The sun broke clear the next morning, the stars blinking out one by one. A liralin bird arrowed through the trees, calling out high and sweet.
But Venick didn't see the sun. He didn't see the bird. He didn't see the elves—six again—who hovered over him, or the grim lines on Ellina's face.
He didn't see anything at all.
His condition had worsened. It should bother him that he could no longer feel his leg. That he couldn't feel anything but the dull throb of his heart and the heat of fever, like wildfire on his skin.
But Venick was not bothered.
Not as Ellina argued with Raffan about leaving him there to die. Not as she forced him to stand and walk—That is it, just over this ridge—to the caverns on the other side. Not as one day turned into two, into three, into many.
He mostly slept. He didn't dream. Not really, not in the usual way.
Sometimes, though, in the deepest quiet of the night, he would open his eyes to the dark cavern ceiling, and blink, and be somewhere else. Back on the shores of Irek, back where he belonged, the wind laughing across the wide ocean, gulls dipping low. He watched the waves swell, felt their salty spray. The water misted his face and dried on his skin, sticky. He closed his eyes and touched his tongue to his lips. Freedom had a taste, Venick thought. Like this, he thought.
He heard a voice. Female. Lorana? He saw her face then, the curve of her mouth as she smiled and begged him back to bed. Venick smiled too. He reached out to take her hand.
Do not die, human, she said. Don't you dare.
"I won't," he murmured. "I wouldn't."
But then, the smell of her. Warm, woody. Elven, certainly, but not Lorana. It couldn't be, could it? Because Lorana was…
His heart thumped hard as this dream melted into another.
Black night. Moonless.
Screams that clawed into his skin, angry shouts, a desperate plea.
He ran toward her voice, kicking the door open, ripping it right off its hinges. And there, Lorana in the corner, a broken vase clutched in her bloody fist. It was pitiful, that makeshift weapon against green glass swords and the trio of elves who wielded them.
Venick's heart was in his throat. He'd forgotten how to breathe.
Let her go.
An elf nocked an arrow.
No.
He pulled it tight.
Lorana. Lorana, look at me.
She did, and held his gaze for every moment after. As Venick reached for his sword. As the elf released his arrow. As it pierced her heart and the life raced out of her, that quick. Gone.
Gone, or dead?
Say it Venick. Go on.
Dead.
Venick had killed men before. Men were soft, slow. A sword to the gut, the throat. He knew the way it felt to press steel into a man, to feel the resistance and then the give, to see the warm gush of blood.
Killing elves was not like killing men.
They were faster. Stronger. Well-trained and honed for the purpose. Their green glass weapons were light as air and held a wicked edge. But elves, like men, were afraid to die, and in that moment Venick was not.
He killed the three elves with frightening ease. Then he went home and killed his father.
✽✽✽
It was the rain that woke him.
He heard the first light drops across the ground, the soft patter that grew into a steady hiss. There was no thunder—it was too late in the season for it —but the rain was like thunder as it echoed through the cave.
The cave. Venick blinked and pushed himself up. He blinked again, this time to clear his head from the last of the dream.
Nightmare, you mean.
Memory, he meant. He had fought three long years to keep those memories away. He fought again now as he took a quick survey of his surroundings. There was a tiny fire that couldn't possibly be for cooking or heat, but maybe for light to illuminate the dark cavern, which was small and empty save for him. And Ellina.
She sat with her back against the wall opposite him. Her shoulders were bare, her armor propped on a nearby stone. She looked different without it. Smaller, somehow. Less predatory. Her hair, too, gave this impression. It was dark, almost black, which was different than the usual moon-white of most elves. Her face, though, was classically elven: high cheekbones and golden eyes that narrowed, now, as she caught him staring.
He cleared his throat. Didn't say I'm alive. Wasn't sure that he was. He sat up farther and tested his leg instead, rolling it this way and that, and was relieved to see that the swelling had gone down. He tested the rest of himself, too. He flexed his hands, felt along his jaw and ribs and found, with a blink of surprise, that his knife had been returned to his belt.
"I cannot have you completely helpless," Ellina said. Her lip pulled back in what might have been a smile, and was that—humor? Gods.
"You could have let me die."
"Could have."
"But you didn't."
"No." Amused. "Is that what you want? To die?"
Had she asked him that earlier, he would have said no. And now?
No, gods, no. It was the dream that made him hesitate.
Venick swallowed hard and forced himself to say it aloud. "I want to live."
"You have been sick," Ellina said. "You still are."
"I am better."
"Better, but not well. You would be were we in Evov and I had proper supplies. But." She didn't shrug. That was too human.
"You are eondghi. A healer," he said, and made sure to fumble the word.
"It is pronounced eh-nod-gee. And no, I am not. I am joiujon. A soldier."
