“You think my plan is rash.”
She looked at him. Up close, Venick could see her face better. Dark circles stamped her eyes. Her forehead was puffy with thin red scrapes. Her cheekbones were too prominent, the skin stretched taut, so pale as to appear almost blue.
Not normal,said a voice inside him.Not normal, that she should still look so ghostly.It had been a month since Ellina’s rescue. Wartime campaigns were hard, certainly, but they had yet to enter battle. Their supplies were full, their pace easy. Plenty of food. Enough time for sleep.
If she can.
He suspected she couldn’t. Ellina’s lingering frailty wasn’t the type to be solved with a few decent meals and a good night’s rest. Venick had seen the way she watched the sun set, like watching a life raft float out of reach. It was the way some soldiers looked, too, after facing the traumas of war.
She had suffered in Evov. She was suffering still.
“It’s a risk,” Venick admitted, “but killing conjurors isn’t the only opportunity here. Ellina.” He faltered. “Balid is with them.”
Ellina’s hand went cold in his.
“I would rather have waited,” he continued. “Planned a more complete ambush. But I don’t think we’ll get another opportunity like this. If you want to stay behind—”
She shook her head once, firmly.I am not staying behind.
Venick tried to smile. “I didn’t think so.”
Her hand was still cupped beneath his. Without thinking too hard on it, he slid his palm up, gently gripped her wrist. She shivered, and Venick found that his mouth had gone oddly dry.
“I wonder,” he said, “what will you do if you meet Farah again?”
It wasn’t a question he’d really planned on asking. Yet like his hand sliding up her wrist, he didn’t think too hard on it. He allowed his mind to quiet, to open and scatter like spores. He let the breeze of the moment guide him.
A line appeared between Ellina’s brows as she considered.
“More to the point,” he continued, “what would you havemedo? Farah killed your mother. She started a war. But she’s the last of your living family. And I just…I know what it’s like to be without a family. To have no one. I can’t promise to spare your sister’s life, but if you think—”
Ellina pulled back. She seemed angry that he might even suggest this.No,her expression said.Farah is no longer family to me. She must not be spared.
“And Raffan?”
Slowly, Ellina shook her head.Not him, either.But she looked less certain.
“There’s something I never told you.” Venick closed his mouth. Dragged a breath through his nose. “Something that happened in Evov. Raffan gave me the key to your cell. He created a distraction to lure the guards away from us while we escaped across the ravine. He helped set you free.”
Ellina looked as if she’d been slapped.
“I’m not saying he deserves forgiveness.” Venick thought of Ellina’s scars and felt a throb of his old anger. “He doesn’t deserve it. But I wanted you to know.”
She looked back out the window. The wan light of the moon washed over her cheek and cradled her jaw, turning her neck to shadow. She had grown small again, and Venick wondered if he’d been wrong to tell her about Raffan. She had enough to worry about already. Too much. And it could be dangerous, unloading such a revelation on her when she needed a clear head for the fight ahead.
He was struck by a sudden compulsion to call off the ambush. He wanted to ask her to stay behind, let him and the others handle the conjurors. She shouldn’t be risking herself for this. She’d risked enough already.
Before, he’d named her a wraith, nameless, a dream. Insubstantial things. It wasn’t the first time he’d had the thought. Venick had worried about this ever since he’d pulled her from that prison. She just seemed soimpermanent. He feared that he’d wake one morning to discover her gone. She would be taken, she would leave. She would blow away on a breeze.
Venick knew what Dourin would say if he was there. He’d say that Ellina was a capable fighter.
Better than you are.
That he shouldn’t coddle her.
She can handle herself.
He’d probably laugh outright if he knew Venick wanted to leave her behind. But Dourin couldn’t see what Venick saw. He couldn’t see the razor edge of Ellina’s clavicle, the shadows in her face. He hadn’t been there on the tundra when Ellina had thrashed in her sleep, and he’d shaken her awake, and she’d sobbed into his chest. Nor, Venick thought, had Dourin heard the conjuror’s threats, all the things Farah would do to Ellina if she managed to catch her alive.
