Yet Ellina thought of Farah sitting on their mother’s throne. She thought of Balid’s half-moon smile, and a shadow slipping across a ballroom floor, and a slit-throated corpse blazing towards her across a clearing. His body was as lithe as it had been in life. His sightless eyes were a horror, more horrible still because that elf was a southerner, and must have once been the corpse-bender’s friend.
Ellina did not throw the glass into the fire, but tucked it into her belongings.
FOURTEEN
She struggled to sleep.
As Ellina lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, she was careful not to count the number of hours she had been awake. Counting would do nothing but increase her anxiety over the rest she was missing, and that would only keep her awake longer. Rather, she thought about the nameless house servant who had prepared this room, which was one of many guest chambers in the baron’s estate. She imagined a young girl folding the quilted duvet into perfect fourths, smoothing the embroidered cotton with her hand. It was this same imaginary girl who would have seen to the bedside oil lamp, refilling the oil, threading the wick, touching a match to light it. The girl would have stepped back to admire her handiwork, satisfied that the room was sufficiently comfortable for any guest.
Ellina was not comfortable. Outside, sleet tapped the window. The walls smelled of turpentine, the floor like sand and burnt wax. Even the oil lamp was a bother. The flame flickered and danced, its shadow morphing on the wall, creating shapes. One shape, actually. A tall figure, two slim hands…
Ellina pressed a pillow to her face.
She was not unfamiliar with these kinds of hallucinations. Ellina had been a prisoner the first time she saw Venick enter her cell, felt his hand on her cheek, his breath on her face. She watched him do this a dozen times before she realized he could not possibly be real. Ellina learned to stop trusting these visions, so much so that when Venick really did arrive, she was certain it was not true.
Ellina did not know what was true.
After her meeting with Erol and Traegar, she had considered seeking out Venick in the city where he was briefing their soldiers. She wanted to finish what they had started in the hallway. To see ifthatwas true. Yet she remembered the look of regret he had given her before the ambush. Remembered similar looks in the ballroom, the attic, the estate grounds. Ellina’s confidence had wavered at those memories, and so rather than find Venick, she retreated to her temporary quarters for a bath and a change of clothes. Though it was only late afternoon, she slid into bed, watching the daylight fade from soft grey to deep blue. Then: nightfall.
The pillow over her face was cloistering, but rather than remove it, Ellina turned her head so that she could breathe better. She wished for sleep. If she could sleep, she would not have to think about everything that had gone wrong that day. That year. Over the course of her whole life.
In the elflands, there was an elf named the Secret Keeper. Ellina had been young the first time her eldest sister Miria took her to meet the Keeper, who lived a day’s ride from Evov. They had packed food for the journey and saddled their own horses rather than allow the stablehands to do it for them. To Ellina, it felt like the greatest adventure.
“When we arrive,” Miria said, “you must be prepared to give the Keeper one of your secrets. In return, she will give you a secret of hers.”
Ellina planned to tell the Secret Keeper that the palace’s resident doe had birthed a fawn. Yet when they reached the small village nestled in the foothills, and Ellina left Miria to wait outside while she entered the Secret Keeper’s small, thatched hut, she changed her mind.
“Well, youngling?” the Keeper had asked. Her eyes were lighter than was common, the palest of golds. “What secret have you come to share?”
Ellina leaned close, pitching her voice so low as to be almost inaudible. “I am worried…that Miria is not my sister.”
“Oh?” the Secret Keeper asked, and though Ellina was suddenly doused in concern that this was more of a confession than a secret, and that she would be scolded, the Keeper’s eyes twinkled. “What makes you say so?”
“She sings,” Ellina admitted in a miserable rush. “She likes music and painting. She wants to play games. And she smiles. Shelaughs.” Ellina clasped her hands together, terrified by the things she was saying, terrified of what they might mean. “People say that she acts like…like a human. But true elves do not act like humans. And if she is not an elf, she cannot be my sister.”
The Secret Keeper set a gentle hand to Ellina’s shoulder. Her skin was rough, wrinkled in the way of only the most ancient of their race.
“Thank you for your secret,” said the Keeper.
“Do you not…?” Ellina had faltered. “Do you not have an answer?”
“I am not a seer, only a Keeper. But now, it is time for me to give you a secret in return.”
Ellina had never told anyone about her visit to the Secret Keeper. She buried any memory of the encounter, ashamed by her confession, worried that it might somehow harm Miria. And there were other worries, too. Because Ellina had felt those same urges—to sing, to smile—yet saw how it implicated Miria, how it turned others against her, some even going so far as to question her worthiness for the throne. Ellina did not want Miria’s troubles to become her own, so she had hidden. Worn her elvenness like a cloak to conceal any differences. Even her decision to join the legion had been partly fueled by a desire to blend.
Miria had never tried to blend. It was Miria who embraced her differences, who wore her dark hair like a badge of honor, who was not constrained by boundaries, not in life and not in love. She was a peacemaker, a bridge-builder, a friend.
Ellina thought of Harmon, who had bandaged Ellina’s hand, then extended her own in friendship.
She thought of Traegar’s journey to find Dourin, the humility it would take to mend things between them.
Erol’s relationship with Rishiana. Traegar’s reunion with Erol. Venick’s reunion with his mother.
Ellina breathed in the pillow’s scent, then yanked it away.
Why them, but not her?
How much more courage would it take?
