“AndEllina,” Farah continued. “Why is it that when you assaulted her bondmate in elven lands, she took your punishment? Why is it that even now, when your crimes are obvious, she defends you?” Farah’s expression shone with sudden emotion, a lightning-quick flash of pride and greed and anger. “Tell us, human; are youinvolvedwith our elven princess?”
Everything went white. Snowy, a haze of disbelief settling softly. Venick could hear the audience’s appalled silence. Could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. “No.”
“Say it in elvish.”
But Venick couldn’t do what Farah was asking. “You said you didn’t believe the word of a human. You think I can lie in elvish.”
“I have changed my mind.”
“Farah.” That was Ellina’s voice. Venick spun to see her striding towards them. She had changed back into her legion armor, a sword at her hip, her bow slung across her back. Venick’s heart gave a sore thump at the sight of her.
He saw other things, too. Elves on all sides. Farah’s predator stance. Raffan descending from the gallery. Guards lining the walls, more guards than had been there before, more coming still.
Venick thought—suddenly, vividly—of the coup in Kenath. Keen eyes, rippling shadows, a hunch. He remembered the vanished tent-city, hunting for an army, finding it and racing here and not being believed.
The guards who had escorted him out of the dungeons. How he believed them to be soldiers because they seemed larger than most elves. Darker.
The assassin. There had been a moment. Right as Venick turned to meet that attack. He had missed it before, but he remembered it now; the assassin had pulled his own shadow around himself.
And Farah. Venick saw her again as she had been in the dungeons. He remembered how she’d studied him, her black silhouette, a halo of firelight behind her. Farah seemed ready to believe his elvishnow, yet he could still remember the way he’d given her his warning in that dark tunnel, the sting of her words when she claimed she did not believe him.
When shepretendednot to believe him.
The thought came haltingly. Venick paled. He could think of only one reason Farah would pretend not to believe a warning like that—if she knew about the southern army, and didn’t want others to know.
Venick realized, too late, what this was.
“Ellina.” She was halfway down the stateroom floor. Venick started towards her, but a band of guards materialized between them. They formed a circle around Venick. He tried to break through. Trapped. His nightmare. It was there, prickling under his skin. It washere, in the scene before him. He saw in his memory Lorana surrounded by enemy elves. His fight to reach her, too late, watching her die. His fight to reach Ellina now, his sword useless and forgotten on his hip, the horror of his nightmare come back to life. A band of nausea circled his throat. “Ellina,don’t.”
But she already had. It was too late.
FORTY-TWO
Ellina strode through the stateroom.
“Farah.” She spoke her sister’s name again. Listened to it echo between high stone walls. The silence that came after seemed to ring. It was a glass orb that held everything else she would say, every moment that was to come. Later, when Venick was gone and Dourin was gone and Ellina betrayed, she would imagine she held that orb in her palm and could undo everything that had gone so wrong. That she could turn back time, see the trap and avoid it.
The stateroom was full of elves. They crowded the gallery, lined the walls. All eyes were on her, a few hostile, a few anxious, all the rest shut down to blank-eyed nothing. Ellina lowered her voice. The room was pitched to carry. “What are you doing?”
“Holding a trial.” Farah’s voice was like Ellina’s. Calm, certain. But her gaze sparked in delight.
Ellina said, “I thought we agreed. For a trial, the queen must be present.”
“The queen has just returned. She is coming.”
“But she is nothere.”
Farah ignored that. “I was just wondering, what are the human’s feelings for you?”
It was only then that Ellina noticed justhowcrowded the room was, and mostly with Farah’s guard. Those elves seemed huge in their metal armor, some wearing full helms so that only their eyes were visible. A group of them formed a barricade around Venick who stood in the stateroom’s center, who had been trying—unsuccessfully—to break through to her.
“We have all heard the rumors,” Farah continued. “A human, following you through the elflands. Fighting for you.Defendingyou. What are his motives, I wonder?” Farah’s tone changed. “What areyours?”
Ellina’s eyes snapped back to her sister. “We have discussed this already. I thought I made myself clear.”
“It is illegal for elves and humans to fall in love.”
“He does not love me.”
