Death Wind (Elven Alliance #3) - Tara Grayce Page 0,12

keep their balance.

Once inside, she gave them a quick tour. The main room was nothing besides a small kitchen area of cupboards and a table with two chairs while the other side held various cushions on the floor for relaxing. The far side of the room had three doors. Two guest rooms and the room she had shared with Farrendel for all of two nights before they had left for Escarland.

She pointed Edmund to the far room, then Julien to the one in the middle, the room that had been hers for most of her three months here. “I think some of my things might still be in that room. I’ll fetch them in a little while.”

She didn’t wait to see his reaction. She retreated through the door to her and Farrendel’s room. Her knees wobbled as she climbed the staircase, crossed the porch, and entered the bedroom.

The bed beneath the window looked as if it had been grown of branches out of the wall, still piled with the mound of blankets Essie had hauled into the room since Farrendel liked to sleep with the window open no matter how chilly the night breeze. The clothing shelves were nearly bare of items, as she and Farrendel had taken most of their clothing with them to Escarland.

But more than missing clothing and personal items, this room felt empty. Even though Edmund and Julien were in the rooms a short walk away, Essie sank onto the bed, lonelier than she could remember being in her life.

This place didn’t feel right without Farrendel.

She curled onto her side. His pillow still had the minty smell of his shampoo.

Farrendel. How were either of them going to survive the weeks it was going to take to rescue him?

She reached for the heart bond deep inside her chest. It took a few moments of concentration before she felt it. That crackling sense of magic that held the impression of Farrendel.

He was still alive. She could tell that. There was a lingering sense of pain, though not sharp. Perhaps he was still asleep or unconscious. Yet, he’d been like that for hours now. Were the trolls keeping him sedated? Perhaps they were using the same ether that Mark Hadley and Lord Bletchly had used to capture Essie and Farrendel in Escarland. She couldn’t sense enough through the heart bond to say for sure.

Don’t give up, Farrendel. We’re coming.

MELANTHA CURLED in the corner of the frigid train car as it shook and shuddered down the tracks as if about to fly off and go careening down the mountainside toward a fiery crash at any moment. How did the trolls survive these train rides? Surely this was not safe.

But Prince Rharreth leaned against the wall in the center of the train car, arms crossed as if unperturbed by the rocking vibrations. He had been like that ever since they had hiked, or been hauled, across the border and deep inland until boarding this rickety excuse for a train. Rather than join his brother King Charvod in whatever the trolls considered a royal train car, Prince Rharreth had insisted on being locked in this windowless, heatless boxcar with the prisoners.

Farrendel lay on the far side of the train car from Melantha, bound with stone and seemingly still unconscious under the sedation of that human drug. Stone shackled him to the floor of the car, and Melantha was almost jealous. At least he was not in danger of rolling every time the car tipped dangerously.

As the train lurched around what Melantha could only guess was another precarious turn above a precipitous drop, she braced herself as best she could against the steel wall, her fingers burning with the icy chill. She clamped her jaws shut to stop a shriek. She might be a prisoner, but she still had her dignity. Barely.

The trolls had played her for a fool. A royal, naïve fool. The trolls never intended to uphold their end of the bargain. All those fine words about feeding their starving people had just been an act, a reason they had given her as they pretended to want peace, if only they were given the minor appeasement of revenge on Laesornysh.

They had never wanted peace. That dratted human princess Elspeth had been right all along. The trolls just wanted Farrendel out of the way before they started a war to crush Tarenhiel once and for all.

Melantha had been used. Again. Just like she had been years ago when Hatharal, her betrothed, had