“Everyone likes me.”
“Is there really no other way?”
“No.” Dourin rattled the ice in his glass, a grim parody of a toast. “I am afraid not.”
???
Venick found Ellina in the stables with a currycomb in hand, brushing dirt out from under the bottom of Eywen’s saddle pad. Gently nudging into her way, he took over the task, working the brush through the wool as he told her what he’d learned in agitated tones.
Ellina looked thoughtful. “Dourin is right.”
Venick shook out the comb. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“You are notleavingme.”
“It’s just…” He paused. “What you’re about to do…it’ll change you. More than I think you realize.”
Ellina watched him knuckle the comb. “You are talking about your father.”
“I ended his life,” Venick said. “I killed my own father, and even though he betrayed me, betrayed Miria, and I hated him for it, I’ve had to live with that ever since. I’ve—” Venick dropped his gaze.
“Venick. Talk to me.”
“I hear him,” Venick admitted, at last giving name to the suspicion that had been chipping away at his own conviction ever since facing the Dark Army in the woods outside of Hurendue. “I hear his voice. In my head. He speaks to me.”
Ellina looked uncertain. “Your father speaks to you?”
He knew it sounded crazy.
She spoke gently. “Are you sure the voice is not your own, and that you are not imagining that it is?”
“I’m not imagining it.”
Ellina took the currycomb from Venick’s grip and set it aside, then squeezed his hands. “I know you fear this will haunt me. And maybe you are right, maybe it will. But I have to do it anyway.”
“You’re not worried?” Venick asked. “You’re not scared?”
“I am both of those things.“I am both of those things. But I know better who I am now. And,” she added with a smile, “I have you.”
THIRTY-THREE
Low clouds blew in from the west. The air, despite having warmed these past days, held a chill. Venick’s skin shivered as they finished readying Eywen to ride.
Ellina squinted at the sky. “It smells like snow.”
Venick lifted his own nose, but smelled only the scents of the stables, hay and leather and horse. “Not to me.” A pause. “Erol said something like that once. The sky was clear, but he was certain it would snow.”
“And did it?”
“No.”
Venick could only hope that the sky continued to hold. Ellina had enough obstacles ahead without the addition of a spring snowstorm. He imagined what would happen if a storm did blow in, how wind would sweep through Ellina’s hair, how she would carry it with her into the dark fortress of Revalti Manor. All the ways it might affect things.
He handed over Eywen’s reins and tried to be alright.
Ellina touched his arm. “The clouds do not worry me.”
“Come here.”
