Death Wind (Elven Alliance #3) - Tara Grayce Page 0,108

nothing less from you. You love too easily, but it is your strength.”

Farrendel was not sure what Weylind meant by that. How was loving too easily a strength instead of a weakness as he had believed? But he was too tired to puzzle it out.

Weylind picked up the stack of papers he had been studying. “I have the treaty here, if you should wish to read it.”

Farrendel lifted his hand, noticed how much his fingers were trembling, and dropped his arm back to the blankets. With the way his eyes were swimming in and out of focus, he would not be able to read it anyway. “I will read it later.”

Weylind set it aside, and Farrendel let his eyes finally fall closed. A part of him could not take it in. This war had started before he had been born. And he had been fighting it from the moment he was old enough. Before he was old enough, to be honest. After over a hundred years, would it end with a few pieces of paper and three signatures?

Could this really be the end? It seemed far too good to be true.

Farrendel was hollowed out, empty. The thought of having to fight yet another war threatened to break another piece inside him. Yet, he did not dare reach for Essie’s optimism either.

A cold breeze brushed his face. Footsteps scuffed across the tent. “How is he?”

Averett’s voice. Farrendel managed to turn his head, but he could not force his eyes to open. The numbing sensation of the human medicine was lulling him back into sleep.

Weylind’s hand on Farrendel’s shoulder was replaced with Averett’s heavier one. Averett squeezed his shoulder, then the chair creaked as Averett claimed the seat.

Farrendel normally would not like being so crowded while he slept. But, right then, knowing that his brothers—all of his brothers—were watching over him, made him feel safe. After two weeks in that dungeon, it was a feeling he had not been sure he would have again.

MELANTHA WOKE inside an empty shelter grown of branches and roots, its inside lit only by a single magical light near the ceiling. Her feet no longer ached. Her healing must have finished while she had been asleep.

How long had she been unconscious? Last thing she remembered doing was pouring all of her magic that she could grasp into Farrendel. She had exhausted herself. Between that and her body’s weakness, she had passed out.

Melantha pushed to her feet. Yet, the moment she moved, something tugged against her ankle.

She lifted the ragged ends of her dress and peered at her feet.

A root snaked from the floor and wrapped around her ankle.

She was still a prisoner, this time of her own people. Melantha sank to the floor, hugging her knees to her chest. After all the time captured by the trolls, hanging her hopes for rescue, she had forgotten that she was still a traitor in Tarenhiel. The rescue had never been for her. Only for Farrendel.

She had not even gained the redemption she had sought. She had broken her own feet, yet, in the end, that annoying human princess had been the one to rescue him.

Melantha groaned and rested her forehead on her knees. Her dislike of Princess Elspeth no longer had anything to do with her being a human. Well, not only that. It was mostly because she was too perky, too perfect, too sugary sweet. It was enough to make an elf’s teeth rot out just from spending too much time with her.

In short, Princess Elspeth was everything Melantha had never managed to be. Content, even in difficult circumstances. Compassionate and kind to everyone she met. Happy, instead of simmering with anger. It was infuriating.

Footsteps crunched, and her brother’s voice sounded outside. Several other voices answered him.

Guards. Her own brother was keeping her under guard.

Then again, she deserved it. She had been a traitor to her kingdom and betrayed her own brother to torture and death.

Was Farrendel all right? What if Melantha’s magic had not been enough to save him?

If Farrendel had died...would Weylind consider execution a fitting punishment, even for his own sister?

The canvas was pushed aside, and Weylind ducked through the opening, giving her a brief glimpse of the deep darkness of night. Was it the middle of the night? After being down in the dungeon for so long without the sun, her hours were mixed up.

He straightened, letting the canvas fall into place behind him, before he looked at her. His brown eyes were as