???
When Ellina came, she bore a gift of her own.
She pulled the chain from her pocket. It shimmered, and its shimmering seemed to reach all the way to his core.
Lorana’s necklace.
“It belongs to you,” Ellina explained without quite meeting his eye.
Venick took the cool silver into his palm. He lifted the chain to thread it over his neck, then paused. He saw Ellina’s not-quite-gaze. Saw—orthoughthe saw—some feeling she was trying to hide.
He lowered his hands. He changed his mind and pocketed the necklace instead.
???
Venick was alone again. He’d stayed up to watch the setting sun. Its colors had dazzled him. He’d looked at the sky, and closed his eyes, and tried to name the feeling that claimed him.
He couldn’t. Not as he watched the sun’s final rays vanish behind black ridges. Not as darkness settled over the palace. Not as he’d doused each of his lanterns and watched his suite fade to black.
Not now, as he heard voices outside his open window.
He paused.
Slowly, on his toes, he returned to the window. He shifted so that his body was angled sideways across the sill. He peeked over to peer down.
The land below the palace was quiet. That single balcony beneath his window—the one he’d considered using to escape—was quiet, too. Empty.
Orwasit? Venick caught the flicker of a shadow on the balustrade. Another, just there, on the tiled floor. His pulse quickened, ears straining against the silence. If he had to name his earlier feeling, he would have said it felt like this: a dark resonance.
Then, movement. A huddled lump hidden beneath too-dark shadows. A second form moving to join the first.
Raffan and—Farah?
It was. Raffan said something low. His voice was smooth. The light was too dim to see, the balcony too far to hear, but Farah turned slightly. A slice of light from the adjoining room cut across her face. Venick could see her eyes, her thin lips. They formed a loose smile.
Odd, Venick thought. Unfitting.
Which made him think of the guard who’d escorted him out of the stateroom. His black and red pendant. That display of jewelry had also been odd. Also unfitting. Venick’s mind kept jumping back to it as if it were a wrinkle he wanted to rub smooth. His thoughts closed around its memory. Others, too. The assassin who’d been sent to kill Venick in secret. Raffan appearing in his room to deliver dark threats. And now this: Farah and Raffan standing close. The silk of Raffan’s voice. That smile.
Venick tucked it all away. He gathered these visions and closed them inside a box. He would take them out to examine. Later.
Suddenly, Raffan looked up.
Venick smoked away from the window. He held his breath. A long minute passed. When he looked back over the window’s ledge, the balcony was empty.
???
Morning came. Venick welcomed it. He hadn’t slept well. He had dreams that—though he forgot them instantly upon waking—left him feeling strange.
Ellina arrived earlier than usual. It surprised him. So did the robes she wore, which were different than her usual palace attire of tunic and trousers. The fabric was airy, trailing in gentle folds at her feet. The neckline dipped low.
Venick stared. He had wanted to tell her something. He couldn’t remember what it was.
“I am glad to see you up,” she said. “There is something I want to show you. Not a book.”
“Oh?”
“It is outside, on the palace grounds.”
