Venick thought of the black-haired elf, his coy replies.We are not coming for the mainlands. At least—not yet.
What would become of Irek if the south attacked the north, and the elven crown fell, and the southerners turned their attention to the mainlands? If Venick journeyed to Evov and warned the queen of the coming danger, if he had his part in helping to stop the southern army—wasthisa great enough act to absolve him of his crimes? Was this the redemption sacrifice he had been looking for? Or would his mother think him a traitor for aiding the elves at all?
He wondered, with a grim shake of his head, if the answer would change his decision either way.
He went north.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Ellina gazed up at her city.
Evov looked different than she remembered. Wider, higher.Bigger. She and her troop had not been gone long, but even so, Ellina felt as if she had forgotten Evov’s grandeur, its immensity. She could see the buildings forged into the mountainside, the gaping windows and glittering stone. Could see elves walking along narrow streets high above, switchbacks carved into the rock. Could almost feel what it was to be up there with them: cool air on her skin, dusty path under her feet, a view that stretched for leagues.
Her troopmates were eager to be back. As they moved into the foothills and approached the city, Ellina saw their keen eyes, sensed their excitement. When they reached the wide archway that marked the city’s entrance, they broke formation and pushed ahead. Dourin did, too. He brushed her shoulder as he passed, eyes soft and almond-round. “Home,” he said. He walked on.
Ellina did not rush forward with the others. She hung back, her eyes again drifting upwards. A breeze tickled her cheek. The sun was a perfect orb behind a thin film of clouds.
Raffan’s steps were almost silent as he approached. He stopped beside her. After a beat, Ellina turned to face him.
Raffan was handsome. Anyone would say so. He had long bones, an elegant face, lithe body. But he was too often angry, and the residue of old anger clung to him like a cloak. Ellina could see faint traces of it in the lines of his face, the muscle in his jaw.
Yet underneath, Ellina could almost catch a glimpse of the old Raffan, the one she had known as a young soldier. The one who taught her how to hold a sword, who offered to dry her armor after a hard rain, who took her side in every fight.
But that had been before Raffan became her commander. Before they were forced into a bonding neither of them wanted. Before Raffan turned cruel, and she pushed him to be cruel. They both knew why she did it. Each time Raffan punished her, it wedged the stake deeper between them, banishing the idea that their bonding would ever work, even though itmustwork.
Bondmates were to remain paired until an elven child was produced. After the hundred childless years when Queen Rishiana was most worried about the future of their race and began commanding new laws to protect them, she instated this condition because she believed it would encourage elves to act quickly, and she was right. In the years since, their elven race had regained much of its former strength. But not all elves were so easily commanded. After Rishiana’s decree, some northerners did not take kindly to the idea of forced bondings. They resisted the queen’s demands. Some spoke of revolt. And so Rishiana did what no one thought she would: she bondmated her youngest daughter.
Ellina should not have been bondmated at all, not unless something happened to both elder sisters and she inherited the throne. Rishiana knew this. She used it. She bondmated Ellina to prove that no elf was above the law, that even the royal family was willing to make sacrifices. Ellina and Raffan were meant to be a symbol to others.
There was a dark sort of irony to that.
Raffan’s eyes lingered on Ellina now. He seemed to sense her thoughts; he had always been able to read her. Such was the way it was between elves who were close, or ever had been.
She and Raffan had been, once. Before.
“Why do you continue to fight me, Ellina?” he asked, voice soft. “Is this,” he touched light fingers to her back, “really what you want?”
“You know what I want.”
He did. To be freed from her duty to him. To be released from his command. Raffan did not have the power to give her either. Only the queen could do that.
Ellina had begged her mother not to bondmate her. It was rare for Ellina to question a direct order, but this went beyond mere loyalty to her country. To be…intimatewith Raffan in that way, to bear his child…she knew she could not do it. She remembered the dim chamber, her mother in white velvet, her in legion armor, pleading. Most soldiers were absolved of their duty to bondmate, but Ellina was given no such pardon.We must lead by example, daughter,her mother had said to her. The queen’s stare was cold.This is your duty. You will not ask me again.
“Rishiana would never agree to end our bonding,” Raffan said now. He squinted a little. When he spoke again, his voice changed. “You should not want her to end it.” A pause. A silence as wide and full as the sea. “You would not have asked it, before.”
Ellina’s mouth felt dry. The scabs on her back prickled, itchy.Before Venick, Raffan did not say. But it was what he meant.
“I have,” she insisted. “I did.”
Another pause. It would be easy. So easy for Raffan to switch to elvish, to ask the questions that seemed to linger in the air between them.
What are your feelings for the human?
Is he the reason you want to end our bonding?
What is the truth, Ellina?
Ellina fought to keep her face neutral, fought to keep her hand off her sword, certain that this was it, that he would question hernow. She was not ready. She had not had enough time to practice her elven lies, had no defense against an interrogation. She could be made to admit everything.
