didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to lose him. It would gut her.
But she also didn’t want to make her family grieve both her loss and Farrendel’s. And his family would need her to be there for them after all the losses they had already sustained.
But it wouldn’t come to that. It wouldn’t. Farrendel would pull through this. They would rescue him, and everything would be fine.
Except that Farrendel was already blocking her. Yet, Essie didn’t think he was dying. Surely she would sense if he was dying.
Was he trying to spare her the pain he was feeling? Was he already undergoing torture?
The little she had managed to eat churned in her stomach. She didn’t want to think about the torture he must be enduring. Here she sat eating a fine meal, safe in Ellonahshinel, while he was suffering enough pain to feel the need to keep it from her.
Essie pulled her shoulders straighter. “It won’t come to that. I’m sure of it. Farrendel will pull through this. We’ll get to him in time.”
She refused to doubt that. Would Farrendel feel it through the heart bond if doubt took hold and her hope wavered? For his sake, as much as for her own, she could not give up hope.
Leyleira nodded and made a small gesture to the others in the room. “With humans and elves working together as they have not done in centuries, I am certain this war will be nothing like the trolls expect.”
Essie glanced back at the others. Her brothers were still animatedly talking as the elves listened. Edmund caught her eye and gave her a subtle wink. Yes, they were doing their best to ingratiate themselves to the elves. Either that, or they were going to talk the elves to the brink of insanity. But if Essie hadn’t managed to do that yet, Julien and Edmund combined wouldn’t manage it.
She turned back to Leyleira. “Now about my original question...”
“Yes.” Leyleira’s smile was both soft but also a touch knowing, as if Essie’s impatient prompting was what she had been angling for all along. “With my Ellarin, I could sense impressions. I would know if he was thinking about me or sending thoughts my way, even if it was more a sense than actual words. No matter where he was, I could always feel him there.”
Essie sighed and rubbed at the woodgrain of the tabletop. That was pretty much what she felt, though hers was less a constant presence in her chest than what it sounded like the elves experienced. “I guess actual telepathy would have made things far too easy. I just wish I could talk to him.”
“Then do so. He may not be able to understand the words through the heart bond, but he will sense you are thinking about him. Maybe an impression of the words will carry through.” Leyleira’s smile faded once again. “Perhaps it is a hope he desperately needs.”
Essie nodded and gazed around the table once again. Farrendel, you would’ve loved to see this.
MELANTHA HUDDLED against the back of the cold, stone cell, pressing her hands over her ears. Tears filled her eyes, even as the stone pounded a headache behind her temples.
Shouts of pain echoed from somewhere down the dungeon’s passageway.
Farrendel. They were torturing Farrendel.
What had she expected when she had betrayed him to the trolls? She had been so angry for so long. It had been easy to direct that anger at him, to focus on how much better life would be once the scandal of his existence was wiped from her family’s life.
Yet, sitting here now, all those reasons were ripped away in the reality of what her betrayal meant and would cost. She had never truly wanted this.
Another scream of pain, then silence. Had Farrendel passed out? Had they killed him?
What had she done? How could she have done this? She pulled her knees to her chest, gasping at the force of the sobs that begged for release.
She must not cry. An elven princess did not indulge in such hysterics.
But that was her little brother being tortured. And she had been the one to put him there.
Boots tromped past her cell. She stifled her mouth against her folded arms, muffling her sobs. She could not allow these trolls to see or hear her emotions.
The footsteps faded down the passageway. The silence stretched for far too long.
Melantha pushed to her feet, approached the door, and peered through the bars. Torches provided weak light for the passageway, either