Death Wind (Elven Alliance #3) - Tara Grayce Page 0,28

side lined with dungeon cells just like hers with one cell at the far end. That was the one where she suspected Farrendel was being held. “Farrendel?”

She waited a long moment, but he did not answer her. Was he ignoring her? Or was he still unconscious? As the trolls had not carted a body past her door, he must be still alive.

Melantha sank to the ground by the door, her fists clenched. Her chest burned, and she longed to lash out and punch something. A door. A wall. One of the trolls who had been torturing Farrendel.

But an elven princess did not display that much emotion. Instead, she just simmered in constant, unrelenting anger with no way to release it.

The door into the dungeon grated. Melantha scrambled to her feet, peering from the window of her cell.

Prince Rharreth strode down the passageway once again. He halted outside her cell’s door. “Step away from the door.”

Melantha backed away from the door, clenching her fingers into fists. It would be so satisfying to spring at him and claw his eyes out. For one moment, she let herself indulge in such thoughts.

But only for a moment. Then she huffed a breath and wrapped her arms over her stomach, her shoulders hunched.

The door grated, and Prince Rharreth stepped inside. He carried a bowl in one hand and a knife in the other. He did not bother to close the door behind him. As much as Melantha wished she could dart past him and escape, it was impossible.

If only she could use her magic to attempt an escape. She felt the faint threads of her magic coursing through her. Her head ached from the stone, but she was not as cut off from her magic as Farrendel was.

Her magic was not crackling and destructive the way Farrendel’s was. Nor could she control plants the way Weylind and Jalissa could.

Melantha had healing magic. Long ago, when she had trained with the best healer in Estyra, she had taken an oath never to use that power to harm anyone. Healing magic, after all, could just as easily be turned to killing magic.

The elven oath was a magical one, and the stories said that any healer who broke their oath of healing to harm another would die.

Yet, was this circumstance dire enough that she should risk breaking that oath? Should she turn her magic on this troll and attempt to escape, assuming she did not die or become too injured to move?

No, before she did that, she needed to find out how they had Farrendel secured and if there was a way she could break him out. She might have put him here, but she had no intention of leaving here without him. Not after listening to his screams.

Prince Rharreth eyed her, as if trying to decide if she was going to bolt. Nodding, as if satisfied, he held out the bowl.

She did not take it. “What have you done to my brother? Is he still alive?”

His brows shot up. “Now you are concerned about him?”

He had a right to question her rapid change of heart. But being locked up provided ample time for self-reflection. More than that, how many screams did it take for a person to realize what a horrible sister she was and what terrible mistakes she had made?

She had never truly been angry at Farrendel. She could see that now. Over the years, he had simply become the convenient target for all the anger she had bottled up inside. Now that she had other targets—namely, this troll prince before her and his torture-happy brother—her anger at Farrendel had disappeared.

Even now, heat simmered in her chest. It was so tempting to stand there and scream until she no longer shook with the force of everything she kept inside.

Instead, Melantha clenched her fists and stared Prince Rharreth down. She did not have to explain herself to him of all people.

He snorted and set the bowl of watery soup on the floor. “He asked about you. After everything you did to him.”

Even though he had just come from helping his brother torture Farrendel, Prince Rharreth was looking at her as if she was the disgusting, villainous one of the two of them.

“Please. Take me to him. I can heal him.” Melantha stepped forward, her fists still clenched. If only she could just blast her power down the corridor and heal Farrendel from a distance without having to beg for this troll’s mercy for Farrendel. But she had