Her hands went loose. She nearly dropped her daggers.
Balid’s chosen body—his articulated undead—was Artis.
???
Venick’s eyelids felt glued together. His ears rang. He pushed to his knees, vomited. Wiped his mouth, told himself to move, move,or else he’d burn alive.
He looked up at the sky and wondered if he hadn’t died already. It was raining fire. The belly of smoke glowed like the eye of a god.
As Venick struggled to make his legs work, he spotted the elf who had hit him. She had dropped her shield and was lying motionless on the ground. Flames caught the hem of her trousers. They worked up her legs, swallowing her midriff, her chest.
The sight was enough to spur Venick into motion. He rose to his feet. Limped to the water’s edge. Gasping, flames nipping at his heels, he sank into the safety of the river.
???
Ellina was frozen.
Artis looked in death much the way he had looked in life. A gentle face. Moon-white hair, round chin, a dimple in one cheek. The only differences now were his eyes, open but unseeing, and his side, which was stained dark with blood. Yet Ellina could look past all of that, and see her friend.
She wanted to sob for him. For herself. Easy, soft-spoken Artis. He, more than any of the others, would hate how his body was being used against her.
Artis—controlled by Balid—raised his sword and sprang forward. Ellina twisted sideways, aimed a kick at his knee. She caught him in the thigh instead, tipped his balance. It created the opening she needed to peel around his body and rush towards Balid, who slithered away like flames over oil.
Up close, Balid looked gaunt, his skin stretched tight across cheeks and chin, his eyes dark in their sockets. He bared his teeth, open-jawed, his severed tongue on display. Then he scrabbled farther up the bank, four quick steps while he worked his dark magic, hauling Artis upright and back between them.
Artis’ stance was different than it would have been had he been alive and in control of himself. Balid’s puppeteering was a poor replica for the realArtis, who was elegant, precise. He had always been the last to enter a fight and the first to leave it, never minding violence, but nor wishing for it needlessly. Nothing at all like corpse-Artis, who surged forward again, his sword hacking a careless shape.
Ellina’s eyes blurred as she parried and evaded. She did not want to fight Artis. She did not want to desecrate his body, to go for his limbs or his head. This was not like fighting any nameless corpse. This was her friend.
It occurred to Ellina that Balid had chosen Artis for this purpose, that he wanted to hurt and distract her enough that she might make mistakes, maybe even refuse to engage. And he was right—Ellina did not want to engage. It was wrong, the way Artis’ dead body jerked with silent commands, his head snapping a beat too late as his torso changed direction. The wound in his side leaked blood. Yet even knowing Balid’s intentions, even understanding how he must relish in Ellina’s misery, it was not enough to change her mind, which bristled at the idea of doing anything more than deflecting Artis’ attacks.
Artis sliced his sword towards her neck, backhanded now. Ellina brought her daggers together. Caught his blade and thrust it away.
It gets easier,said the memory of Artis’ voice,once you learn to accept what is.
His sword came in again.
To let go.
Spun and struck.
You have to let go.
The feeling, when it came, was familiar: that building swell of memories. Yet this time, the memories that pulled at Ellina’s attention were not of hardship, or suffering, but of Miria.
Ellina had been a fledgling the first time she heard her sister sing. Miria’s voice was light, agile, capable of switching quickly between notes without correction or delay. Miria never saw a reason to hide her singing, but Ellina saw a reason to hide how often she listened. She would follow her sister through the palace, crouching behind pillars or under tables, closing her eyes to absorb the vibration of Miria’s voice, which carried through the halls like bells.She sounds like a drowning cat,Farah had once scoffed, but they both knew it was untrue. Miria’s voice was beautiful.
The first time Ellina tested her own voice, she was alone in her room. Nervous, even only with herself. Afraid, too, of what would happen if she was discovered. Yet Miria’s singing had lit something within Ellina, and the urge to attempt this, to make something, something lovely and true for its own sake, had become impossible to ignore. That day in her bedroom, Ellina hummed her first low note, then another, her voice rising to meet the ceiling, then higher, up to the clouds and beyond.
She was too good. Her talent was almost cruel. Ellina’s voice was pure and easy: a gift she must never use.
She had hidden her ability, singing only on rare occasions when she could not manage to fight the impulse, and only when she was certain she would not be overheard. Still, Ellina used to spend long hours thinkingabout singing, and about what it would sound like for her and Miria to harmonize, how they would come together and break apart again, whose voice would take which refrain.
Ellina still imagined how their voices would sound, though imagining was all she would ever have—Miria and Ellina had never sung together, because Ellina never told Miria that she could sing.
One more regret, to sit with all the others. As Balid spread his fingers and Artis continued to batter Ellina with his blade, she saw her own life laid out before her, all the years she had spent hiding from what she was and what she wanted. Ellina did not want to hide anymore. She did not want to be the kind of elf who was afraid to face the truth, who became paralyzed by the difference between what should be and what was,who refused to step into the light and make herself known. Refusal had once felt like a choice, and thereby a kind of freedom, but a caged bird who chooses its perch is no less caged.
Artis was dead now. There was nothing more Ellina could do for him. But Ellina was still alive, with so much left to fight for.
