And he remembered.
He had served as a soldier in the mainlands as all men did. As a lowlander, his homeland was under constant threat from warring territories, colonies from the grasslands or the highlands. All men of fighting age were expected to defend their home, and Venick—being the son of a famed military general—chiefly among them. As Venick gazed at this elven encampment, the memory came clearly. He had slept in these same quartered contingents, had worn that same hammered armor, had spent countless days doing just as these elves were doing now: polishing weapons, currying horses, loading supply wagons. Venick remembered the late nights, the thrumming energy before a battle, the way he would forget himself as dawn came and war cries bellowed and he sunk steel into the men who wanted to claim his home. After, how his body became like a rippling liquid, how his arm would ache from the weight of his sword. How grateful he had been for that, that his sword had made him strong.
Venick was seventeen the first time he went to battle. Lorana had hated it. She didn’t understand the human way of war. Elves warred too, certainly, but their battles were mostly bloodless.
Humans are brutal, she said to him one night, watching him buckle on his armor.
Humans are passionate, he told her.
Your fighting is endless.
We fight to protect those we love, and to keep what is ours.
If you must fight so hard for it, perhaps it was never meant to be yours.
It was common knowledge that elves did not kill each other, nor did they battle as humans did. Yet as Venick gazed at the elves working grinders, organizing horse tack, gathering crossbow quills and arrows, he knew that this was not merely a camp or a tent-city. It was an army.
Venick’s mind, which had been clouded by his own remorse, by his pain and confusion and the black memory of Ellina’s scars, cleared. Ellina had been right. The vanished cities of Muralwood and Tarrith-Mour were not odd coincidences. Those elves were going somewhere. They were cominghere.
Venick watched an elf drive a stake into the ground, then raise what could only be a sigil banner. The symbol was not one he knew: a black raven between twin flames. Venick gazed at that banner and understood, suddenly, what had unsettled him at the sight of the elf with the war hammer. That was a human weapon. Banners, too, were a human tradition. These elves looked—human.
And this army. Thisarmy. Venick had never seen anything like it, even in the mainlands. There were cannons. Enormous war horses. Contraptions that looked like battering rams on wheels. A black-haired elf moved to raise a second banner beside the first. It bore the image of a female elf wearing a crown. There was a commotion among the elves. Someone produced a torch. It was set to the banner. It caught. The cloth was quickly eaten by fire. The elves didn’t cheer—maybe that was too human—but they watched in silence, unified under the image of the northern queen burning.
Venick’s eyes darted from elf to elf, his suspicion plummeting into dismay. He had suspected, as Ellina did, that there was something more to the vanished cities and the southerner’s growing power, yet he had not quite expectedthis.
Maybe he should have. Everything he knew about the southerners hinted at deep-seated disquiet and brewing violence. Only, this army was not the ragtag band of rebels Raffan had described. Far from it.
Venick held his breath and watched and waited. The elves mingled. They spoke amongst themselves. Hand gestures were few between them. Expressions were even fewer. Damn if he could overhear conversations from this distance or glean anything from the few hand movements he did understand.Practice. Prepare. Obey.Nothing he could string together, nothing he could use.
Until the black-haired elf stooped to gather the scorched shreds of the banner and turned away from the camp. Until he walked towards Venick, presumably to dispose of the flag’s remains. His path brought him within paces of Venick’s hiding spot. The elf must have been distracted by thoughts of burning and killing. It would explain why he didn’t hear the slide of Venick’s step, didn’t sense the ambush until the gentle touch of green glass was suddenly at his ribs. The elf froze. He did not, thankfully, scream.
No, Venick thought. Definitely not human.
“I have questions,” Venick said in elvish. Low, so that his voice didn’t carry. “You will answer them.”
“Or what?”
Venick pressed the green glass harder. It sheared thinly into the elf’s black tunic. Unlike most of his comrades, this elf wore no armor and carried no weapons. A fatal oversight.
The elf turned his head slightly to survey his attacker. Narrow golden eyes widened in surprise. “A human?”
“I want to know who is leading you.” Venick moved his sword from the elf’s ribs to his neck. “I want to know what you are planning.”
The elf’s lip curled. “We are not coming for the mainlands, if that is what worries you. At least,” his curled lip became a wicked smile, “not yet.”
Venick growled. “And the north?”
“The northern queen strangles us. She has for years.”
“So you built an army.”
The elf straightened. “You should be pleased. Is war not what humans love?”
“We use war to protect ourselves.”
“As do we. We will protect ourselves from northern rule by taking back our independence. Then, we will protectourselves by taking theirs.” The elf was angry now. His words flew like sparks. “The northern queen thinks she commands us, but we are uniting, and when we do, we will show her better. We will spread our power north. Take control of the elflands. Make the queen pay the price for her oppression.”
The elf’s confession was startling. Distracting, even. It wasmadeto be, because if Venick was too busy reveling in the elf’s threats then he wouldn’t notice the flicker of black on the ground, the dark puddle forming there.
