Explanations fell away. Thoughts did. Now there was only this feeling: a soft dawning. Its light ran through him. If Venick could have thought anything, he might have reminded himself that he was leaving. That he couldn’t afford his feelings. That there were laws and a border meant to divide them.
But Venick wasn’t thinking.
He lowered his mouth to hers.
His whole body flushed as their lips met, heat spreading. The kiss was breathless and heady andimpossible. Impossible, the way her skin felt under his hands. Impossible, the way he heard her breath catch, the pulse of feeling. He pushed his hand into her hair and the kiss deepened, became something new. It was rich. He was, as he felt her mouth on his, tasting salt and rain and something sweeter, something undeniablyEllina.
He broke away briefly, breathing hard, then found her mouth again. The kiss became a begging thing, asking questions he refused to consider, casting words likefutureandloveinto his thoughts. But Venick couldn’t think those things. How could he, when he had known the law, and broken it, and paid for the consequences of that choice every moment of every day since? Venick could still see the terror in Lorana’s eyes, could feel in his hand the blade that wouldn’t save her. He remembered the fury that had clung to him, and how it had been after, when Lorana was dead and his father was dead and his world was burning.
As it would again.
He broke away.
Silence filled the space. Venick’s heart thumped too loudly. His mind, too, was loud. His thoughts seemed to have taken flight.
“Venick—”
“I know.” But he didn’t. He didn’t know. He gazed down at Ellina, her flushed cheeks, her swollen lips.
Horror filled him.
She must have seen his expression, or else understood the danger of their actions, because she took a step back, creating space. It wasn’t enough. Venick could still feel the ghost of that kiss as if it lived there between them. It loomed, haunting. Venick saw its demon shape.
Lorana had been a common elf. She held no titles, owned no wealth. Yet when Venick’s father turned her in for loving a human, the elves had come for her. They had killed her. What, then, would be the consequence for an elvenprincess?
Guilt swallowed him. What was hedoing?
“Ellina.” He dropped his hands. “I didn’t—”
“You do not have to say it.”
“Yes, I do. Dourin told me everything. I know who you are. I know the truth. You’re not just a northern solider—you’reroyalty. That’s why the southerners are after you. That’s why you’revaluable.” He spat out the word, hating the way it tasted. Hating all the things it meant. Venick closed his eyes, but behind closed lids he saw everything he feared: Ellina discovered, captured, forced to admit in elvish that she had killed an elf to save a human, and that human had kissed her, and she’d kissed him back. His self-loathing dipped to new levels. “You heard what they said.” He opened his eyes. “The southerners are uniting. They are gaining power. If they knew aboutthis…” He drew his hands between them, unable to continue.
Ellina went still. She stared at him. “What?”
“Gods, I never—”
“How do you know the southerners are uniting?”
“I heard them,” he replied. “Just now. I heard your conversation.”
“Venick.” He didn’t notice the anger that gathered in her face, the way her hand curled around her sword. He didn’t see his mistake. His obvious, frightful mistake.
But then he did notice. The quiet that was not remorse or fear, but something else. The way she gazed at him as if she didn’t know him, her whole body rigid: a weapon.
“Venick,” she said again. “Buthowdid you understand them? They were speaking in elvish.”
TWENTY
Ellina wanted to curl into the rain and let it wash her away.
Humans did not speak elvish.Thishuman did not. She heard the way he stumbled through their lessons. She watched the way he thinned in concentration, his eyes trained on her face as if he was memorizing the shape of the words, the shape of her mouth.
As if he was memorizing the shape ofher.
Ellina flinched. Feelings butted up inside her, each one vying for attention until she did not know what she was feeling, only that she hated it. She was an elven soldier. She had sworn her oaths early, earlier than most, and she had risen quickly. First a runner, then an emissary. And then she had traded all that in to do what she did now, what she had always been best at doing. To hunt, to spy. She excelled in the art of deceit. How to use it and recognize it. How to bend any story to fit her own. She lied. She was aliar. But now Venick had deceived her so absolutely, so completely that she was tempted to turn in her weapons and uniform and call it dishonor.
She ached as she replayed everything she had said, every conversation he had overheard. In the forest when she lied for him. In Kenath when she argued for him, admitted her trust in him. Later, when she confessed her truths. That confession. She had wanted to tell him about the ugly jolt of surprise when she found him in the forest. She had wanted to tell him about the hatred that had oozed inside her, but also the fear. The fear that she would let hatred rule her. That she would kill him and break all her promises. She wanted to explain how she had been determined not to know him, to learn nothing about him. But how she did begin to learn. How strange that had been to speak to him, to fight beside him, to see his loyalty and his kindness. How her hatred had slowly thawed. Or maybe it was frozen still, but frozen like snow so that it could be brushed away.
