to be touching a patient to use her magic.
“Why would I allow you near a prisoner you wished dead not long ago?” Prince Rharreth eyed her and crossed his arms.
“I would not...” She trailed off. She had betrayed Farrendel to this. What else had she expected?
And yet, now that she was here, she could not stand by and listen to his screams without being moved. She was not so cold, so angry, so hateful that she could not have all her delusions stripped away beneath a cold dousing of reality.
She had done wrong. Very, very wrong. She could not undo it. But, perhaps, she could do something to make it better, even if she could not make it right. “I could not. My healer’s oath would prevent me from harming him, even should I wish it, which I do not.”
Prince Rharreth shook his head, his eyes cold. “Eat your supper.”
He spun on his heel and left her cell, the door slamming shut behind him, the lock clanking into place.
Melantha tiptoed across her cell and peered through the bars. The barred door at the entrance clanked shut behind the troll prince. At the far end, no noise came from the direction of Farrendel’s cell. Was he unconscious? The troll prince had implied Farrendel was still alive. It seemed a quick death was not in the trolls’ plan.
She sank down against the door to her cell and picked up the watery broth. It had gone cold, sitting on the floor of her cell. She forced herself to drink it anyway, sopping it up with the crust of bread that had been stuck on the bowl’s rim.
When she finished, she rested her head on her hands. What a mess she had made. Of her own life. Of Farrendel’s life. Why had she ever let herself be convinced that this course was the right one?
Nothing in her life had been right from the moment her mother died. Melantha had mourned, but then...then she had been angry.
Angry with the trolls for killing her mother. Angry at her father for falling apart as he mourned, instead of dealing with the grief the way she and Weylind had been forced to do. Angry that her father’s betrayal of her mother’s memory had ended with the scandal of an illegitimate brother abandoned on their doorstep. Angry with her betrothed for leaving her at the first sign of scandal, showing how little he had truly cared about her. Angry with the trolls for taking her father from her too. Angry with her father for dying and leaving them. Angry with Farrendel for being so...Farrendel. Broken and scarred and possessing such deadly magic that made him both revered and disdained. Angry that he had made everything worse by marrying that human princess, even if it was in the name of peace.
So much anger. It would burn a hole through her chest if she let it.
She buried her face in her arms and, for once in her life, she gave in to the urge and vented her anger in a muffled scream.
ESSIE SAT IN A corner of the meeting room, listening as Edmund and the elven scouts outlined what they had learned. Judging by the way all of them alternated in their telling, with Edmund throwing in a few laughing jokes along the way, he had gained the trust and even friendship of the elven scouts.
She shouldn’t have worried about him. Edmund could charm his way into anywhere, even as he cataloged the layout, defenses, and weaknesses at a glance.
From Edmund’s report, King Weylind, Julien, and Edmund moved on to discuss the progress on the Tarenhieli transportation system. With Thanfardil, the elf in charge of the train system of Tarenhiel, revealed as a traitor and found dead at the border, the elves’ transportation system had been in a bit of chaos. All of Thanfardil’s underlings had been temporarily suspended as the elves sorted through those who were loyal and those who weren’t.
As she sat and listened, she thought all of that in Farrendel’s direction. Perhaps she shouldn’t. If he could understand her words, then she was giving him information the trolls would torture him to obtain, if they realized he had it.
But she didn’t think he felt any more than the impressions she sensed. Hopefully the sense of planning would be enough to give him hope.
He needed it. He’d been slamming that iron wall between them in the heart bond more frequently over the past day.
A whoosh signaled the door to