She stopped herself. Emptied her expression again in the next instant, then gave Venick a glance he recognized but could not interpret. “Very well.”
An elf reached for Venick’s wrist and grabbed the manacle. Venick didn’t pull away. Didn’t grimace at the pain, either, where his skin was rubbed raw. A key was produced. It clicked into the lock. The chains fell to the floor.
Venick looked at the elves’ weapons and thought—the thought impulsive, absurd—about making a run for it. He almost laughed at his own stupidity.Thatscenario ended only one way: with a sword through his back and him dying on the floor. He loosened his shoulders instead and allowed his hands to be rebound, then followed the elves as they led him out.
The walk back through the tunnels seemed shorter than the descent, and soon they emerged into open night air. The dark velvet sky spanned wide. The city lights twinkled, and it seemed to Venick that Evov had become a reflection of the stars. They were guided through narrow alleys and cool, damp tunnels cut into the mountain, staying mostly on the edge of the city. Venick found himself looking up again and again at the jigsaw of buildings and bridges scattered in the rock overhead. Doors and windows gaped down at him, mostly dark, a few lit with lamplight. There was no glass. There were hardly any curtains, either, as if the elves didn’t fear what might come through those windows. As if they had nothing to fear.
And they didn’t, Venick reminded himself. Evov was a hidden city. The cityitselfwas a gatekeeper.
Let you in, didn’t it?
Venick did not quite understand the magic that ruled this city, but he did know that if Evov wanted to remain hidden, he wouldn’t have found her. That the city had appeared for him could only mean that shedidwant to be found. Before, he had thought the elves would value this. That to them, the city’s good opinion would hold meaning.
How painfully naive of him.
The air warmed as they walked, the night’s chill edging into the sticky balm of morning. Daylight would come soon. Venick imagined how the sky would brighten with it. He focused on this rather than the four elves who guided him, Ellina trailing close behind. She had grown quiet, eyes down, her fingers tracing a pattern on her sword’s pommel. Thinking.
About what, I’m sure you know.
Hell. His impending death? His revelations about her sister? Or was it the secrets they shared?
Venick had replayed those secrets over and over in his mind. Their fight with the southern conjurors. The shaft of Ellina’s arrow sunk deep into an elf’s neck. After, how Venick had demanded answers, demanded to understand. The way Ellina looked right before he kissed her.
Those secrets must still be safe, or else Ellina would not be walking free. Venick knew this, yet was not comforted. He remembered the way Farah had peered at him in the dungeons, the way an idea seemed to gather behind her eyes.Perhaps Ellinadoeshave some explaining to do.
They rounded a bend and the palace came into view. Venick had not been able to see it before, not from the belly of the city, but now he could see the castle in its entirety, appearing as if risen from the fog. It was massive, a claw reaching out of a black canyon. Venick peered into that void, blinking away the sudden vertigo. “Reeking gods.”
“I would not say that here,” the guard beside him warned. “Elves do not believe in gods.”
“I’m not an elf.”
The guard’s lip curled, just slightly. “I know.”
There was a single bridge arching over the void that connected the castle to the rest of the city, which led them into the entrance hall. Despite the hour, the palace was brightly lit. Venick was immediately unbalanced by the arched ceilings, the spiraling mosaic that crowded every inch of the walls. Blues and greens and reds raced together, creating patterns that rippled between shining pieces of glass, each one fitting neatly into the others. Compared to the rigid stone exterior, the hall looked out of place.
Itwasout of place. It took a moment for Venick to remember that elves did not care for art.Theycertainly wouldn’t have designed the inlaid stonework, the bold colors sweeping across the walls. His mind caught on the thought, momentarily distracted.
But that thought was lost as the guards pushed him onward through a series of rooms that, unlike the entrance hall, were bare-walled and dark-stoned. Venick was reminded of the sewers in Kenath, the coarse chill of them. But then, this chill wasn’t just the walls, wasn’t just the air. It was a slimy fear, one that had been building slowly for days—hell,weeks—and one that Venick pushed awayagain.
It was true, what he’d told Ellina in the dungeons. It shouldn’t matter what happened to him now. She had his warning.Thatwas what mattered. That, and what she did with the knowledge. Which was stopping the southern uprising. Which was preventing their enemy from invading both her country and his. These were the things that counted, and nothing else.
Nothing? Really?
Venick glanced back at Ellina. Felt his chest ache with everything he now knew about her. Felt a little pain there, too, where that knowledge settled. It shouldn’t make a difference whether she’d saved him for him, or out of duty to the dead. It changed nothing.
Believe that.
She lifted her gaze to meet his eye, and he saw it again—that inexplicable concern.No, Venick wanted to tell her.You’ve done enough, he wanted to tell her. If Ellina was concerned, it could only be because she still felt she owed it to Lorana to protect him. But how could Venick explain? He wanted to tell Ellina that she had it wrong. He wanted to apologize for Lorana’s death, to explain how much he regretted it, how he’d give anything to undo it. He wanted to both beg Ellina’s forgiveness and then convince her that he didn’t deserve forgiveness, because if not for him Lorana would still be alive.
And maybe part of him wanted to accuse Ellina, too. He wanted to blame her for lying to him, for confusing him, for digging her fists into his shirt when he kissed her and allowing him to believe so many ridiculous, impossible things.
But before Venick had a chance to say anything, they reached a double-wide set of doors and halted. One of the guards unbound Venick’s wrists while another set both pale hands on the wood andpushed, using all his weight to reveal a long stateroom. Then they were guiding Venick forward and Venick, conflicted and resigned, allowed himself to be led through the doors.
THIRTY-TWO
Ellina felt as if she was seeing things clearly for the first time.
She had struggled so hard for clarity. Had sought the truth, and found it, and lost it. It slipped through her fingers, pooling in and aroundothertruths, the ones she had ignored and misread and forsaken. Like: elves will kill other elves. Like: humans and elves can become allies. Like: a royal princess, raised a soldier, beloved by her country, can break the law.
