Ellina swallowed. “I have done nothing wrong.”
Farah clicked her teeth, annoyed.
“We fought together to escape a threat,” Ellina insisted. “There is no law against it.”
“An elf died.”
“A southerner,” Ellina said, yet knew her mistake at once. Elven deaths—southernelven deaths—were exactly what the north aimed to stop. Honor suicides were the reason for this war. To defend a human who had killed an elf, even if it was to protect her…it was treasonous.
Though Farah’s expression did not change, Ellina sensed her sister’s disbelief. It was unlike elves to side with humans, but especially soldiers, andespeciallyEllina. She was a legionnaire first. Sworn to her country, ruthless in her devotion to its cause. She had been raised a soldier. She did not defend humans. Shekilledthem.
“What,” Farah asked slowly, “happened while you were in the south, exactly?”
A vision of Venick’s mouth on hers. The whistle of her arrow right before it pierced the southerner’s neck.
A memory of the vanished tent-city. A report from her troop that Tarrith-Mour was abandoned, too.
The coup in Kenath. The southern conjurors’ strength. The way those elves had hunted her, and how Venick, again and again, had come to her defense.
It changed her. She was changed, because of him.
“Well?” Farah prompted.
Ellina and Farah had never been close, not like she and Miria had been. Ellina felt that difference starkly. She wished Miria was there now. She wished she had someone she could talk to, someone who would understand.
But Miria was not there, so instead Ellina did as she had done in the forest. She steeled herself. Lifted her chin, made sure none of her feelings bled into her expression as she met Farah’s eye.
“I will give the queen my report tonight at dinner,” Ellina said. “You may hear what I have to say then.”
???
Ellina could no longer ignore the whispers.
They seemed louder here, contained between high stone walls with nowhere to escape. Courtiers and senators were braver than the citizens in the city, slower to avert their gazes when Ellina caught them staring. The echoes of their words—The princess, with a human, did you hear?—followed her as she walked through the palace to her bedroom suite and shut herself inside.
Her rooms brought no relief. At least, not until Ellina sent the servants away, insisting that she could draw her own bath, remove her own armor. They did not argue. Curtsied and scurried out instead, leaving Ellina alone at last.
Her suite looked as it always had: a linked series of rooms taller than they were wide, floors lavished with eastern rugs, the windows outfitted in rare glass. Ellina had insisted on that alteration after returning home from her first legion mission. That year, she had gained a newfound respect for eavesdroppers and assassins. The glass would not keep either out, not if they truly wanted in, but Ellina had her windows fitted with it anyway.
She went to the bathing room and shut the door behind her, then set the faucet and watched water pour from the pipes into the smooth basin. She unstrapped her weapons first, then peeled off her armor, which was caked in sweat and grime and two months’ worth of travel. Blood, too. She examined the rust-red stains in the light of the sinking sun. Some of it was hers. Most of it not. She lingered for a moment, her fingers curling into the leather, before setting the armor aside.
The bath was scalding. Ellina hissed as she lowered herself in, hands braced against the tub’s rim. The freshly healed wounds on her back felt fiery. Her whole body was stiff and sore. She held her breath and dipped all the way under.
She did not soak for long. Even here in the hidden city of Evov, even in the privacy of her own suite, bathing left her feeling vulnerable. She wanted armor. She wanted weapons. She scrubbed herself quickly, then dried and dressed in her own version of palace attire: slacks and a tunic with paneling underneath to provide light armor and to hold her weapons. Like Farah, Ellina refused to wear silken robes. Not with all those extra folds to trip over, and nowhere to house her knives.
The bathroom mirror had fogged. Ellina used a fist to wipe it clear, then caught sight of herself and wished she had not. There were bruised circles under her eyes, a fresh cut on her cheek. A new whip mark—raised and dark, not yet scarred—curled over her shoulder. And she looked thinner. Gaunt, even. Her eyebrows drew in as she examined herself.
But it was not just her eyebrows. Ellina saw that her mouth was turned down. Worry lines creased her forehead. Her eyes were too narrow, too keen.
Her face, she realized, was full of expression.
She screwed it all down. Forced her eyes and lips and brows back to nothing. Yet she could still see a hint ofsomething. Some feeling lurking just under the skin. Her own frustration, maybe. Her dismay.
Shewasdismayed. It was common knowledge that too much time spent around humans could wear away an elf’s mask, bringing forth new expressions and emotions. Ellina had seen it in Dourin, the little changes in his hands and mouth. She could see it in herself now, too.
She turned away from her reflection. No wonder elves were whispering. If they had not believed the rumors before, they would take one look at her now and know them to be true.
She would have to relearn how to mold her expression, and she would have to do it quickly. Ellina closed her eyes, wishingcalmat herself until some of the lingering tension eased out of her neck and shoulders. She counted her breaths, focusing on the sound, the slow in and out. She thought of the queen’s summons, then reminded herself that even if her mother did see her expression, even if shehadheard the rumors, she did not know everything. No one did. Not Raffan or Farah or even Dourin.