Which meant whatever she'd done to his foot, she'd learned from the legion. Venick glanced at her armor—light, leather—and then at her face. She was young, he thought, for an elven soldier.
"And the others?"
"Also joiujon. Say it back to me." He did. "They are part of my troop."
"And where are they now?"
"Ahead. We will have to catch up."
Ah. Well. That was unlikely, given the speed at which elves traveled and the state of his foot. Venick knew this, and she certainly did, and so: "That's not your true plan. Catching up."
"Oh?"
"You're glad to stay back. You have something else in mind."
"Like keeping you alive?" There was no humor in her voice now. Just that steady-eyed stare, the slight lift of her chin. Venick looked away. Down at his hands, which were empty, then out into the rain.
Thank you, Venick. That so hard to say?
Yes, it was. She'd saved his life—what was it? Twice? Three times?
Elves didn't deal in life prices, but there was no doubting Venick's belonged to her anyway. And yet, Venick wasn't sure what to feel. Grateful. Think of that?
Only grateful didn't explain the unease that clamped his heart, or the suspicion. The journey from here to Tarrith-Mour would take a fortnight, maybe less. It was not enough time to learn a language, and certainly not elvish. He should know. He'd done it once already. Theirs was a language built not just on words but on intent. Words meant themselves and also their opposites, questions could be commands. The language was frustrating and confusing and poetic, gods help him.
Venick always thought that the only way anyone said what they meant in elvish was because lying was impossible. He thought of his own lies.
They saved your life.
Maybe. Maybe just prolonged it. Elves weren't stupid. Ellina would have already rummaged through his meager belongings—threadbare pack, flint, an empty flask—and guessed that he was not truly a courier for the queen.
That he was not a spy, either, as she had suspected. It was true that humans sometimes became involved in elven affairs, but not lone humans, unarmed and half-starved and looking more lost than anything. And yet, instead of leaving him to die Ellina had stayed.
He wondered what reason she would give for that, if asked in her language and not his.
"We have camped here too long," Ellina said. "It is not safe anymore. We will need to move."
"Soon?"
Her eyes slid sidelong out the cavern's mouth. "Tonight."
"Ah."
"I would rather have waited until morning, but our position has been noted."
"And not by wolves, I assume."
"Can you walk?"
No. "Yes."
"There is a trail not far from here. It leads to Kenath."
He knew of it, a border town on the edge of the elflands and the mainlands. "What's in Kenath?"
"Horses. Food. A place to sleep."
"And it's safe?"
"For you it will be." Which meant that for her it wouldn't be. Venick wondered how much to ask. He filtered through a dozen questions before settling on the simplest.
"Who wishes you harm?"
And there again, that not-quite-a-smile. "No one you need to worry about."
"If we're traveling together, I should know."
"No. I will handle any threats. You focus on keeping yourself alive."
Venick dropped his gaze back to the fire: small, hot. Like his shame. And when had he become so helpless, anyway? Venick wasn't used to being helpless. He wasn't used to being indebted. A life's price. It didn't matter that Ellina might kill him yet. By the laws of man, that was her choice to make.
So be thankful she wants you alive.
Right. Thankful, that was the word. Be thankful she knew how to mend a foot, well enough that he wouldn't lose it. Be thankful for a trail and a nearby city where he could resupply, maybe find a weapon. A real weapon.
A sword, preferably, or an axe.
Then what?
Venick imagined—the image quick, shining—that the clansmen would notice his absence. That they would come looking for him. But the thought was so absurd, so impossibly stupid that he hated himself for even considering it. There was no one west of the border to question his disappearance. No one to come after him, no hope of help. He was an outlaw, and unless he could offer his mother a worthy redemption sacrifice, he had no home or family, either.
Maybe he was no better than the bear after all.
He glanced again at Ellina. Elves didn't trust humans, wouldn't trust anything Venick said about their queen or their war unless he spoke in elvish. She'd agreed to teach him, to let him live in exchange for the information he claimed to have. It was a delicate bargain. Unexpected, unstable—and unlikely to end well for Venick, unless he found a way to escape.
And yet, beneath it all there was something else. A small feeling. She'd saved him, cared for him, no matter what her reasons. Venick had forgotten what that was like. It was warm, unfurling under his breastbone.
He looked at Ellina and felt his heart sidestep their bargain and his lies. It beat an unsteady rhythm as he gazed at her face, the shadow of her neck, the smooth skin of her shoulders.
She met his eye. Something in his expression changed hers.
Venick blinked. He was thinking—he didn't know what he was thinking.
He inhaled a deep breath, held it between his teeth. He forced his mind back to the task ahead, to their destination. Kenath. The city was a half-day's walk to the north. Not an easy feat on an injured foot, but he could make it.
And then?
His gaze drifted to Ellina's weapons. He was lucky to have made it this far. If he wanted to survive, he'd have to escape, plain and simple. It was his only option.