She gave a silent cry as she burst forward, chopping at the back of Artis’ leg to sever the hamstring. He went down crookedly, unable to catch himself.
Balid seemed thrown by Ellina’s sudden attack. As she swept forward, he clapped his hands together, the start of another conjuring, but Ellina was faster and would reach Balid before he managed to call forth another corpse.
He knew it. As Ellina drew back her dagger, Balid’s gaze sharpened. He pulled his knife out of his sleeve: short, plain, no longer than his longest finger. Ellina curled to dodge the blade, ramming her green glass through his belly. Her weapon went in cleanly.
His did, too.
His knife caught her thigh. Ellina did not feel the wound, at first. She leaned into her dagger, needing to watch Balid die, to see it.She felt a heady surge of energy as his eyes bulged, his lungs wheezing a final breath. Balid collapsed sideways, and as he did, his knife in her thigh pulled free. There was a rush of wet pain. Her hand went automatically to the wound.
She sucked in a breath, and screamed.
TWENTY-FIVE
Venick heard a scream in the distance. He knew that voice. Heard in, sometimes, in his dreams.
And yet, it couldn’t be.
Could it?
He began treading against the river’s current, turning in one direction, then the other. Smoke. The air like a black lung. Fire: a bright orange mouth to swallow the Dark Army whole. Along the shore, enemy elves attempted to escape the flames. Some jumped into the water. This, too, like a mouth. Their heads were quickly swallowed by the tide.
Venick saw this as if someone else was seeing it. Cool water blanketed him on all sides. The river’s surface reflected the colors of war, red and yellow, dazzling orange. Any Dark Army soldiers who were not trapped by the fire thundered back up the road. A retreat. Venick hadn’t heard the call for one, but then, his mind was still echoing with that earlier scream…
He reached a wet hand to touch his brow. His vision was blocked by two bright spots. He lowered the hand, realizing that if he had a head injury, he’d likely imagined the voice. It hadn’t been real.
A snuffed feeling, like a candle. The drop into disappointment.
He turned away from the brightness of the fire, which had begun to irritate his eyes. He didn’t want to leave the water. It was peaceful there, the current gentling now that the rain had stopped, a basket of silence among the rage. Yet he’d begun to feel dizzy, and if he was going to black out again, this was the last place he should do it.
He put all of his energy into reaching the opposite shore.
Muddy bank. The smell of sweat and grime. Human hands reached down to haul Venick out of the water, then tightened to steady him on his feet. He swayed, blinking into the concerned faces of strangers who weren’t entirely strangers, becausetheyknewhim.Their clothing was wet. Their skin was streaked with blood and dirt. They were looking at him in a way that was familiar to Venick, but only because he remembered once looking at others in this way: generals in the lowland army, mainly, or heroes from his regiment. Their eyes, as his had been, were lit with awe.
And then, again. That voice.
“Venick.”
He saw Ellina stumbling out of the river and up the bank. Her armor shed water. Her face was a cloak of soot, her eyes rimmed in white, as if she wore a mask. She drew a wet hand down her brow, and the image smeared, leaving a dirty imprint across her nose and mouth.
Her mouth. Those lips, which had spoken his name.
But…she’d spoken his name?
Ellina moved towards him, picking up speed. She spoke again, like a sob. “Venick.”
He caught her to his chest, and though the impact sent a spike of pain through his skull, he held on tight. That scream. Her words. Could…could Ellina speak?
“Your voice.” His pulse pounded in his temples. He drew back a little, hands trembling, hardly daring to believe it.“You won it back?”
She nodded.
“Say it.”
“I killed Balid.” She wasn’t smiling. He sensed this inside her: a savage kind of energy. “I won back my voice.” Her expression shifted. She pulled out of his arms, as if seeing him more fully. “You are hurt.”
A gift. It was a gift, to hear the concern in her voice, to watch her lips move and make sound. Even as Ellina began shoving up his sleeves, feeling along his ribs, seeking the injury, Venick couldn’t help his smile, or the buoyant feeling that started in his stomach and worked its way down to his toes. “I do not see a wound,” she said, fingers flying. “Where—?” She stilled. Her eyes jumped to his. “Your head.”
He wanted to tell her it was nothing. He wanted to reach up and rub away the line between her brows, to make her recount the story of how she’d killed Balid and won back her voice. Yet Venick suddenly wasn’t sure that hecouldreach up. His arms felt weighted with rocks. His eyes did, too. They began to droop.
