Lin Lill wavered. “More?”
“He could blind her. It happened to me once. They push their shadows over you and the world just…goes dark.”
More looks exchanged.
“How did you get your vision back?” Branton asked.
“I killed the elf who blinded me.”
“See?” Lin Lill said, as if this proved her point. “You got out.”
“I gotlucky.”
“This is an opportunity.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“Ellina was trained for this.”
“It’s a suicide mission!”
Ellina set a hand to Venick’s shoulder.
He couldn’t look at her. He knew what he would see if he did. She wanted this. She had always wanted it, maybe now more than ever: to risk herself for a greater purpose. Maybe even to risk herself for herself alone.
Venick remembered, suddenly, a different forest. Summertime. A band of conjurors, a raging storm, shadows crawling down the trees. He remembered the elf Ellina had killed in that fight, how she’d broken her own laws to do it, how she’d done it forhim. Later, her lies. The way she’d risked capture and torture to work as a spy. The way she had been captured and tortured. How she was always doing exactly what she wanted, no matter the danger, no matter the consequences.
Ellina gave his shoulder a squeeze. She was trying to catch his eye, to express without words what this meant to her, that she was strong enough, that he had to trust her. But how could Venick possibly do that when trusting her meant this?
He saw it again: Ellina lying dead in the dirt, stripped of everything that made her.
He saw what would happen if he let her go.
And he saw, suddenly, what would happen if he didn’t.
Like a rock tumbling into a pond, his vision broke, rippled, and changed. Ellina had always been a prisoner, and not just in Evov. She’d been enslaved first to the legion, then to her bondmate Raffan, her mother, Farah, her own sense of duty. Her life had been nothing but a series of commands, her hands forever tied by limited choices.
He thought of her words written on the back of a letter.I want to be free.A promise, a story, and also simply itself. A life of freedom. Ellina now had a chance at that life, the opportunity to choose her own path. If Venick tried to stop her, wouldn’t that only make him another kind of cage?
She’s stronger than you think.
Venick knew that. But he could know that, couldn’t he, and still fear for her? She might be strong, but she wasn’t endless.
He turned to face her. She looked exactly as he’d known she would: like the first slice of sun on the horizon, brilliant and brimming with fire.
“It’s your choice,” he said.
A smile split her face. The sight cut into his heart. Venick couldn’t bear it.
He yanked his gaze away.
Lin Lill’s lips peeled back in a warrior’s grin. “We move at dawn.”
???
Night fell. The plan was polished and sent through the ranks. Lin Lill—agreeable again now that she’d gotten her way—asked for permission to begin assembling their soldiers. Venick granted the request.
He found Ellina sitting on a lichen-covered rock near the tree line, lacing up her boots. Her torso was bound with cloth. Venick could see the exposed plain of her stomach, the jut of her clavicles, the soft skin at the base of her neck.
