it, had dragged itself across the ground, leaving an imprint and trail and then—nothing. The blood ended suddenly, a final patch of slick that went nowhere. Venick bent down to touch it. Thick, wet. The smell of it, like burnt metal. There was something he was supposed to glean from that smell. What was it? He tried to concentrate, tried tothink, but his head was full of visions. Ellina hurt. Ellina captured. Her blood on the ground, crusted on her clothes and face. Dried into her hair, smeared across her pearly skin. The visions were gruesome and haunting and—
Impossible. Because…
“This is not elven blood,” Venick said, sniffing again, gathering wits enough to remember what he ought to have known right away. He expected the lingering woody scent of elven blood but got a coppery tang instead. He looked at Dourin. “It doesn’t have the right smell.”
“And how would a human know what elven blood smells like?” But Dourin crouched beside Venick. He didn’t touch his finger to the blood, didn’t bring it to his nose. He simply inhaled, his eyes closing briefly before: “Hmm.” He straightened. “It is goat’s blood.”
“Goat’s blood.”
“Yes.”
“In the forest?”
“Nomadic elves herd them sometimes.”
“I thought elves didn’t eat meat.”
Dourin’s smile wasn’t a smile at all. His lips pulled back unkindly. “We do not.”
Venick opened his mouth to ask the obvious, but then he noticed it. A sudden draft on the breeze, a change in the air. Not so much a smell as a taste, a stickiness in his throat. That was, “Smoke,” he said. And then, “Fire.”
“I smell it too. This way.”
They cut a path through the underbrush in the direction of the fumes. Venick looked up into the canopy and saw the tree’s twisted fingers against the edge of morning. The sky was no longer inky black but bluish-grey, the stars a little less bright. They’d searched all night, then. But Venick didn’t feel tired. He felt urgent, an urgency that hummed in his veins as he spotted the fire’s light, then the clearing of trees and the cluster of elves within it.
Venick noticed the goat first. Its lifeless body lay beside the fire, cut open and still bleeding. Its legs and neck were twisted at odd angles. The skin had been peeled off its face, its eyes spooned out, ears cut off and missing. A group of elves mingled nearby, a mixture of dark and light hair, a mixture of male and female. Some were smeared with the goat’s blood, swaying back and forth, their eyes closed, arms lifted into the air.
A ritual, Venick realized, and—
The hell?and—
