That’s when he noticed the trail.
???
The path was stamped lightly into the earth, so lightly that it was hardly a path at all.
Venick did not remember choosing to follow it. Hunger turned his mind bright and shiny, and his thoughts were not his own.
He had waking dreams. He dreamed that his mother was there. She patted his cheek and smiled. But then his mother became his father, and the pat turned into a slap. Venick drew his sword.You disgrace us, his father said.You will put a stop to this. Venick stabbed, and saw his father die again, until he realized it was not his father at the end of his sword but Lorana.Do not mourn me, she said, clutching the hilt where it pierced her belly, blood running from her mouth.Live your life, Venick. Be happy.
He licked his chapped lips and gazed into the pale sky. He was aware that he was losing his grip on reality. When he saw the mountains looming overhead, it took him a full minute to understand that they were real. He must have walked a long way for the mountains to be so close. But he did not remember this, either.
???
It occurred to Venick, in a rare moment of clarity, that he was going to die.
There was no food and little water. Even if he evaded starvation, he could hear the wanewolves sing in the distance at night, and if they caught his scent he would not be able to evadethem. Dourin’s sword was no comfort. He was too weak to defend himself with it.
He drew the sword anyway. He was deep in the mountains. The image of them reflected on the glass’s emerald surface.
???
The moon marked time, but Venick was no longer watching.
His hunger was gone now. His thirst was. He didn’t feel tired or cold or afraid. He didn’tfeel. He didn’t think much, either. His entire existence had narrowed into two feet moving him forward, step by step.
He wondered again, without being bothered by wondering, if he would die. He examined the idea, the wordsifanddielike the links in the chain around his neck. They could be pieced together or taken apart. They were themselves but also part of each other.
He touched that necklace. It belonged to an elf he had cared about once. But this reminded Venick of another elf whom he cared about, too.
Feeling flooded him at the thought of Ellina, a painful spark of light in a dark room. It slapped him to life. He became hungry and thirsty and tired and cold all at once. He remembered where he was, and where he was going, and why.
He no longer wondered whether he would die. As long as he could fight for her, he knew he wouldn’t.
It was with this promise in his mind that Evov came into view.
The city was not hidden. It was not even obscured. It opened to him the way a thought does, seemingly from nothing, magnificent and startling and in perfect view.
TWENTY-NINE
He was apprehended.
Venick expected this. He didn’t think he would be allowed to wander Evov’s streets unescorted, a lone human in a land of elves. He was surprised how long he did wander before he was finally spotted and ordered to halt. Four soldiers appeared above and below, peeling away from buildings to block his way. But no, not soldiers, not quite. They wore no armor. But they werearmed, and they had that look about them. Stiff lips. White knuckles. Elven-still, elven-quiet, but elven-predatory, too, and ready for a fight.
Venick kept his hands open and loose. He greeted the elves in their language, then told them his purpose. He had practiced what he would say. Had expected to say it over drawn weapons, the words shouted in a rush before they could shoot him dead, but the elves did not draw their weapons. They were too surprised, it seemed. It was his fluent elvish, maybe. Or maybe it was simply his presence, as if they had never seen a human in their city, had no template for how to react.
Venick grabbed that hesitation and used it, pushing his own ideas into the empty space. “I have been traveling through the southern forests,” he said. “I have a message for Ellina,” he said. “You must take me to her.”
They seemed to come to their senses then.
They disarmed him and bound his hands. Venick let them. He told himself this was the best way. He told himself he had nothing to fear. He spoke elvish. That was its own sort of armor, a weapon more valuable than Dourin’s sword. As long as they took him to Ellina, he could explain everything, explain itfully, and there would be no more need for threats or bound hands or violence. They would understand he was an ally. They would understand he could help.
Then they reached for his necklace.
Venick jerked back with such force that he was knocked off balance. He stumbled, then fell, nearly dragging another elf down with him.
“No,” he said, shoving down a sudden surge of nausea. “Not that. It’s mine.”
He should have known better than to fight. He should have understood the precariousness of his position. He would have, had he not just spent a fortnight on the tundra, had he not been exhausted and travel-worn and out of his mind with hunger. But Venick did not understand this. All he understood was the ugly fear in his gut, the horror at what he knew would happen next.
