An arrow struck him in the chest, cutting off his breath.
???
She followed the sound of Balid’s footfalls.
Ellina did not know where the other southerners had gone. She did not know where the Dark Army was. These thoughts should have registered in her awareness, should have alerted her to what she was not seeing, but Ellina was full of something tense and frightening. Her focus had narrowed to a pinprick.
A tumble of scree up ahead. Fabric shuffling against dry rock.
Ellina crept forward, her ears tuned to every noise, the shift of the breeze under stony arches, the smell of cool sand. She exhaled slowly, rounded a corner, and froze.
Balid was there, standing in the center of an opening with his eyes on her, but he was no longer alone.
Ellina was not surprised by this, exactly. She anticipated a fight—she was practically quivering with it. What didsurprise her was the identity of these two additional elves. One was a slim, chiseled beauty, his moon-white hair stark against the backdrop of rusty red sandstone.Raffan.
And beside him: Farah.
???
Venick stumbled backward from the force of the arrow. Looked down at himself.
A wooden shaft protruded from his chest armor. He could feel the arrowhead on the other side, nudging his ribcage without breaking the skin.
He gripped the arrow just beneath the fletching. Snapped the shaft. Observed the red currigon feathers for the count of one heartbeat before tossing the broken shaft aside.
Venick wasn’t afraid anymore. He usually wasn't in battle. Yet there was an uncomfortable awareness lingering around the edges of his mind. It told him to look up.
He did.
His soldiers had, somehow, reformed the line he’d wanted and were holding. The Dark Army was no longer squeezing them in, his men weren’t falling in droves. Except, Venick had the sense that theyhadsomehow fallen, that while he was concentrating on the arrow in his chest, he’d missed something vital.
The elf next to him turned her head. She was around Venick’s height, dressed in golden chainmail. A resistance member. Venick recognized her to be the soldier who’d been felled by an arrow at the start of the battle. That arrow was still firmly lodged in one eye socket, deep enough to spear her brain.
The other eye was open, and looking at him.
???
“I admit,” Farah said to Ellina. “I am disappointed.”
Ellina’s hand tightened on her bow as her sister stepped forward. Farah looked as she always had: those proud golden eyes, the smirking mouth, her ears glinting with the fifty rings that signified her rank as queen. To one side, Balid stood hunched, crow-like. To the other, Raffan was expressionless, holding the reins of two massive black stallions.
Farah continued. “I had thought your evasion skills better than—”
Ellina let her arrow fly.
It should have been a clean hit. The arrow was balanced. The shot was wide open. Yet at the final second, a gust of wind interrupted the arrow’s arc, knocking it away from Farah and off course. Ellina’s eyes snapped to Balid’s raised hands.
Conjuring.
Farah appeared momentarily stunned. Her lip curled. When she spoke next, her voice held none of its former amusement. “I do not know why I ever thought I could win you over. You were poisoned from the start. If your mindless sense of morality was not enough, your sympathy forthemshould have been my clue.” Farah prowled a half circle, her boots releasing dust with every step. “You had the chance to rule by my side. We could have conquered the world together. But you threw it all away, and for what?Humans,the most pathetic of species.” She spit out the word like a curse. “You and our mother had that in common, it seems. And she is dead now, isn’t she?”
Ellina’s face flamed.Only because you killed her.
Farah’s anger vanished. The change was immediate, startling. There was an unfamiliar twist to her smile, which widened at the sight of Ellina’s pain. “Have I upset you? Well, I do understand. Rishiana doted on you, even after you trotted off to join the legion. She doted on Miria, too, despite how oddshe always was.” Farah flipped again, darkening. Her words were like claws on stone. “But never me. Never the daughter meant to rule, the one who actually knew what to do with such power.”
Ellina did not like the hazy sheen to her sister’s eye. She did not like the quick switches in mood or the strange tilt to her smile. There was something…off about Farah.
And she misremembered. It was true that Queen Rishiana had pushed Miria to the throne. It was true that after Miria disappeared, she denied Farah that same right. But Rishiana had never favored Miria, who resisted anything to do with elven customs, and she had certainly never favored Ellina, who defied her wishes by joining the legion. Their mother had been a levelheaded, albeit cold, arbitrator. Her decisions were always reasonable.
